The days of filling up your console’s entire SSD with just a couple of Call of Duty games could soon be over, thanks to some massive changes and optimisations that Activision has just revealed over on the official Call of Duty blog, ahead of the launch of Black Ops 6.
With installs for each new game ballooning out to hundreds of GBs, it’s a welcome change and one that will gradually take effect as a number of new initiatives are implemented. One of the first big ones is more control over what is downloaded, with the Call of Duty: Warzone experience being uncoupled from the annual titles so players can opt to download it if they wish, or leave it alone and save the storage space.
Also being introduced on August 21st along with the Warzone changes and the launch of Call of Duty Season 5: Reloaded, more of the game’s files will be moved over to a streaming cache, with the game pulling in less frequently-used assets from the cloud as they’re needed, rather than keeping them stored and taking up space. There’ll be two options for users depending on how much streaming data they’re happy for the game to use in the name of visual fidelity. These are:
- Optimised (Default) – content appears at a high-fidelity graphical quality; increased internet bandwidth usage
- Minimal – content appears at reduced graphical quality; lower internet bandwidth usage
As we look ahead to #BlackOps6, 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.
Learn more ? https://t.co/amfRQvB3Hy pic.twitter.com/rnlN7QJDH6
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) August 15, 2024
Ironically, in order for this to happen, Activision is warning that current players are about to be hit with a big update to download, but one that will ultimately reduce the game’s overall footprint once it’s done what it needs to do. It’ll be delivered slightly differently depending on platform, with PS5 players looking at a total of four separate downloads via the Call of Duty launcher experience, Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone.
In October, the landing page for the Call of Duty experience on all platforms will be updated to a new interface, and when Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 arrives it’ll be a smaller overall download than Modern Warfare 3 was.
You can find out more about all of this at the Call of Duty blog post here.
