Conquering Space: How Activision's Latest Move Frees Up Hard Drives

In a world where the digital real estate in our consoles is as precious as the living room space it takes up, Activision’s announcement is a bit like a major re-zoning in the world of video games. The publisher is finally giving its hardcore fan base what it has been asking for: a change in how Call of Duty games, and mainly those that involve Warzone, take up space on our hard-drive. Here’s how.

A Hefty Problem: The Storage Wars of Modern CONSOLES

It goes without saying that anyone who’s downloaded a Call of Duty game in, say, the past year or five has felt it. Current iterations of Call of Duty games can weigh in a bit north of 130GB, and that’s before you consider the equally hefty new additions like Warzone. We’re not just talking about inconvenience here. Big games like Call of Duty take up large portions of the hard drives on our CONSOLES – hogging space that could otherwise go to our existing libraries of cherished games and apps.

Activision's Game-Changing Strategy

Sizing Down for the Future

Next week, from 21 August when Season 5 Reloaded drops for Activision’s quintessential, cash-cow franchise Call of Duty, there’s a hugely significant change afoot. Warzone, the massive, space-gozzling, default-installed battle royale that has sat like a bloating, reeking, fat tissue from Hell on the hard drives of hundreds of millions of CONSOLES and PC users, is being removed from the default Call of Duty download. It’s a decision that could both literally and metaphorically give you back years of a much-improved relationship with your gaming console.

Opt-In for the Hardcore Fans

Recognising that for a huge swath of players Warzone is almost a required part of the Call of Duty experience, Activision isn’t pulling the plug entirely. There will always be a hardcore set who want the files for Warzone downloaded separately and thus the decision over what goes where on their console is theirs and theirs alone.

Streamlining with Technology

Alongside ring-fencing Warzone, Activision is wholeheartedly embracing the power of texture streaming technology. For starters, the new Warzone update will adopt this tech, in which the content that is used less frequently will be stored in a streaming cache, and less likely to be stored directly on the console. (There’s a caveat that when this tech is first deployed, it might lead to some initial low-quality renderings onscreen, but the settings flexibility here seems to offer a customised degree of performance/storage efficacy trade-off.)

The Future Calls on Console Optimizations

Activision’s other big move into the future is happening on the PLAYSTATION 5. When Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, due to hit consoles and PCs on 26 October, is released, all future downloads will come in twice-yearly parts. This not only makes them downloadable ahead of the official launch period, but is meant to help with file optimisations that can make them smaller than ever. Game Pass’s day-one availability of the titles in question is, as such, part of a concerted effort to make these games as easy to get as possible.

A Much-Needed Resolution or a Temporary Fix?

Although Activision’s efforts in reducing the hefty downloads of its best-selling series have to be applauded, they also bring up a bigger question that must be tackled as game development and distribution grow bigger: can current practices remain sustainable in the long term? If games get even more complex and expansive, and change your hard disk into a parking lot, will other publishers do the same, or will new approaches be found?

About CONSOLES and Their Growing Pains

CONSOLES have always sat at the centre of the experience, and over the decades they’ve progressed from cartridge-based boxes of buttons and levers to sophisticated multimedia boxes delivering 4K content to our living rooms. They’ve become a world of digital existence, but they’ve also come with significant growing pains – even if, these days, the actual growing pains have become a game unto themselves.

Activision’s recent moves point the way to how publishers might eventually become more engaged in managing game sizes and storage issues by, for example, stripping Warzone from the default download package, using texture streaming and just-in-time file optimisation for new releases.

It may mark an end of sorts for the way we treat our consoles as collections, but who knows? Perhaps the trend toward smaller games will begin to swing the balance of games size to storage capacity again. For now, gamers stand to gain more room on their hard drives – and, more importantly, a potentially saner way to engage with their consoles.