Activision tackles out-of-control Call of Duty download sizes, but of course the path to "smaller downloads" starts with "a big one," and 4 freakin' downloads on PS5

A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. — (Image credit: Activision)

Good news, everyone: your Call of Duty installs are going to be a lot smaller following the launch of Black Ops 6. But there's a bit of bad news, too, as you're going to have to suffer some "larger initial updates" before that happens.

In short, Activision aims to revamp the Call of Duty launcher to make sure you can download Warzone separately from the annual, premium games - including Black Ops 6. They're also making efforts to stream more textures over the internet while you play, leading to smaller initial downloads. As part of this whole effort, the central UI is also getting a big revamp to make it easier to get to the games, as "top content will be visible on one clean page without needing to scroll."

This process starts on August 21 as part of the Season 5 Reloaded update, as Activision explains in a new blog post. "To give players more control over what they’re downloading," the devs say, "we are decoupling the download of Call of Duty: Warzone from other titles. When you purchase an annual title, you will only download the files for that game by default. "

The Season 5 reloaded update will also bring us the expanded texture streaming features. Here's how the devs explain it: "We can 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. Going forward, more content will be included in this cache. With this change, you may see older content that briefly appears at a lower quality until the streaming cache has fully loaded." You'll have two options for texture streaming - the default "optimized" setting will feature higher-fidelity visuals but eat up more bandwidth, but the "minimal" setting will give you less robust visuals with lower bandwidth requirements.

"The process begins with a download - a big one," the devs warn. "But downloading now will pave the way over the next several weeks and ultimately lead to a better experience when Black Ops 6 arrives." Your install won't get any bigger as a result of these updates, as they're simply restructuring the files in preparation for the ultimate rollout of the new interface in "mid-October." Ultimately, "Call of Duty's footprint will decrease due to these file optimizations."

For PS5 players, the process is going to be extra annoying, as it's going to require a full four separate downloads. One at the console level, one within the Call of Duty launcher, one with Modern Warfare 3, and one within Warzone. "The PS5 requires split downloads due to differences in file organization," the devs say. Everybody else will get it all in a single update.

If all of this sounds like quite a hassle, the devs know it, and they're offering a free community pack to thank everyone for their patiences. If you log in any time after the start of Season 5 Reloaded, you'll get a free community pack featuring 10 1-hour double player XP tokens, 10 1-hour double weapon XP tokens, and 10 battle pass token tier skips. None of that will save you from the big downloads you're gonna see on the road to a smaller, cleaner Black Ops 6, but it might ease the pain a bit.

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