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Windows Central

Technology

Cole Martin

The roadmap to Black Ops 6 includes new optimizations to the Call of Duty experience, including smaller downloads and streamlined menus

Activision Steam CDKeys Target (Organization)

The Call of Duty experience will undergo a series of updates to streamline and improve the UI and file sizes.

What you need to know

Call of Duty is a long-running first-person shooter franchise developed by multiple studios, including Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer, and published by Activision (now a part of Xbox Game Studios.)
With the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022), subsequent annual premium CoD titles were bundled into one launcher with the free-to-play battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone. This resulted in a massive game file that took a long time for many to download.
A new series of updates is set to deploy ahead of the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in October. These updates will optimize the Call of Duty experience, decouple premium titles from Warzone, expand on texture streaming tech, and streamline the UI.
The first step in the update series launches alongside Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Season 5 Reloaded update on August 21.

A new slate of updates to the Call of Duty HQ will lay the groundwork for a new streamlined UI, smaller file sizes, and more direct access to games ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's release in October.

Call of Duty is a popular blockbuster franchise, but the king of first-person shooters is not immune to criticism. The title's considerable install size has been an ongoing gag for several years. While optimization efforts have attempted to shrink the game's file size, a decision in 2022 to lump Call of Duty: Warzone (then dubbed Warzone 2.0) and each new premium title together in a Call of Duty HQ launcher seemingly undid all the progress with each new seasonal update.

To combat Call of Duty HQ's ongoing takeover of millions of hard drives, new updates will begin later this month, and lead up to the October release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will aim to optimize the game's file size. The updates will also address player feedback with the UI, streamlining the experience and making it easier for players to jump into the game experience they want more easily.

The road to Black Ops 6 starts with MW3 Season 5.5

Activision and the Call of Duty Team have shared a roadmap of updates to the Call of Duty HQ experience. (Image credit: Activision)

The first update is scheduled for August 21 as part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Season 5 Reloaded update. This patch will reorganize the content in Call of Duty HQ with new tech for texture streaming. Texture streaming allows the development team to cycle content that players less frequently use to a streaming cache. By streaming this content, it no longer needs to sit on the player's storage device until it is used.

The "On-Demand Texture Streaming" setting in the Call of Duty HQ menu will be changed to "On-Demand High-Quality Streaming" with two options: Optimized (Default) and Minimal. When set to minimal, users may notice that the graphical quality of streamed textures is lower, but this setting requires less internet bandwidth than high-fidelity texture streaming. The optimized setting will require more internet bandwidth than minimal, but it will produce cached textures at a higher fidelity.

Free in game consumables will be gifted to the community as a token of appreciation during the update rollout. (Image credit: Activision)

Another significant element of the August 21 update will be the official decoupling of Call of Duty: Warzone from the default download of annually released titles. Instead of automatically downloading Warzone with each new Call of Duty title, only the game-specific files will be included in the download. Players can still choose to install Warzone independently at any given time. On the official Call of Duty blog, the Call of Duty team writes, "Flexibility and choice matter. We want to give players the choice to download each Call of Duty, including Call of Duty: Warzone, when and how they wish."

According to the CoD Team, the first step in restructuring Call of Duty HQ will require a large upfront download, which will "pave the way over the next several weeks and ultimately lead to a better experience when Black Ops 6 arrives." While the first download will not add to the space Call of Duty currently takes up on your hard drive, it will require a fresh installation to properly reorganize the game's files and add new tech. After the initial Season 5 Reloaded update, the amount of space Call of Duty takes up on player hard drives should decrease thanks to the new optimizations. For players on Xbox and PC, the update will require one singular download and will mimic traditional updates required before launching Call of Duty.

To show appreciation for the community's patience in the lead-up to Black Ops 6, the CoD Team and Activision will gift players a pack of in-game consumables. The consumables gift, consisting of 10 1-hour Double Player XP tokens, 10 1-hour Double Weapon XP tokens, and 10 Battle Pass Tier Skips, will be available for players when they log in for Season 5 Reloaded.

Preparing for the Black Ops 6 Open Beta

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 open beta begins on August 30. (Image credit: Activision)

In part, the update rollout is designed to prepare the Call of Duty HQ launcher for the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Beta content for Black Ops 6 can be preloaded beginning on August 28, with the Beta going live on August 30. For those with Call of Duty HQ already installed, the Beta will be installed automatically as an update. If you're jumping into Call of Duty for the first time or do not currently have Call of Duty HQ installed, the beta can be downloaded from the Xbox storefront, the PC Game Pass App, or the Microsoft Store. Steam, Battle.net, and PlayStation players can also download the beta from their respective storefronts.

Once the Beta ends, the Season 6 update for Modern Warfare 3 will automatically remove the content.

The file size for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has not yet been finalized, as the game undergoes final polish and optimizations before release. There was speculation that the final size could hit 300 GB, but that has been debunked. Additional optimizations and Call of Duty HQ changes will lower the file size requirements.

Future updates to Call of Duty HQ

File size may be a running joke for the Call of Duty community, but the HQ's UI layout has been a thorn in players' side since the release of Modern Warfare 2 in 2022. The UI introduced with MW2 and Warzone 2.0 resembled what you would see on a video streaming platform, with rectangular boxes of options infinitely scrolling to the right. It led to long scrolls that were frustrating to the point that things in the middle were often overlooked. There have been some efforts to update the user interface with the release of MW3 and support post-launch content, but the rollout of Black Ops 6 will make substantial changes to the Call of Duty HQ UI.

A new Call of Duty landing zone will present featured content all together on one page with no scrolling. The most recent Call of Duty title and Call of Duty: Warzone will both be featured prominently on the landing page, with other Call of Duty titles being accessible either through the player's library or via the Last Played tile. The initial rollout of the new landing page will be part of an update in mid-October, right before the launch of Black Ops 6.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available for preorder now. Our helpful guide can help you choose between the Vault Edition and Standard Editions of Black Ops 6.