Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has had a rocky start to its seasonal post-launch content, particularly surrounding its integration with Call of Duty: Warzone. That hasn’t stopped the game from absolutely dominating the charts, however. In fact, Call of Duty HQ, the launcher shared by the last three premium COD titles and Warzone, has come in as the number one most-played game on Xbox and PlayStation consoles for the week of Dec. 21, according to a report from Circana.
The top five most-played Xbox games for the week were rounded out by Fortnite at number two, Marvel Rivals taking over number three, and Grand Theft Auto 5 Remastered moving two spots up to number four. Roblox held steady at number five. On PlayStation, the top five was similar to Xbox’s leaderboard; however, NBA 2K25 replaced Roblox for the number five spot.
Call of Duty was likely bolstered, in part, by a limited free trial period and double XP event that occurred over the holiday period. However, Black Ops 6 is part of a bundle with Call of Duty: Warzone, which can be played for free in the Call of Duty HQ launcher. The pairing makes it difficult to distinguish which game is garnering more player support and also gives the franchise the benefit of being able to lump the player bases from Warzone and Black Ops 6 into one pool together.
Circana’s tracking for Steam was drastically different from that of the console leaderboards, with Marvel Rivals holding down the top spot, followed by Helldivers 2, Path of Exile 2, Counter-Strike 2, and Balatro. Call of Duty HQ was in sixth place on Steam. COD HQ has seen a 24-hour peak of 103,356 concurrent players on the PC platform, according to SteamDB.info. However, Call of Duty is also available on Battle.net and Windows via the Microsoft Store, plus it is included in PC Game Pass. Steam concurrent player numbers should not be considered to be a full or accurate picture of the game’s player base on PC.
The Call of Duty CODMas events have also likely been a supporting factor for larger player counts, even as Activision and the development teams have come under fire for using AI-generated images for in-game rewards. As CODMas comes to an end, Activision has begun promoting a new limited-time event that includes a crossover between Black Ops 6 and Netflix’s Squid Game Season 2. That event has also drawn player ire after announcing a new, premium “Event Pass” microtransaction was being released alongside the event.
The launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 had some in the industry questioning what effect the game’s inclusion in the Game Pass subscription service would have on player numbers and sales data. Concerns that Game Pass would cannibalize Black Ops 6’s sales numbers seem to have gone unfounded, as the title continues to hold down the top spot on sales charts and most-played charts alike.
Miles Leslie, a director for Call of Duty at Treyarch, has spoken highly of the Game Pass effect for Black Ops 6. “What we’ve seen is it’s allowed people that might have been on the fence, might have had some of that friction, might have been like, ‘I haven’t played in a while’ to actually come back and try the game,” said Leslie in an interview with the BBC.
Players have openly expressed frustrations with Black Ops 6’s season 1 launch, which has been marred by underperforming cheat mitigation efforts and other performance issues. However, the controversies and hiccups appear to be doing very little to stop players from getting into the game.
