Call of Duty is Out of Excuses With Outrageous 200 GB Modern Warfare
Call of Duty Modern Warfare should begin shipping out hard-drives at this point. | Source: Activision
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone’s Season 4 content update dropped earlier today.
- Install size is once again a topic of discussion among players with reports of a colossal 84 GB download in some cases.
- Infinity Ward says it is working to compress assets and optimize the size of future patches.
A brand new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone patch dropped earlier today , and you’ve got to congratulate Activision and Infinity Ward on their consistency.
The publisher and developer duo has charted a pioneering path in the world of video games by ensuring each new patch spawns a dedicated hashtag on Twitter but also swells in size each time around.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 4 Update
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s Season 4 update asks players to clear yet more space on their hard drives – roughly 35 GB on PS4, 49 GB on Xbox One, and between 44 GB and 50 GB on PC .
Infinity Ward kindly warned players that this would be the case in patch notes authored hours before the update dropped .
The Season 4 download is going to be large. In order to reduce the overall disc space that MW and WZ take up, we’re compressing a bunch of assets. Once installed, the S4 launch will only take up an additional 4GB on consoles for all of the new content.
Compression wizardry pushing down the update to 4 GB offers little consolation, though, given that to download the thing, you need up to ten times more space. Well, that’s if you’re one of the lucky ones.
#84GB Trends on Twitter
#84GB is currently trending on Twitter , reaching the second spot on Twitter’s worldwide trends list a few hours back , and with good reason. A large portion of Xbox players is reporting an 84 GB download. Activision says they are actively investigating . 84 GB is a little too big even for their voluminously-inclined liking.
For context, that’s equivalent, or even above, roughly the average size of the ever-ballooning heft of AAA games. For example, PlayStation’s next big-hitting exclusive due out next week, The Last of Us Part II, requires around 78 GB. Throw in a day-one patch, and even then, the storage space requirements fall under 84 GB.
The entire game is feathering 200 GB at this point, making Call of Duty: Modern Warfare by far the most storage space-hungry title currently out there.
In-Game Events
Perplexingly, Season 4 doesn’t introduce any seismic changes to warrant such a massive install size . Yes, there’s the usual raft of bug fixes and general maintenance, but we’re talking pocket change in the context of such a hefty download.
The only real new feature is mid-game events, which will ostensibly spice up the grind of daily matches. One permutation triggers a massive jailbreak that grants all spectators and Gulag-ed players a second chance at life. Another sees Buy Stations offer hefty discounts in a Black Friday-style flash sale. The final event has a supply chopper darting above Verdansk; downing it grants cash and loot.
While these events will undoubtedly add a bit of flavor to a mid-match lull in the action, there doesn’t appear to be enough there to warrant an 84 GB download.
Fortunately, Infinity Ward has a solution (well, at least for console players), but rather like the obnoxiously large updates, the onus is on players to make do. The developer says that console players can uninstall content patches for modes they don’t play to free up storage space.
Infinity Ward explains that it is making moves behind the scenes to cut down on update size.
We’re continuing to sweep all assets to make size reductions where we can, and also further optimize future patches for size.
At this pace, Activision should seriously consider shipping out copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare accompanied by a 1TB hard drive.
