Call of Duty Is Finally Doing Something About Its Download Sizes, But Needs One More Big One

You won’t need a dedicated hard drive for Call of Duty much longer. Ok, that might be a little exaggeration – but the folks behind the franchise are finally doing something about the ridiculous download sizes. When Black Ops 6 goes live in October, you won’t be required to install Warzone alongside it. That’ll put a nice dent into the overall size of the game, depending on how you play. 

“As we look ahead to Call of Duty®: Black Ops 6, we’ve been working on ways to improve the Call of Duty experience by optimizing menu navigation and offering smaller and more customized downloads, plus other benefits for your Call of Duty library,” Activision writes in a recent blog post.

For the download side, that means “more control over downloads, including Warzone content,” and “expanded streaming technology to reduce file sizes.”

Activision highlights how these updates will be delivered over the next few months:

• The first part of this streamlining will come with the August 21 Season 5 Reloaded update. This will include “new tech and a reorganization of data to prepare for Black Ops 6 Beta and Launch.”
• Another update in mid-October includes a new user interface and “remaining updates as we head into launch.”

From now on, when you buy a premium Call of Duty game, the installer will default to only downloading the files for that game. You’ll need to opt-in to download Warzone if you want both.

But all this optimization does mean one more big download. “The process begins with a download – a big one.  But downloading now will pave the way over the next several weeks and ultimately lead to a better experience when Black Ops 6 arrives,” Activision writes.

The developers make it clear next week’s update won’t permanently “add the sated file size to the storage space that Call of Duty takes up on your device.” This update reorganizes the file sizes and adds the new streaming tech. Once downloaded, the Call of Duty’s file size will drop. 

For PS5 users, the next week’s updates will be four separate downloads. The first download will be like all the others we needed before the game’s launch. The next updates will trigger as you start the game and access Modern Warfare III and Warzone. 

Activision does say Black Ops 6 will have a smaller download size at launch than Modern Warfare III. But since the game is still in active development, they aren’t quite ready to share the exact download size yet. 

For reference, Modern Warfare III’s file size ballooned over 200GB at launch, which led to the game’s official X account explaining why. 

The developers are making a big deal about the changes coming, so we’ll see how big Black Ops 6 will be in a couple of months.