Call of Duty: Warzone's next monster update is 81GB smaller if you delete Modern Warfare

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And the game is shrinking overall.

cod warzone midseason update
(Image credit: Activision)

Call of Duty: Warzone fans don't have much to get excited about in tomorrow's midseason update. While Black Ops – Cold War is getting new maps and modes, Warzone fans are getting a sniper rifle and a few new operators. But that doesn't mean that our hard drives are safe—tomorrow's Warzone patch is a whopping 133GB download if you also have Modern Warfare installed. If not, you're in slightly better shape.

Here are the download sizes, as outlined in today's blog post:

  • PC: 52.4 GB (Warzone Only) / 133.6 GB (Warzone and Modern Warfare)
  • PlayStation 5/PlayStation 4: 52.0 GB
  • Xbox Series X / Series S / One: 57.8 GB

So, what gives and why does Activision hate my SSD? Downloads are bigger this time around because the overall sizes of Warzone and Modern Warfare are shrinking. Once the dust has settled, Warzone will shrink by 11.8GB and Modern Warfare by around 30GB. More free space is nice, but players should seriously consider if it's worth keeping Modern Warfare updated if you're not playing it much these days (especially if your ISP has a strict data cap). You can cut your download in half by uninstalling the Modern Warfare chunk before the patch drops tomorrow night at 11PM PDT.

(Image credit: Activision)

That said, even 52GB is a lot to swallow for an update that adds nothing of note to Warzone. Activision's updated Season 2 roadmap has a single box for Warzone that basically says "more zombies, baby." Cool, I guess. Warzone's zombie presence has been one of the most disappointing map changes in the game since its launch. There's obvious potential for widespread zombie antics in Verdansk that Activision may still act on in the future, but for now, zombies are a boring distraction that migrate from town to town like a flock of birds. 

Hopefully, some of this download has to do with Warzone's long-rumored new map, which will likely incorporate existing locations from Cold War's Fireteam maps.

News is a bit better on the Cold War front, which is getting a new Outbreak map (Sanitorium), a few new maps, remixed modes, a new sniper rifle, and a few operators that will also work in Warzone. All of that for an additional 8GB on PC. Even when Call of Duty is small, it's still pretty big.

Morgan Park
Morgan Park
Staff Writer

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.