It's 2010, David Cameron is sworn in as Prime Minister, the first iPad releases, Instagram launches, and Toy Story 3 is in cinemas. It's a big year, and nestled within all the commotion is Call of Duty: Black Ops, the World at War sequel that jumped ahead to the '60s with the Vietnam War, while also making Zombies its own fully-fledged mode.
For many young squeakers (like myself), this was their introduction to CoD. So, it only makes sense that, now the servers are online again, over 120,000 players have dove back in to relive the glory days of their childhoods, maybe now with better aim.
You can play older Call of Duty games thanks to the Xbox One and Series' backward compatibility, emulating 360 titles complete with their online functionality. Since all the CoDs are supported, they're each seeing a huge boost in players now that servers have been restored. 123,852 are back in Black Ops, 11,514 are diving into Black Ops 2, and 79,619 are finally giving Modern Warfare 3 its dues.
If you boot the games up now, you should find a server pretty quickly, whereas before it usually took streamers, internet personalities, or influencers playing the game to get enough people involved to revitalise the multiplayer scene.
If you're missing any online achievements, now's the perfect time to try and grab them. But it's unlikely the hype will die off anytime soon, since the FTC approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, making the possibility of Call of Duty on Game Pass even more likely. And if all of the classics get added to the service at no extra cost, we'll no doubt see plenty more sign up to dive back into the oldies.
While we don't have numbers readily available for Modern Warfare 2, it's also seeing a boost thanks to the updates. iHadi shared a clip of several game lobbies to highlight how easy it is to find matches again, with 37 possible "good games" in MW2 showing up. It didn't take long for them to find a spot in a full team deathmatch.
The classics are currently on sale if you want to join in on the fun. Black Ops 2 is 70 percent off for £11.99, Black Ops is 50 percent off for £12.49, World at War is 50 percent off for £9.99, Modern Warfare 2 is 50 percent off for £12.49, and Modern Warfare 3 is 50 percent off for £12.49.