The PlayStation 5, unlike the Xbox Series S|X, treats the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the same game as different titles. This is great for trophy hunters to get twice the unlockable achievements, but if you’re just wanting to get into the game as quickly as possible or have a metered data connection, you don’t want to run the risk of downloading the PlayStation 4 version of your latest game. Today, we’re doing to show you how to ensure that you’re going to get the PlayStation 5 version of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War as well as enable the hidden 120Hz feature you probably didn’t even know about.
For starters, this is going to assume that you own the Cross-Gen digital bundle for Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. If you have the PlayStation 4 version on disc, you will need to purchase the $10 Cross-Gen Bundle upgrade that unlocks the PlayStation 5 version (Xbox One takes advantage of Smart Delivery to get around this).
Getting the PlayStation 5 download
Once Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is in your Game Library, migrate to Your Collection and you should see Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. Depending on your system settings, the console may default to wanting to download the PS4 version to your hard drive or external storage. One the square game icon, look at the game title and see if there is a small PS4 logo just above it. If so, the console is trying to download the PlayStation 4 version. If there’s no symbol, you’re getting the PS5 version downloaded first. You might even get a prompt showing up and asking you whether you want to download Multiplayer/Zombies/Dead Ops Arcade first and that’s perfect.
To ensure you’re getting the PlayStation 5 version downloaded, open Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War in your Game Library and look for the more (…) icon next to the Play button. This will show you a list of the entitlements you have access to for that title. At that point, select the PlayStation 5 version of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War (it should be named PS5 | Full | Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War) and you should receive a nice big Download button for your troubles.
Now, when you attempt to launch Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War from the dashboard, you should see the title without | PS4 at the end. You can still have both the PS4 and PS5 versions installed, and as both titles have the same icons, this can be somewhat confusing at first. Just make sure your game title doesn’t have | PS4 at the end, or just go into your Game Library and sort for only PS5 titles, and you should be fine.
Enabling the hidden 120Hz mode
Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War holds the honor of being the first Call of Duty title on consoles to natively support 120Hz. The only way you’re going to get 4K 120Hz out of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is going to be with a new HDMI 2.1-supporting television or display, but even older televisions like the TCL 55R615 that I’m currently using can still handle 1080P120 over HDMI 2.0. You’ll be missing out on ray tracing effects by enabling 120Hz but that’s a small price to pay for a competitive edge in multiplayer.
You might have noticed the 120Hz option in the menu but it was currently disabled, even after disabling ray tracing. To get around that, you’re going to need to set your PlayStation 5 to automatically switch to Performance Mode for titles that support the feature change. To do so, back out of the menus to the main PS5 dashboard (hit the PS button once, navigate all the way to the left, and select the Home button). Press Up on the d-pad to get to the top array and move to the right until you get to the Settings icon (shaped like a gear) next to your user icon.
Move down to the Saved Data and Game/App Settings menu and go to Game Presets. This is where you can change the default difficulty, performance vs resolution modes, inverted camera controls, and even subtitle preferences. In the Performance Mode or Resolution Mode option, toggle to Performance Mode. Without this feature enabled, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War will not allow you to enable the 120Hz mode.
After enabling the Performance Mode toggle, you’re going to want to manually close and re-open Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War for the changes to take effect. You can do this by either rebooting the console or pressing the PS button to bring up the quick menu, select Switcher (next to the Home button), selecting Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, and pressing the Options button on your controller to Close Game. Afterwards, simply relaunch Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and you should be able to navigate back to the options and enable 120Hz refresh rate in the game options. It took myself a couple of tries as well as turning my television off and back on before starting Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and seeing the option enabled. You may need to do the same if your game doesn’t switch over on the first try.
So there you have it! You should be able to enjoy Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War at 120Hz (even without needing a new HDMI 2.1 capable display, although you can still certainly play at 1080P) and get a feel for this year’s iteration with a faster refresh rate and the new adaptive triggers on the DualSense controller.
If this guide helped you out, please let us know in the comments below and share this guide with a fellow PS5 owner that might not even know about the hidden option!
