The file size on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has gotten out of control, and it's becoming harder and harder for players to have enough room on their hard drives to install other games besides Activision's juggernaut. When it released late last year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare represented a return to form for the iconic first person shooter franchise. In lieu of the heightened mobility and assorted tricks of Black Ops and Advanced Warfare (and even the odd social focus of WWII) Modern Warfare returned the franchise to straight-up "boots on the ground" action, and both the single player and multiplayer modes were praised, while the half-baked cooperative mode was quickly forgotten, unable to live up to the greatness of the old "Spec Ops" mode it was attempting to revive.
In the months since launch, Modern Warfare has been invigorated with updates adding new maps, modes, weapons, and operator skins. The biggest update of them all is Warzone, a free-to-play battle royale mode that drops 150 players onto a map, much like other games in the same genre like PUBG or Fortnite. At this stage in its life cycle, there's no shortage of content for Modern Warfare owners to enjoy, from its single player offerings, to a slew of multiplayer modes, and – of course – battle royale.
All of this additional content comes at a cost; players aren't necessarily paying in dollars, since Modern Warfare lacks a season pass, instead opting for the "battle pass" method that has become ubiquitous in recent years. Instead, the price of Modern Warfare updates is paid in gigabytes. As of this writing, Modern Warfare clocks in at a staggering 180 GB on PC and 185 GB on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, according to Gamespot.
At 185 GB on console, the total space occupied by the latest Call of Duty is nearly half the internal memory of the standard hard drives that shipped with the consoles. Many players have since upgraded to one or two terabyte drives, but still, 180 GB is simply huge. Activision has said they've taken steps to keep future updates from adding significantly to Modern Warfare's file size, but it's too late for that.
While it's surely easier said than done, there should be a way to uninstall parts of the game. For example, players who've conquered the single player adventure on Veteran difficulty should have the option to uninstall the story mode. Likewise, the lackluster Spec Ops mode still hasn't done enough to justify its use of the venerated Spec Ops name from Modern Warfare 2 and 3; thus, there should be a way to erase that from the hard drive. One way or another, Activision needs to optimize Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's file size before it becomes to big to be worth taking up a majority of many players' hard drive space – space that could be used on other, more efficient games.
Source: Gamespot