Warzone Is Making Modern Warfare Unplayable For Some On PS5

Latest News Sign in for free to manage your site experience. Warzone is making Modern Warfare unplayable for some on PS5 Horses dev disputes Epic Games Store exec's claim it "loves" their studio, saying: "They have effectively ghosted us" Rayman creator reveals more details on what to expect from the Rayman remake that Ubisoft still won't admit is real Arc Raiders' "aggressive" approach to cheats sees "tens of thousands of players banned so far" Epic Games Store plans to launch on the next Xbox console "on day one" French President "once again made gamers lose it" but insists "one can love games and at the same time look at their effects" Sega's The House Of The Dead movie lands The Last of Us star for lead role Memory price rises have not impacted the Switch 2 yet, says Nintendo president, but warns about pressure "through the next fiscal year" Code Vein 2 developer promises fixes for frame rate and performance woes following "feedback" Here's our first look at Sophie Turner's Lara Croft and her dual pistols on set of Tomb Raider If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Some PlayStation 5 owners are reportedly struggling to play 2019's Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot on their consoles.

When attempting access any of the three components of the game - Campaign, Multiplayer and Spec Ops - players are greeted with a message stating that the required data packs are not installed.

That's when the problems start. When players follow through the prompts to download the data packs, they are confronted with a message stating that their installation was "suspended." There's no other suggestion as to what's causing this.

Eurogamer Newscast: Are Sony and Microsoft's claims over Call of Duty just business as usual?

Players are stuck in a limbo state, where the data packs won't download but there's no obvious way to restart the download and try again.

But the most egregious aspect of this situation is that fact that Activision has been aware of this problem for months and has yet to fix it.

Looking at the bug tracker on Activision's support page, this very issue is listed. But it doesn't appear as though there's any plans to fix it, with the page last being updated in March.

But even those who don't face this issue, playing Modern Warfare since the integration of Warzone into the game has been an absolute nightmare.

With almost every single Warzone patch, the data packs to play Modern Warfare are deleted, forcing players to re-download hundreds of gigabytes of data.

The mess doesn't end there. Part of the reason this is such an issue is down to the sheer size of the game. The current build takes up almost 200GB of storage.

As development of Warzone (and therefore the Modern Warfare launcher) was passed between developers since 2019, a huge amount of work has been put into optimising the game's footprint.

But the nature of the PlayStation operating system means that every new optimisation requires pushing a new data pack - and those packs add up. Counting every single data pack that's been pushed since the game's release, there are now 26 different packs for players to download.

This is likely why many players have been struggling to download the appropriate packs to play the game - as it's almost impossible to figure out which is the right one!

What is striking is that no matter how many issues plague the launcher, you'll almost certainly be able to play Warzone. And that speaks to the key issue.

As Warzone became a hit, Activision shifted all development resources to the mode, abandoning Modern Warfare altogether.

This has had significant implications for the longevity of older Call of Duty titles. The best-case scenario is that with the launch of Warzone 2, Activision's developers will patch out Warzone from Modern Warfare, bringing it back to a useable state.

But this leads me to have serious concerns surrounding whether Activision will make the same mistake with Modern Warfare 2, integrating Warzone 2 into the launcher and abandoning the premium game when development resources are stretched and storage becomes an issue.

One suggestion is for Infinity Ward to keep Warzone 2 in a separate launcher, thereby preserving the stability of Modern Warfare 2.

While we're at it, it's time Activision gets rid of the ridiculous multi-COD launcher that crams every single title into a single menu. It impacts the overall user experience and makes me less likely to play the other titles.

Eurogamer has asked Activision for comment on these issues.

Love Eurogamer.net? Make us a Preferred Source on Google and catch more of our coverage in your feeds. View comments (24) In this article

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Video Game

Follow

Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera

PS4, Xbox One, PC

Follow Related topics Activision Blizzard PC PS4 PS5 Shooter Xbox One Xbox Series X/S Up next Latest News

• Horses dev disputes Epic Games Store exec's claim it "loves" their studio, saying: "They have effectively ghosted us"
• Rayman creator reveals more details on what to expect from the Rayman remake that Ubisoft still won't admit is real
• Arc Raiders' "aggressive" approach to cheats sees "tens of thousands of players banned so far"
• Sega's The House Of The Dead movie lands The Last of Us star for lead role
• Memory price rises have not impacted the Switch 2 yet, says Nintendo president, but warns about pressure "through the next fiscal year"
• Code Vein 2 developer promises fixes for frame rate and performance woes following "feedback"
• Here's our first look at Sophie Turner's Lara Croft and her dual pistols on set of Tomb Raider

Latest Guides

• Sorcerer Ascent codes
• How to get Ochoko Cups in Nioh 3
• Best Skills in Nioh 3
• Arise Ragnarok codes
• All Nioh 3 Chijiko locations
• Pokémon Go Tour Kalos event times, schedule, bonuses and free activities
• Nioh 3 New Game Plus explained

Top Discussions

• What we've been playing - "Mama demands perfection" 203
• Happy 10th birthday, XCOM 2, the most brilliant, frustrating game of its time 55
• Is a Baldur's Gate 3 TV show a good idea and does it matter that Larian isn't involved? 34
• Difficulty done differently: Cairn and Baby Steps deliver kinder, more generous masocore 9
• Epic Games Store plans to launch on the next Xbox console "on day one" 8
• French President "once again made gamers lose it" but insists "one can love games and at the same time look at their effects" 7
• A love letter to NFL Blitz, one of the greatest sports games of all time 6