Call of Duty: Vanguard Launch's Install Size Is Smaller Than Predecessors
Call of Duty: Vanguard’s install size at launch will be significantly smaller than its predecessors. The latest installment in the long-running first-person shooter series is scheduled to come out next week on November 5, and developer Sledgehammer Games is releasing more and more information as its launch gets closer. Just yesterday, the studio published details on four of Vanguard's new Operators, including two of the game’s protagonists and two multiplayer-only characters.
The install size of Call of Duty games has become a topic of both humor and disdain, seeing as the install size of its recent entries have ballooned over the past few years. Last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War had huge install sizes on current-gen consoles at launch, going up to as high as 136GB. And that’s relatively paltry when compared to the amount of space Call of Duty: Warzone is capable of taking up, which has gotten so out of hand that installing Warzone may not even be possible on some PS4 consoles.
The official Call of Duty Twitter account announced that, upon release, Vanguard’s install size will be significantly smaller than previous games in the series. The lighter install is said to be due to "new on-demand texture streaming tech expected to save up to 30% [to] 50% disk space" on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The account didn't announce any information on what this tech actually entails - nor the exact install size of the game on the three platforms - but it’s possible that it could either be around the Vanguard's previously reported 95 GB for the Xbox Series X/S or even lower.
Unfortunately, the smaller install size only applies to current-generation consoles and PC, so it seems players on the Xbox One and PS4 will still have to deal with a larger initial install size if they plan to play Vanguard. Furthermore, even if the game’s initial install size is much smaller, it’s still expected to eventually take a larger amount of space as people play through the title. From new content brought about by new seasons, to other game modes such as Treyarch’s Zombies, Vanguard could still potentially take up a significant amount of disk space. It’s also unclear whether the streaming tech that developer Sledgehammer Games is using will automatically delete the data it downloaded if it’s no longer in use.
While it’s still unclear just how much space users will need to install Vanguard at launch, it’s good news Sledgehammer Games is making an effort to make its games more manageable. Hopefully the technology implemented by the studio can also be used for future entries in the series - or even previous releases, such as Warzone.
Call of Duty: Vanguard will be available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on November 5, 2021.
Source: Call of Duty/Twitter