Physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are shipped worldwide, and players were stunned to discover that the discs contained only 72MB of data. Instead, owners had to download the entire game digitally, which Eurogamer reports can take up as much as 150GB of space on the PS5.
Activision actually shipped a dummy disk, which means that physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will always need to connect to the internet to get a copy of the game. It’s a process that has come in for a lot of criticism in the past, mostly because it can hinder game preservation, force firmware updates, and generally push owners into DRM versions of games that may not work properly in the future.
Fortunately, the vast majority of game discs, especially on PlayStation, come with the full game. It’s still rare to see dummy discs like this, but it’s incredibly disappointing because you’re forced to download the game in full. That’s a problem if you live in a country with strict data limits or even markets where download speeds are slow. You have to leave your console on for hours to download Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, which adds to electricity costs and environmental impact.
While it’s relatively common for patches to improve games on day one, such as: Lance McDonald points out on Twitter, there’s a big difference between a day one patch to fix things and the game not on the disc. While the base game is about 35GB, a day one patch increased the game size to up to 150GB when installed with all its packages on a PS5.
We contacted Activision to say why physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II does not contain the game, and we will update you accordingly.
