Xbox 360 Call Of Duty Titles See Huge Player Spikes Following Server Update

Last week, we caught wind that the folks over at Activision and their various Call of Duty studios had made some positive changes to how the old Xbox 360 games were running online, so naturally, we went back and had a look to see how things were going. As it turned out, online matchmaking did seem to have improved (we played a bit of 2009's Modern Warfare 2 to test it out), and the changes appear to have brought an influx of players back to classic Call of Duty.

As posted by Call of Duty-focused outlet CharlieIntel, player numbers for various old CoD games are now in the thousands. The fan-favourite Black Ops 2 seems to have benefited a lot from the server updates, but other titles are also looking pretty healthy right now.

We must mention that the above numbers might not be 100% accurate — some of these CoD games have broken in-game player counters — but online matchmaking on these classic Xbox 360 titles does appear to be surprisingly populated right now, and matches are found very quickly where we've tested.

Some Xbox fans over on Reddit have been revelling in the nostalgia too - particularly for revisiting 2011's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 prior to a potential spiritual successor later this year.

Anyway, it's good to see these CoD classics in a much better state than they have been in recent years, and we'd love to see them all dropped into Xbox Game Pass if and when the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal goes through. In the meantime though, you can pick them up at a discount as part of the Xbox Ultimate Game Sale 2023!

In fact, a few them are absolutely dominating the "Top Paid" charts in the UK and US right now, with Black Ops 1 & 2 and Modern Warfare 2 for Xbox 360 all sitting inside the top five as things stand. Crazy!

Have you been playing any of these old CoD games over the weekend? Let us know your favourite 360-era CoD release!