Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hogs up to 213GB of storage space and doesn't care if you want to play other games

(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

As if to prove modern PC games are self-obsessed narcissists that can't imagine you might want to play something else, here comes Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with a ridiculous requirement for up to 213GB of storage space. Oh, and that'll need to be 213GB of SSD storage space according to the game's minimum requirements, not one of those clunky old magnetic jobs with spinning platters.

Yup, 213GB. Now, there are caveats to that figure. If all you want to do is play the multiplayer version and you're happy to forgo the full visual experience excluding "high-rez" assets, then the absolute bare minimum install is 79GB. Add the single-player campaign sans high-rez assets and you're looking at 149GB.

So, it's the full multi- and single-player install with high-rez assets that clocks in at 213GB. Now, SSD prices have come down dramatically in the last year or so. Check out our deals page and you'll that you can now get a 2TB SSD for under $100 and even favourites like the WD Black SN850X only run to a relatively attainable $150, and often much less on special offer.

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But we're still talking about a huge chunk of space for a single game. Even if you have a healthy 2TB SSD, by the time you account for the OS, whatever files and media you might have on the drive and allowing for the fact that it's never a good idea to have an SSD crammed to bursting, well, you're not going to be installing very many games at 213GB a pop, are you?

Heck, even with a 4TB SSD, if every game was over 200GB, you'd be looking at a maximum installed library of games of about 15 or so. In other words, if you want a really big installed library, games like this tips things over into multiple SSD territory.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III — Read it and weep. (Image credit: Activision)

Peak Storage

SATA, NVMe M.2, and PCIe SSDs on blue background — (Image credit: Future)

Best SSD for gaming: The best speedy storage today.
Best NVMe SSD: Compact M.2 drives.
Best external hard drives: Huge capacities for less.
Best external SSDs: Plug-in storage upgrades.

You're then arguably looking at a couple of 4TB drives and suddenly those "cheap" SSDs don't look quite so cheap anymore. And it's not like you can fall back on an old school magnetic hard disk. The minimum requirements for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 explicitly demand SSD storage.

Of course, big-budget games being storage hogs isn't exactly news. But busting the 200GB barrier does seem a little silly and it does make you wonder how much thought the developers give to the hardware realities that gamers face. Or if they imagine that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is the only game in the world. Yes, it's that, isn't it?

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.