Call of Duty’s infamous download sizes are going on a diet, Activision says. But to get the game in shape, it first needs a big one coming Aug. 21 — so large it’s broken into four separate downloads for PlayStation 5.
It’s all part of a file reorganization overhaul that developers are undertaking before Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches Oct. 25. But once it’s completed, players won’t be downloading a ton of unused or little-used textures, and Call of Duty: Warzone, the series’ free-to-play live service title, will be separated from the default download for annual releases such as Black Ops 6.
“Players can ‘opt-in’ to get Call of Duty: Warzone when they’re downloading a new annual title,” Activision’s Call of Duty staff wrote in an official blog post “or simply download it separately at any point in time. The choice is yours.”
The Aug. 21 update will itself be a “large initial update,” mainly because it includes a game file reorganization, and a new texture streaming technology, both of which are designed to ease the size of future updates. It’s not like Activision necessarily likes files north of 50 GB either; someone has to pay for the bandwidth delivering it to millions of players, after all.
The texture streaming tech will let Treyarch and other Call of Duty developers “cycle content that is less frequently used by players to a streaming cache, avoiding the need to download it directly to your device’s storage.” Developers said that more content will be added to that cache as time goes on.
The lone drawback, a texture that is in the cache may appear at a lower resolution until the cache fully loads. There will be two settings the user may enable: Optimized, the default setting, which uses more bandwidth but the cached content appears with high fidelity; or Minimal, which means reduced texture quality but less bandwidth consumed.
Call of Duty devs said that the PS5 download must be broken up “due to differences in file organization.” Players on PC and Xbox Series X can get the update in a single download. But Activision, notably, did not say how large this download will be.
They did provide a chart of the download sizes for the upcoming private beta (for those who pre-ordered the game) and open beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the weekends of Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, respectively.
So while that Aug. 21 update might be a big pill or pills to choke down, it’s a good idea for Modern Warfare 3 owners to have that taken care of before beta weekend arrives.
So how big will Black Ops 6’s download be?
Call of Duty’s developers aren’t yet saying; that information will be delivered sometime in October before the game’s launch.
“Players with the previous updates installed who purchase Black Ops 6 will automatically download the title as an update to their existing install,” they noted.
Call of Duty really let go of itself, in terms of installation size, beginning with 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, clocking in at 40 GB, four times its predecessor’s size.
In fairness, that was the first COD on the PS4 and Xbox One. Still the sizes have only increased since, hitting 90 GB with Call of Duty: WWII in 2017, and a whopping 175 GB for the Modern Warfare reboot in 2019.
Since then, it’s topped 100 GB for 2020’s Black Ops: Cold War and 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Depending on platform, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was still about 90 GB.
Featured image via Activision Blizzard
