Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 Top PlayStation Sales Chart for July

What is old can once again be new. The gaming industry is no stranger to remakes and rereleases; in fact, this generation has been full of them, from the recently released Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced to the many versions of The Last of Us Franchise.

The month of July took the trend to another level, as Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 were ported to the PlayStation 5 and became instant successes. Alinea Analytics reported that the two titles, originally released in 2010 and 2012, were the best-selling PlayStation games in July.

Black Ops sold 3 million units while Black Ops 2 sold a tremendous 8.2 million units. The 11.2 combined sales of games over a decade old show the staying power of "classic" Call of Duty. While simultaneously undermining the current versions.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 had the worst sales for the franchise since 2008. Players have complained about the direction the series has been going for years, but rarely vote with their wallets. Between the lackluster sales of Black Ops 7 and the huge sales of the older titles, it seems the fanbase has made its stance clear.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the franchise going forward. Will a more grounded and slower style of gameplay take over for the most fast-paced action the franchise has leaned into lately?

Personally, I would love for Microsoft to port Call of Duty: World at War to the current consoles. Really, the only way to play what I consider one of the more underrated titles in the franchise's history is to use Xbox's backward compatibility feature, but as the game is so old, the matches you can find are often taken over by hackers. Which, of course, makes the playing experience abysmal.

Regardless of the direction of the future of the franchise, one thing is clear: there is still a large audience of gamers hungry for the classic Call of Duty experience.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Aug 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.