There was a pleasant surprise waiting for players when Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 went live. XP tokens from previous Call of Duty games were there sat in everyone's inventory, making it easier to face the grind and level up characters or weapons. Usually, players can get these by completing limited time events, finishing the battle pass, or sometimes via collaborations.
Legacy XP tokens aren't unheard of. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 both let players use previously purchased or unlocked items and cosmetics as well as double XP tokens from various Call of Duty games.
This sudden change was matched by Black Ops 6 players who did a complete 180, going from praising Treyarch for providing them with this helping hand to condemning the devs for patching out something that everyone wanted. Players were calling the move "greedy" and "a joke", with one arguing that legacy tokens were disabled "to artificially inflate [Treyarch’s] retention metrics." But the story didn't stop there. Over the weekend players carried on telling Treyarch just how upset they were about this change, and it actually ended up leading to something.
I’m not qualified to comment on game stability. But it’s easy to imagine that an unexpected increase in how much XP the average player could earn may potentially throw a spanner in the works for future time sensitive events, as players could complete things that require XP quicker.
I'm glad that Treyarch came to the conclusion that legacy tokens were worth the time and effort to figure out and reinstate, but let’s be honest, players are likely getting this feature thanks to luck and not kindness. If a UI bug hadn't accidentally popped up and given players access to legacy XP tokens then Treyarch might well have kept this feature under lock and key.
