Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare's Latest Update Is Way Too Big
When it comes to game updates, how big is too big? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare might have just answered that question. The game's Season 2 update is now live, and hard drives everywhere are starting to buckle under its enormous size. It might be one of the largest updates we've ever seen.
According to GameSpot, the PC update comes in at a ridiculous 94 GB. The Xbox One version is a bit lighter — relatively speaking — at 68 GB. PlayStation 4 owners get the smallest download of all at 51 GB. For comparison's sake, Shadow of the Tomb Raider on PC requires around 40 GB of space. That's 40 GB of space for the entire game.
How on earth is this Modern Warfare update larger than that?
The Season 2 patch does add some new maps, a new battle pass and some additional cosmetics for players to obtain. But if you're at a loss for how that content could come close to 100 GB, you're not alone.
We're not equipped for this
There's a reason physical media is still a thing and digital distribution hasn't taken over on the console side: not everyone has blazing fast internet. In some parts of the world — and even in the U.S. — connection speeds are measured in single-digit megabits per second. Fiber isn't a data delivery method so much as it is a key ingredient in Bran Flakes. For those people, huge game downloads are a no-go. Huge game updates are worse.
Data caps further complicate things. If someone is allotted 1 TB of data per month, this latest Call of Duty update could eat up nearly a tenth of that in one download. And don't forget: there's hard drive space to consider, too. Someone on a base Xbox One has but 500 GB for games and updates. In this day and age, that's not enough.
The next generation of consoles will hopefully address the storage issue. But those new machines can't fix everything else.
Hopefully the future will deliver us faster internet in communities where it's needed, and more competition among ISPs. Until then, you can expect games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to keep reminding us how behind we are.