Older CoD Games On Xbox See Huge Player Growth, And Here’s Why

Players have recently flocked to older Call of Duty games on Xbox 360, including Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 2. Despite these games being over a decade old, the communities are still thriving thanks to a recent change to the matchmaking.

On July 12, players reported that the matchmaking–which previously disallowed users from joining matches–was suddenly fixed. Players then shared videos of them finally joining matches across older Call of Duty games. Prior to the fix, these older games were practically unplayable online due to the matchmaking issues.

According to CharlieIntel, Black Ops 2 had over 10,000 players on Xbox 360 this weekend, following the matchmaking fix. Likewise, Modern Warfare 3 had over 7,000 active players on Xbox 360. While these numbers might not sound like much, it’s noteworthy considering the age of the platform.

Call of Duty streamer ModernWarzone also claimed that there were more people playing older Call of Duty games on Xbox 360 than Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 combined. But it’s unclear what the specific player counts across each game are.

This news comes after Microsoft’s FTC court victory over the purchase of Activision Blizard. It seems the acquisition will likely go through, meaning Call of Duty will become a Microsoft-owned property. Despite this, Microsoft and Sony have reached an agreement to continue releasing Call of Duty on PlayStation.