COD: Vanguard preload is now live, and it’s a surprisingly reasonable download size

Call of Duty: Vanguard is now available to preload on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and after years of struggling with stupidly big Call of Duty installs, you’ll be glad to hear that Vanguard’s install size is significantly smaller than Call of Duty games usually are at launch.

Thanks to the implementation of on-demand texture streaming and new compression techniques for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, the initial download size for Call of Duty: Vanguard is as follows:

• PlayStation 5: 64.13 GB Download | 89.84 GB Required Space
• PlayStation 4: 54.65 GB Download | 93.12 GB Required Space
• Xbox Series X |S: 61 GB Download | 61 GB Required Space
• Xbox One: 56.6 GB Download | 56.6 GB Required Space

PC install sizes have yet to be confirmed, but will be announced prior to that platform’s 2nd November preload start date.

Compared to the eye-watering 95GB on PS4 and 133GB on PS5 that Black Ops Cold War needed to preload, this is a huge reduction in size.

But what’s that about “Required Space” on PlayStation? This isn’t made explicitly clear, but is likely down to how the different systems handle game installs. The PlayStation system means that games are downloaded and then unpacked, requiring that there is a buffer for the copying process. That’s much quicker on the PS5’s SSD, thankfully, but it’s still not ideal.

The other factor to consider is the on-demand texture streaming (ODTS). First introduced on PC for Call of Duty: Warzone, ODTS means that the installed game includes all of the fundamental files that you need, but will then download further model and texture files on-the-fly and store them in a game cache. In the last couple of games console players had optional additional downloads for higher resolution texture packs, so players could manually manage the additional storage requirements, but the more seamless background caching is being brought across for PlayStation and Xbox as well. When enabled (and it is an optional feature), this will gradually grow the game in size as the highest quality files are downloaded when you play, and so space will likely be reserved for the additional files.

This year’s Call of Duty will be taking us back to World War II. However, it will be leaning closer to Treyarch’s World at War as opposed to lead developer Sledgehammer’s own Call of Duty WWII, following the stories of several soldiers across different theatres of war. Led by Arthur Kingsley, Task Force One are an elite team of operatives tasked with eliminating the Nazi regime as it looks to build the Fourth Reich.

Further Reading: Call of Duty Vanguard beta: what’s changed in this year’s COD?

The campaign is obviously joined by a WWII-era multiplayer, which will tie into a major new Call of Duty: Warzone season later this year, and there’s a new Zombies campaign from Treyarch.

Source: Call of Duty

Source: https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2021/10/29/call-of-duty-vanguard-download-install-size-preload-xbox-ps5-required-space/