Black Ops 6 is the “biggest Call of Duty ever” in terms of player engagement during its first 30 days.
That’s according toActivision, which claimed on Monday that the game has attracted more players during its launch month than any other Call of Duty title.
It also ranks first for the total number of hours played and the most matches played, the publishersaid.
The latest entry in Activision’s shooter series was released on October 25 forXbox Series X/S,Xbox One,PS5,PS4andPC. Notably, it was also thefirst Call of Duty to be available on Game Pass on day one.
MicrosoftCEOSatya Nadellacommented on the game’s early performanceduring the company’s first quarter earnings call last month.
“And unit sales onPlayStationandSteamwere also up over 60% year-over-year. This speaks to our strategy of meeting gamers where they are by enabling them to play more games across the screens they spend their time on.”
Mat Piscatella, executive director of video games at research firm Circana,saidin mid-November that Black Ops 6’s Game Pass release had had an unprecedented impact on player engagement.
“Call of Duty engagement following the release of Black Ops 6 can only be defined by the term ‘bonkers’, he wrote on Blusky. “We’ve yet to see anything like it in our engagement tracking data.”
And last week hesaid: “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6to Game Pass did a few things in the US… it resulted in a subscription spending boost, shifted share of full game sales to PlayStation, did not appear to result in massive cannibalization of sales, and did not appear to provide a significant boost toXboxSeries hardware.
“So, all the open questions regarding the impact of subscriptions are still pretty open imo, and whatever one believes currently, well, not sure this biggest of tests is changing anyone’s mind either way. Yet.”
Further reading
The release of Black Ops 6 helped drive a12.4% rise in game sales across Europe in October.
Sales of the new Call of Duty were 5% higher than last year’s disappointingModern Warfare 3launch, but down 28% compared with 2022’sModern Warfare2.
Sales of the PlayStation versions of the game were up 26% compared to Modern Warfare 3, and 2% higher than they were for Modern Warfare 2.
