What you need to know
- In mid-August, Activision and the development teams working on Call of Duty announced the COD HQ launcher would undergo significant updates leading up to and following the launch of Black Ops 6.
- The first changes to the Call of Duty launcher were released later in August as part of the Season 5 Reloaded update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in preparation for the Black Ops 6 beta.
- Speaking at COD Next, Yale Miller of Treyarch said all the Call of Duty studios were "on a journey" to work on a better data management initiative for the franchise's launcher, but that "currently, we're not there."
- A new user interface is set to roll out in mid-October ahead of the October 25 release of Black Ops 6.
When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) and Warzone 2.0 released, the games were combined into one cohesive launcher in a multi-studio effort to streamline the development process and player entry points for the franchise. Unfortunately, the launcher has seemingly fallen into some of the same traps that led to its bloated predecessor's demise. In an effort to right the ship, the development teams behind the record-breaking first-person shooter franchise have taken on a new initiative to retool the launcher ahead of the October 25 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
In a major shift for the franchise, Modern Warfare 2 from Infinity Ward ushered in a new era where all Call of Duty titles would be developed on the same shared "Call of Duty engine." (Sorry, folks. The team drilled into us that there wasn't a special, fancy code name involved here. It really is just the COD engine.)
When Modern Warfare 3 came out a year later, developed by Sledgehammer Games, it faced a litany of criticisms for being a "DLC" package instead of a full game because of its inclusion into the newly dubbed Call of Duty HQ package. With Black Ops 6, developed by Treyarch Studios, set for an October 25 release, players were ready to expect the latest premium title to be lumped into COD HQ. This sparked fear and rumors that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would require over 300GB of storage space.
Just two weeks before the kick-off of the Black Ops 6 beta, the COD team shared word that it was working on an overhaul of the Call of Duty HQ. The first round of changes went live with the launch of Season 5 Reloaded for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
During Call of Duty: Next, I sat down in a group interview with Matt Scronce and Yale Miller from Treyarch Studios. During our time together, the two spoke about the current state of the Call of Duty experience leading into the Black Ops 6 beta weekends and the "Time to Fun" initiative driving the UI changes for the COD launcher. "Currently, we're on, I guess I would call it a journey to get where we want to be," said Miller.
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During the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta, players who owned Modern Warfare 3 would have to select the Call of Duty launcher for Modern Warfare 3, then wait for that game to load before selecting a card for the Black Ops 6 beta from the available menu. Modern Warfare 3 would then close, and Black Ops 6 would launch in its place. Of course, it isn't Call of Duty if the game wasn't required to close again because of an "Update requires restart" message. Finally, after the third go-around, players could jump into Black Ops 6.
To combat this, the Season 5 Reloaded update effectively decoupled Warzone and the last two premium Call of Duty titles. Players now have an easier time controlling which of the games they want to install, and which sections of those games—be it Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies, Warzone, or DMZ—are included in the installation package for the launcher.
While the reduction in file size makes for a thinner launcher and an easier time getting into your games in a timely manner, Miller concedes that the "time to fun" initiative still has some ways to go. "We are working on that whole process to try to get it cleaner," said Miller. "We're not there. Hands down, we're not there. It's going to be a big jump forward with the launch of Black Ops 6. Even then, it's about moving things in the ecosystem around and having it as a place where we can load all the games out of it."
While the new UI is still not yet finalized, previews eschew the "streaming service" design of endless horizontal boxes that has tormented the COD player base for the past two years. Instead, early previews of the launcher featured more of a tiled aesthetic. The new UI is expected to launch in mid-October, just before the official release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. With the start of Season 1 on a yet-to-be-revealed date, players can expect to launch Black Ops 6 and Warzone from the same landing page in the new, streamlined launcher.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is scheduled to release on October 25 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. The game will be the first title from the franchise to launch day one into Xbox Game Pass following the merger of Activision and Xbox, as well as the end of PlayStation's marketing agreement with Activision.
