Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Confirms Next-Gen Features PS5 and Xbox Series X Versions Will Have

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will release on the current generation of consoles on November 13th, and like other games available now or coming out around that time, it’ll also release for next-gen consoles. Playing the game on either the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X will treat players to some features not found on the current generation of consoles that’ll take advantage of the power of the next-gen systems. Some of those features have already been confirmed with others still unannounced for now.

Over on Activision’s support site for Black Ops Cold War, several features were listed for the next-gen versions. If you’ve seen lots of talks about features like ray-tracing and minimal load times made possible by the next-gen consoles, you can look forward to seeing those in Black Ops Cold War if you purchase the next-gen version.

“Both digital console versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War offer upgrades, within the same console family, from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox One to Xbox Series X that will support higher framerate, hardware-based ray-tracing, shorter load times, and more,” Activision said about the plans for the next-gen versions of Black Ops Cold War.

There are a few caveats to getting those features though. If you want ray-tracing and the lower load times, it appears that for now you’ll have to get the digital edition of the game, not the physical one. You also won’t be able to take advantage of those features if you plan on playing the current-gen version of the game on the new consoles via backwards compatibility.

“Both current generation versions (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) will be playable on their respective next-generation console via backwards compatibility by downloading the game from your account’s digital library,” Activision said. “But, the game will not include any of the next-generation features, such as higher framerate, hardware-based ray-tracing, faster load times, and more.”

Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will have options available to buyers to upgrade them via the consoles’ respective stores whenever the next-gen versions release. If you want to save yourself the hassle of doing that, you could always purchase the next-gen upgrade bundle that comes with the current version and the upgraded one whenever it’s released. It costs a bit more at $69.99 instead of the normal price, but Activision has already confirmed that’s how much the next-gen version will cost anyway.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War releases on November 13th.