Call of Duty is finally freeing some of the older games from the CoD HQ launcher nobody likes

PC Gamer’s resident Call of Duty officer Morgan Park had some thoughts when Call of Duty HQ debuted in 2023, and I’m just going to let him speak for himself here: “Call of Duty’s new stupid launcher is a data management nightmare, and it may get worse with Modern Warfare 3.” No, come on Morgan, tell us what you really think.

Anyway, I can’t say if he was right or wrong on that call, although his subsequent report that “you don’t have to launch Modern Warfare 2 to launch Modern Warfare 3 anymore, but now you can’t launch Warzone without first launching Modern Warfare 3” gives me a strong feeling that he was at the very least not wrong.

I will say, however, that this is where I tapped out of the whole thing: I like the Modern Warfare campaigns well enough, but I’m not downloading all that for a singleplayer experience that’s shorter than your typical Christopher Judge award acceptance speech.

Ah, but finally it’s my time to play. Activision announced yesterday that as of 9 am PT on July 29—so, earlier today—Modern Warfare 2 and MW3 will “become standalone downloads.”

“Beginning [July 29], MWII or MWIII owners can access them directly after redownloading each title,” Activision wrote via the Call of Duty Updates account on X. “Legacy content related to MWII and MWIII modes within the main Call of Duty install will be automatically removed on August 7 to free up storage space.”

This doesn’t necessarily point to a move away from Call of Duty HQ entirely. It’s more likely, I think, that Activision is doing a little housecleaning ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which arrives later this year.

But there’s also plenty of demand on social media for the studio to do just that—make all the Call of Duty games standalone and ditch HQ entirely—so who knows? Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, this whole unnecessary entanglement will be a thing of the past. For now, Modern Warfare 2 and MW3 are finally free of those HQ shackles, and that’s a good start.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.