Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Single-Player Campaign Demands Permanent Internet Connection On Consoles
What specific reasons did Activision give for requiring an always-on internet connection for playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's single-player campaign?
Activision stated that to deliver the highest-quality visuals while also reducing the game's overall storage space on the player's hard drive, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will use texture streaming across all game modes4. This means that a continuous internet connection is required to play any game mode, including the single-player campaign. The claim is that they intend to stream textures across the player's internet to reduce the game's already enormous install size on the hard drive.
What are the reported installation sizes for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on different platforms, and how does this compare to previous games?
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has different installation sizes depending on the platform. On Xbox Series S, the game takes up 78GB of storage space, while on Xbox Series X, it requires 149GB. This is significantly smaller than the previous game, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which had a size of 250GB on PC. The reduction in file size is due to the use of texture streaming, which requires a continuous internet connection to play any game mode, including the single-player campaign.
Comparing it to the previous game, Black Ops Cold War, the installation size for the PC version of Black Ops 6 has been reduced by 50%, going from 250GB down to 125GB. For the multiplayer mode, players will need 35GB of disk space, instead of 50GB.
On next-gen consoles, the game will also have a sizable install size. At launch, Black Ops Cold War will take up 133GB on the PS5 and 136GB on the Xbox Series X/S. For current-gen consoles, the file size is 95GB for the PS4 and 93GB for the Xbox One.
What historical context is provided about the use of always-on internet connections in single-player games by publishers like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft?
The use of always-on internet connections in single-player games by publishers like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft has a history dating back over a decade. In the past, these publishers experimented with requiring an always-on internet connection to play single-player games, which was widely condemned as it seemed to be an anti-piracy measure that only made official versions of games less functional than their pirated counterparts. This requirement mainly affected those with unreliable internet connections, and it was eventually abandoned. However, Activision has recently revived this requirement for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's single-player campaign on both PC and consoles, citing the need for texture streaming to reduce the game's storage space on hard drives. This decision has raised concerns about how it might impact players with slow or unreliable connections.