Modern warfare 2 it releases worldwide tomorrow, or technically in a few hours in some parts of the world. The physical version of the game is available for sale at retailers, and some have already started shipping it to customers.
What you might not have counted on, however, is that the blu-ray disc contains nothing more than a license to start the download. At least, that’s how it is here.
The disc-based version of Modern Warfare 2, specifically the PS5 version, has been revealed to contain only 70mb of data. That’s enough for… one texture? In other words, you will need to download all game once you have your copy, because Activision sent practically blank discs.
The discovery was shared by YouTuber Destruction Games, who posted the findings of a Discord member who spotted it on Twitter. The Creator is a part of do you play collective, which tests physical games to see if they can be played without an internet connection.
Posted by MaxSchmerz on the DoesItPlay Discord pic.twitter.com/7xWpXNSatE
– Destruction Games (@desgamesyt) October 26, 2022
As he points out, most games – even those with massive day one patches – tend to have some data on disk. Indeed, for games with many different modes, you can at least count on playing an offline player when the disc is inserted, even if you have to deal with bugs and other problems to play an unpatched version.
However, more and more games, especially of the AAA variety, have slowly moved away from this, opting instead to ship the bare minimum to disc. This is less of a problem for people who get the disc early, as there is still time to download the game.
But gamers who get their PS5 copies early, or weeks later, will be in for a shock. It’s an even bigger problem for places where data caps are the norm, or remote areas where internet speeds are slow enough that it can take days to fully download a game as large as Modern Warfare 2.
Whether you chose to go digital or not, here’s all the content you can expect at launch in Modern Warfare 2. While you wait for multiplayer to go live in your country, don’t be tempted to change your console region to play early and instead go read our campaign review.
