Run, Shaders Are Coming The shader installation, a nuisance well-known to players of the PC version of Modern Warfare, returned at the Activision-sponsored "Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War" multiplayer session. I closed my mouth.

For those of you who haven't been plagued by Call of Duty's shader addiction over the past year, shader installs are those that ambush players when they load the game from a fresh install or a new patch, virtually sitting in the main menu while the shaders are reconfigured for the campaign or multiplayer.

A shader install is a slow installation that takes 5-10 minutes, effectively forcing the player to sit at the main menu while the shaders are reconfigured for the campaign or multiplayer.

Why does Call of Duty have to do this? I have no idea, and I doubt anyone working on the game cares about this; it seems to be an inevitability tied to the new engine that Modern Warfare and Cold War have on board. If it's just the first launch, shaders are hardly a concern, but with Modern Warfare, the installation happens after every major or minor patch, and I'd hate to see another shader install after downloading Modern Warfare's famously huge patch! I was hoping that "Cold Warfare" would avoid this annoyance, but it looks like I'm going to have to deal with shaders again this year.