Modern Warfare & Warzone dev reveals how Season 5 will impact game size

Theo Salaun
cod shadow company season 5

An Infinity Ward developer has revealed why, despite its large size, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone Season 5 will actually decrease how much space the game takes up.

CoD’s download sizes have been a major point of scrutiny with each new season, but IW Production Director Paul Haile is letting the game’s fanbase know that hard-drive space is a legitimate point of emphasis for the developers and that the upcoming August 5 update will help game size due to optimization, despite being a hefty download.

It’s a common talking point every time a new season is on the horizon. The next generation of consoles is also on the horizon, so players aren’t very interested in upgrading their current hard drives. Instead, most have to decide what titles their hearts can withstand deleting in order to keep up to date in Call of Duty.

But according to Haile, although the download “will be big” because it will be “including all the new content for the season as well as optimizing our asset packs,” after it is downloaded “the overall size of the game will actually shrink on your consoles.”

Content optimization isn’t a novel concept, but it is encouraging that IW is confronting their download sizes directly and transparently. In the past, players have felt the need to either delete other titles or delete other components of Modern Warfare’s full game (like its Campaign, Co-Op, or even Multiplayer packs).

This patch will most certainly require a long wait and a lot of space on your system. If developers are warning, in advance, that this “will be big,” then players can certainly expect it to approach the gargantuan size of Season 4’s update (which hit at an intimidating 84 GB).

Still, Haile has insisted that they are conscious of player hard drives and expect the title to take up less space than before once it’s fully installed. That should hopefully mean that everyone’s dreaded deletion deliberations will be temporary and limited to August 5, with the possibility of re-downloading once everything is completed.

Based on what we’ve seen and heard about Season 5, new guns, new operators, and possible map changes are all on the horizon for Modern Warfare and Warzone. That means a bunch of new content.

That content has been highly anticipated for what many expect to be the last season before Call of Duty’s next title and having things optimized to take up less space should be a welcomed cherry on top.

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About The Author

Théo is a former writer at Dexerto based in New York and built on competition. Formerly an editor for Bleacher Report and philosophy student at McGill, he fell in love with Overwatch and Call of Duty — leading him to focus on esports for Dex.