Now that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War pre-loading has started for those on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, Activision has confirmed the upcoming game's file sizes across all platforms. And as expected, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is going to take a significant amount of space on players' hard drives and SSDs at launch, with the next-gen file sizes well over 100GB.
On PS4 and Xbox One, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War file sizes are 95GB and 93GB, respectively. Meanwhile, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War PS5 and Xbox Series X file sizes are 133GB and 136GB. Those playing Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on PC will be looking at an 82GB file size just for the game, whereas playing it on ultra graphics settings with things like ray-tracing will need to set aside at least 125GB.
While the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War file sizes are rather excessive, the bright side is that players should be able to uninstall content that they don't want to play. For example, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War players should be able to uninstall the campaign when they're done with it, which should reduce the overall file size significantly. Those that only have multiplayer installed on PC will just have to deal with a 35GB file size, which isn't too bad, though it does keep them from playing things like Zombies and Warzone.
Something that's concerning about the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War file sizes, though, is that they're likely to grow over time. Activision has extensive post-launch support planned for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, with new content releasing on a seasonal basis like was done with Modern Warfare. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 1 is expected to start at some point in December, at which point fans can expect a slew of new content for the game, meaning a bigger file size.
Needless to say, those that want to play Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and have some other games on their consoles will likely want to invest in ways to expand their storage. The downside to this is that the Xbox Series X SSD expansion cards are rather expensive, over $200, and fans can expect paying a similar price to increase the PS5 file size as well. And as far as the Xbox Series S storage space goes, half of it will be eaten up by Black Ops Cold War's launch file size alone.
Hopefully Treyarch is able to optimize Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's updates so that the file sizes stay under control. But the reality is that it's likely to grow significantly over the course of the next year, so fans should prepare accordingly.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is launching November 13 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
