Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is releasing on PlayStation with a handful of exclusive bonuses. These include a unique game mode, additional loadout slots, and other useful features. However, this is not well received by players, even various PlayStation players find it excessive.
What is the exclusive deal on PlayStation? The PlayStation version of Cold War is not identical to the other versions of the game despite the crossplay feature. Sony has made an exclusive deal and received a few features that will initially only be available on PS4 and PS5:
- Battle Pass Bundle Bonus: When you purchase the premium battle pass, 5 additional tiers, for a total of 25 tiers, are unlocked.
- PlayStation Party Bonus: Players on PlayStation receive a 25 percent bonus on weapon XP when playing in a team (even with non-PS players).
- Double XP Bonus: Every month, there will be events lasting 24 hours where PlayStation players will receive double XP.
- Extra Loadouts: PlayStation players receive two additional slots for loadouts.
- Zombie Mode Onslaught: This additional game mode for zombies will initially be available only on PlayStation. Only on November 1, 2021 will the others get access to the mode.
These features can also be seen in detail in the aptly named “Sony Advantage Trailer”.
Players find exclusive content discriminatory
This is how players are reacting to the exclusives: Contrary to expectations, many reactions to these exclusive goodies are not positive. User BenjaminWareing on reddit started an angry thread with the following words:
Last year, an exclusive game mode was lame enough, but it didn’t change the game. It was manageable and a somewhat fair compromise for crossplay and all these other things.
The two additional slots now create a class that is ONLY meant for PlayStation players, AND additional tier skips, AND additional weapon XP, AND EXCLUSIVE double XP events – “ALL ONLY FOR PLAYSTATION” crosses the line.
There is no compromise, crossplay is a given, this is simply consumer unfriendly at this point, and if it was a result of PlayStation’s exclusive contract with Activision, they should hang their heads in shame.
This is outrageous and another stepping stone on the way to the complete disenfranchisement of the player base. This is yet another stepping stone on the way to losing players to non-predatory, alternative games.
In his reddit thread, which had already received over 5,000 upvotes and almost 1,000 comments by November 7, 2020, many users agree with him:
- SkippyTheManYT says: “An exclusive game mode was already somewhat dumb, but now they are getting 2 additional slots to create a class AND progression advantages? This is so dumb and consumer unfriendly.”
- Meng3267 prefers Microsoft these days because of such things: “These consumer unfriendly policies are why I play on Xbox instead of PlayStation. I mainly play third-party games, so I don’t need both systems. Microsoft has become so much more consumer-friendly than Sony, and I happily give them my money instead of Sony.”
- Kirk420 wants even PlayStation fans to denounce this issue: “I was undecided about Cold War, but now I am holding back on buying. I know this doesn’t mean much, but hopefully others will do the same if they were as undecided as I am. Hopefully, PS players will also express their dissatisfaction because, in this situation, no one wins. This is complete BS.”
That’s why even PlayStation fans are complaining: The news about the exclusives is not well received even among various PlayStation fans. While some celebrate the matter and are excited about exclusives, some PS fans are disappointed:
- Juuzuo_suzuya writes on Twitter: “This is disgusting and I am a PlayStation [user]. You can see that it is bad when a PlayStation user is not excited at all about this news.”
- Century, also a PS user on Twitter, says: “Okay, even I as a PlayStation guy can say that bonus XP is completely crazy and should not be a thing.”
- User Greggs is excited about the new features on Twitter, but he does not understand why others should not receive them: “Man, this is cool for me, but Xbox and PC players should also receive this. Lmao, this is really messed up.”
Even the trailer is not going over well: The negative feedback from angry fans is also seen in the comments on the trailer online. There are plenty of sarcastic remarks like:
- TheGameVerse says: “Did you seriously call it the ‘Sony Advantage’? Legendary!”
- Aman Khan: “As PlayStation players, we want console equality!”
- MaurzStarz: “How come no one is talking about the 2 additional loadout slots? This is literally pay-to-win and extremely stupid. It doesn’t matter what platform it is; when you make it so that your platform has a literal gameplay advantage over all others in a multiplayer-oriented game, that is extremely unreasonable. This is wrong on so many levels.”
In addition, there are numerous negative comments about a gigantic preload that surprisingly hit the storage space of many PlayStation users. What the preload of Call of Duty: Cold War is about and why it arrives much later on PC, you can find out here.
More about the gigantic storage size of the game can be read here:
What is your opinion on the new exclusive features for PlayStation players in Black Ops Cold War? Let us know in the comments.
