The Call of Duty series has been trying to move away from a physical release for a few years already. The game, which is due to officially release tomorrow after being in early access for a week, is focused on its multiplayer experience more than anything else. Sure, Modern Warfare 2 has a campaign but most gamers purchase it to jump into the multiplayer. The point is, Activision knows this. That is why they can get away with releasing a physical disc version of the game and including a measly 70MB file on it.
If you’re picking up the physical edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at launch tomorrow, you won’t be able to do anything with the game until you download the entire thing. The physical disc only includes a 70MB file on it that likely contains the license and a code which initiates the game’s download. The entire Modern Warfare 2 game has to be downloaded online with or without a disc it seems.
So Activision used an entire PS5 disc to install a 70MB file on it, printed discs for the game, covers, purchased game boxes, made manuals and shipped this disc around the world all for you to have to sit and download the game anyway. Sounds like every environmental activist’s worst nightmare.
The source who picked up on this pointed out that Activision uses only 0.07% of the PS5 disc’s capacity. In addition, while the previous Call of Duty games have been leaning towards an “only online” install base, this is the first time we have legit seen the disc contain nothing at all. Last year’s Call of Duty Vanguard included a bit of data for the campaign at least.
We don’t know yet if this is the case with the Xbox version of the game but it likely will follow the same process.
The MW2 PS5 disc build size is 70mb
lmao
— Destruction Games (@desgamesyt) October 26, 2022