Activision says Black Ops 6’s launch month was Call of Duty’s ‘biggest ever’

Black Ops 6 is the “biggest Call of Duty ever” in terms of player engagement during its first 30 days.

That’s according to Activision, 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 publisher said.

The latest entry in Activision’s shooter series was released on October 25 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. Notably, it was also the first Call of Duty to be available on Game Pass on day one.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented on the game’s early performance during the company’s first quarter earnings call last month.

“[The] launch of Black Ops 6 was the biggest Call of Duty release ever, setting a record for day one players as well as Game Pass subscriber adds on launch day,” he said.

“And unit sales on PlayStation and Steam were 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, said in 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 he said: “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to 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 to Xbox Series 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.”

The release of Black Ops 6 helped drive a 12.4% rise in game sales across Europe in October.

Sales of the new Call of Duty were 5% higher than last year’s disappointing Modern Warfare 3 launch, but down 28% compared with 2022’s Modern Warfare 2.

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.