Activision explains why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare needs 175GB of storage (Updated)

Update: Activision has updated the Modern Warfare system requirements post to explain why it's asking for 175GB of real estate on your hard drive. "175GB is the storage space we recommend players keep available in order to download the post-launch content we’ll be bringing to Modern Warfare. At launch, the initial download will be smaller," the page now says.

Unfortunately, there's no indication as to exactly how much smaller that initial download will be, as the minimum and recommended specs still call for 175GB of drive space. I've emailed Activision to ask and will update if I receive a reply.

Original post:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is one of the biggest games of the year, in two senses: one, it'll likely sell a bajillion copies, and secondly, it requires 175GB of hard drive space. Ouch. By comparison, Red Dead Redemption 2 will require a mere 150GB.

That's according to the system requirements available on battle.net, which reveal that aside from hard drive space, the next Call of Duty instalment won't break the bank hardware wise. The minimum specs are a tad higher compared to Black Ops 4 (for example, you'll preferably have a GTX 670 instead of a 660), but the recommendation specs are pretty much the same.

The Modern Warfare minimum and recommended specs are below, for your convenience:

Minimum Requirements

OS: Windows 7 64-bit (SP1) or Windows 10 64-bit
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 / GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 - DirectX 12.0 compatible
Storage: 175GB
Processor: Intel Core i3-4340 or AMD FX-6300
Memory: 8GB RAM

Recommended Specifications

OS: Windows 10 64-bit latest update
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 / GTX 1660, or AMD Radeon R9 390 / RX 580 - DirectX 12.0 compatible
Storage: 175GB
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen R5 1600X
Memory: 12GB