Update 6:00 p.m. ET: On the Steam forums, Activision has confirmed that Modern Warfare 2 players on Steam already have *Warzone 2.0 pre-installed and "will need to wait for the Season 01 update before Wednesday's launch." We have confirmed this. We have updated this article to reflect that explanation.

With Call of Duty: Warzone 2 coming to Steam a few days before its November 16 launch, the game's preload option was launched, but it caused a bit of confusion.

If you don't have Modern Warfare 2, just click the preload button and start downloading Warzone 2.0 on Steam and you should be fine. At the moment, the download is a sensible 23 GB, but it may grow once the Season 01 update for Modern Warfare 2 is released.

But if you own Modern Warfare 2, beware. You may have noticed, as I did, that clicking "Pre-Load Game" will launch Modern Warfare 2 and send you to the main menu without downloading anything new. Some players were confused by this, but Activision added today that if you have installed Modern Warfare 2 and are up to date, Warzone 2.0 should already be pre-installed.

Whether or not you own MW2, the Season 01 update will be delivered sometime before Wednesday's Warzone 2.0 launch, prompting another download.

Also, the system requirements for Warzone 2.0 as listed on Steam are the same as for Modern Warfare 2. Therefore, it is unclear exactly how much hard disk space the unzipped download will take up. The system requirements page lists 125 GB, but Warzone's preload is much smaller than that; Battle.net lists the "Base Game" and Warzone as a combined 17.4 GB download.

While this may seem a bit confusing, it may actually be better than its console comrades: preloading the PS5 version of "Warzone 2" (open in a new tab) and finding the Xbox one seems to be a bit of a pain.

Activision also mentions on Twitter that after preloading, without mentioning a specific platform, "You do not need to experience Warzone 2.0 before launch, but you may be prompted to purchase Modern Warfare 2."

This marks Warzone's debut on Steam; Warzone made its PC debut on Battle.net in March 2020, but ahead of Microsoft's expected acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company returned to Steam last month and in October also released Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time on Steam, Activision's first game on the platform since 2019.

One final note on Steam's Warzone: Warzone blocks preloading the game until the latest drivers are installed.