In theory, an all-in-one launcher to manage a massive franchise like Call of Duty probably makes sense. When you have multiple campaigns, multiplayer modes, and regular updates to live-service games like Warzone to manage, sure, you could convince me that a one-stop shop where I can find the specific experiences I want at any given moment is the best course of action. That convenience evaporates, though, when you realize you’ll have to download hundreds of gigabytes in order to do that very thing. Thankfully, after trying to convince us that a 200-to-300-gigabyte install was necessary to get in a few rounds of CoD with friends, Activision is now letting us access older games without its bloated mess of a launcher.
As announced today on the Call of Duty Updates X account, 2022’s kinda boring Modern Warfare II and 2023’s very boring Modern Warfare III are getting spun off on their own so you can download them à la carte and avoid the D. Rex-sized monstrosity that is the CoD launcher.
The post also states that “legacy content related to [2022’s] MWII and [2023’s] MWIII modes within the main Call of Duty install will be automatically removed on August 7 to free up storage space.”
If that’s a bit confusing to you, well you’re not alone. I, too, am not quite sure what this “l content” is or what exactly the implications of its removal might be. Hopefully they’re not talking about killing DMZ or the third-person multiplayer modes from MWII. I’d be a very sad creature if that were so.
Kotaku reached out to Activision to clear the air on what that “legacy content” statement means exactly.
Dealing with its enormous launcher has been somewhat of an ongoing issue for Call of Duty fans. We here at Kotaku have long complained about the inconvenience of needing to download such a massive (and unwieldy!) launcher to shoot some digital guns.
But honestly? Hats off to Activision for doing the right thing and not “vaulting” this content. I’m far from the biggest Call of Duty fan and I don’t necessarily think these games are works of stunning artistic achievement–though the characters and acting in MWII were very well done and highly memorable. It would’ve been simple for a big corporation to just go “nah, these games are too big now. We’re taking them away.” Instead, they’re letting us keep playing that mission in which you “de-escalate” stand offs with terrified civilians by aiming weapons at them. Fun!
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