Call of Duty is decoupling Warzone from the annual games, and revamping Call of Duty HQ

The experience of finding, updating, launching and playing Call of Duty is about to change yet again. Activision developers are gearing up for a massive overhaul to the Call of Duty HQ launcher on PC, alongside several other changes to the way files are acquired on PC and consoles.

The biggest change as a result of this is the separation of Warzone and the yearly premium Call of Duty games. In other words, players only interested in playing the game they bought can download those files, and free-to-play players will be able to download just Warzone.

This change will be rolled out in phases, and it’s part of an effort to reduce the install size of the games. This will be done, in part, by expanding the game’s streaming tech, which means adding more content to the streaming pool.

Activision will cycle content that is less frequently used out of that streaming cache, and expand what can be streamed in general. The ‘On-Demand Texture Streaming’ option will be changed to ‘On-Demand High Quality Streaming’ and offer two options, one that prioritises higher fidelity but requires more bandwidth usage, while the other reduces graphical quality but uses up less internet bandwidth.

Another goal of revamping the interface is offering easier access to the different games, which also means letting players download only what they want to play. Unfortunately, this means players will have to download big files to pave the way for smaller install sizes. On PS5, for instance, the next update - Season 5 Reloaded - will need to downloaded as four separate chunks: the initial system-level update, and three more that are triggered by launching into Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone.

This is only for those already playing now and keeping up with the current games, however. Newcomers in the future won’t have to go through that.

This reorganisation of game content, which begins with Season 5 Reloaded on August 21, will continue throughout the coming weeks leading up to the launch of Black Ops 6. The new UI arrives in mid-October, creating a new Call of Duty landing zone that displays the different supported games, and some of the recently played content.

When this transition occurs, Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone will be the featured titles, but this will change when Black Ops 6 launches. Speaking of which, starting with Black Ops 6, every future game will now have its own UI that links to its various modes/content.

Here’s the schedule of this big revamp:

• Reorganising Game Content, Part of the Season 5 Reloaded Update (August 21)

• Black Ops 6 Open Beta (August 30)

• New User Interface (Mid-October)

• Black Ops 6 Launch (October 25)

Finally, anyone who logs in after next week’s Season 5 Reloaded update will receive a package of battle pass tier skips, and double XP tokens. The pack will be available until the end of Season 5, so you’ll get it whenever you update and log in (during the season).