Make sure you have plenty of HDD space before attempting to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Even if you have a physical copy of the game on Xbox One or PS4, you’ll need to download a 60 or so GB day-one patch that can’t be skipped.
We’re installing the game across both Xbox One and PS4 from physical discs that seem to only hold about 10 GB of data. The rest is all coming from a necessary day-one patch that’s going to take players an age to download unless they have a decent connection speed.
I’m assuming it will be the same for PC players, too, who will need an even greater amount of HDD space if the recommended specs’ 175 GB total is any indication — a figure that, while many believe to represent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s base game + future DLC, is still absurdly large even by 2019 standards.
But regardless of how much content Modern Warfare is packing, forcing players to download enormous update files even when they have the physical disc seems a bit off.
Unfortunately, this marks the continuation of a trend set last year; Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 required a 50 GB download to play, too, which suggests we’re likely going to have to get used to these enormous updates moving forward.
It begs the question: what’s the point of going physical? And I’ll wager that’s exactly the question Activision wants players to ask themselves as they attempt to shepherd them towards going digital.
