The huge size of Call of Duty updates has long been a source of concern for players. For the first time in the history of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone updates, Activision has warned that players who use a standard 500GB PlayStation 4 may no longer have room for updates if they have the full versions of both games installed complete with all modes and packs (Campaign, Zombies, Multiplayer, etc.).
The Season 2 updates for both games total 35GB for PS5 players and 27.5GB for PS4 players. Another problem is players need significantly more hard drive space available before they can begin the downloads. According to Eurogamer, 107GB of free space was needed on PS4 before the 17GB Warzone update could be downloaded, and we found it was the same requirement on the PS5 (effectively killing over 100GB of space on any hard drive or SSD in consideration of any new updates). There’s already only 407GB of usable space on a 500GB PS4 by default, and the requirement of 107GB free to even download the Warzone update pulls that down to just 300GB available to keep games installed.
Full installs of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare/Warzone together far exceed that 300GB of usable space, so a standard 500GB PlayStation 4 hard drive is no longer large enough for all content for these titles. Activision recommends those players delete unused game content (like the campaigns from one or both games) to make room.
For Modern Warfare/Warzone, players can press the Options button on the main menu, click on the General tab, and then scroll down to Game Installs to choose which content to delete. On Black Ops Cold War, players can press R3 at the main menu to go to File Management. Players can then choose to delete the Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies, and/or Dead Ops Arcade if they don’t play them.
Fortunately the PS4 can accept external hard drives and SSDs, and it’s very easy to replace the internal hard drive with a larger size. However, the PS5 as of yet is locked to its limited internal storage, and the massive file size of both games takes up more than half of the available space on the SSD (more, if you consider the 107GB free-space requirement to download new updates. You can use an external hard drive for Warzone (as it’s technically a PS4 game), but there have also been scattered reports of external hard drives creating issues with the PS5.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season Two begins today, bringing four new operators, six new weapons, four new multiplayer maps, new multiplayer game modes, a new Battle Pass, and a brand new Zombies Outbreak game mode. The full patch notes can be seen here. Those wanting to make the most of the new content can try out the Zombies Outbreak and multiplayer free play week, while there’s also double XP and double weapon XP beginning tomorrow, February 26. PlayStation players get access to double XP a day early.
[Source: Call of Duty, Eurogamer]