Call of Duty: Vanguard won’t eat up as much hard drive space as previous games
Publisher Activision Blizzard, responsible for the game this article refers to, is currently embroiled in ongoing litigation in regards to claims reporting a workplace culture that allegedly enabled acts of sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination. Read our Activision Blizzard lawsuit timeline of events for ongoing coverage of the events.
Call of Duty: Vanguard won’t take up nearly as much room on console and PC hard drives as previous releases in the series, Activision has revealed.
Activision made the announcement on Twitter via the official Call of Duty account, calling it “good news for hard drives everywhere”. The tweet doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail, simply explaining that “new on-demand texture streaming tech” will see Call of Duty Vanguard’s “install size at launch” come in “significantly below previous Call of Duty releases.”
In fact, this tech will apparently “save up to 30%-50% on next-gen console and PC hard drive disk space”.
Good news for hard drives everywhere: #Vanguard’s install size at launch will be significantly below previous #CallOfDuty releases. New on-demand texture streaming tech expected to save up to 30%-50%+ on next-gen console and PC hard drive disk space 💥 pic.twitter.com/oYZoyIDTuOOctober 26, 2021
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The final install size of Call of Duty: Vanguard wasn’t actually revealed alongside this announcement. So, while it’s looking like it won’t be quite as bad as Call of Duty fans would have reason to anticipate, we still don’t know exactly what the damage will be when the game launches.
Still, given the infamously colossal install sizes of previous Call of Duty titles and additional space required to have them sit alongside the series’ battle royale mode, Warzone, it’s not an unwelcome announcement.
It follows a reduction in the file size of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone earlier this year after an update which took advantage of “enhancements to the overall content management system[…]made possible through data optimization and streamlining content packs needed for individual game modes.”
Analysis: Thanks for the memory
Call of Duty games have long been notorious for the amount of hard drive space they take up. When Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War launched last year, it took up a sizeable 133GB of space on PlayStation 5 and an even larger 136GB on Xbox Series X.
In fact, it was only earlier this year that 500GB PS4 owners who had Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone installed were warned by Activision that they “may need to make room” and “delete some unused Game Content”. It’s worth noting that the tweet doesn’t actually make mention of what the situation will be for those on last-gen consoles when Vanguard launches.
Suffice it to say, though, that this is surely welcome news for Call of Duty fans on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC who might have been looking anxiously at their hard drive in the run up to the game’s November 5 release date.
While expanding available storage is at least now an option on PS5 and Xbox Series X, it’s not exactly cheap at the moment and for those without it, space is still at a premium. Visions of having to tell visitors “no, no, that’s not my Xbox, that’s my Call of Duty machine” dispelled. For now, at least.
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