Call of Duty culls MW duo from monster install, and it could save you over 200GB

Call of Duty is a bit of a problem at this point. No, it's not because my boomer hands can't keep up with Black Ops 6's omni-movement demons, nor is it because years of RSIs have accumulated, leaving my aim about as crispy as soggy cereal. The reason is because Call of Duty takes up an ungodly amount of space on my PC, to the extent that I am stuck in a constant cycle of uninstalling and reinstalling every time a new game comes along. This is probably a familiar story for you, unless you've got more SSDs in your rig than a Pentagon data room. Fortunately, salvation is coming for us.

The reimagined Modern Warfare series has been very hit and miss to say the least. MW 2019 is one of the best FPS games of the modern era, but its follow-ups both failed to reach its heights. MW3 was particularly poor, prompting a paltry 4/10 from PK in our Modern Warfare 3 review. Now we're in the Black Ops 6 era and things are significantly rosier, leaving me wondering: 'Who is actually still playing MW2 and MW3?'

The answer, presumably, is 'not many.' Unfortunately, both games, alongside BO6, are rolled into Call of Duty HQ, making it impossible to separate their SteamDB metrics. However, judging from the latest update, Activision doesn't seem particularly fussed about keeping the band together.

According to the announcement posted up on Steam, both MW2 and MW3 are being removed from the main CoD install, becoming standalone downloads. This doesn't mean much for PC Game Pass players as the package can already be broken down and installed piecemeal. But for Steam and console owners, this is huge. How huge? Potentially over 200 GBs of saved space huge.

Going off of the PC Game Pass breakdown, MW2's solo/co-op campaigns and multiplayer combo come in at 152.13 GB, while MW3's online/offline offerings set you back a further 141.45 GB. This comes to a whopping 293.58 GB all-told. Woof.

Of course, there are shared assets across CoD titles, alongside compression, bringing the overall install size down a fair chunk; the full Steam CoD installation is only 310.76 GB, after all. But the crux of the matter here is, at a conservative estimate, you'll be able to fit a trillion more of the best indie games onto your PC post-schism.

The CoD MW2 and MW3 cleansing is set to take place on July 29, 2025 at 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm BST. So prepare your wishlist of new PC games that you want to fill up all of that lovely, freed-up space with.

If you're still stuck for choice, let our guide to the best free PC games help you out. The Black Ops 7 release date is on its way, too, so check out when CoD will be reclaiming its space on your system.

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