Frank Woods rides a snowmobile in Call of Duty: Black Ops -- Cold War.

Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War sets digital sales record

Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War set a new record for the highest first-day digital sales in the franchise’s history. The game debuted across older and new PlayStation and Xbox consoles and the PC on Friday.

Activision Blizzard’s Anna Malmhake said in a statement on Sunday that the title is releasing into the largest and most-engaged Call of Duty community ever, thanks to the expansion of the franchise in the past year. (Here’s our review of the game.)

Meanwhile, some players are reporting bugs. I noticed a bug in the single-player campaign on the PlayStation 5, in a part where two characters are standing on a platform being airlifted by a helicopter. The platform carries a mainframe computer and the two characters have to fend off attackers from all sides. The bug is a graphics flaw where you slide off the platform as it rocks back and forth. I encountered this on a couple of difficulty modes on the PS5.

Activision has also had to address bugs that affect PS5 version downloads, as well as one that disconnects PlayStation 4 DualShock controllers during the game.

I’ve had a pretty easy time playing multiplayer matches, which is pretty unusual for a big game launch, as traffic disruptions are normal at launch.

Activision Blizzard hasn’t disclosed total sales for the game or the franchise. Last year, the company said Call of Duty had topped more than 300 million copies sold since 2003.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.