Helldivers 2 has suddenly become 130 GB smaller. The developers explain that they have deleted data. This benefits the game size. Users with an outdated hard drive now have slightly longer load times.
The developers of Helldivers 2 have released an optional update for the cooperative shooter. The size of the game drops from 130 GB to around 20 GB, which sounds surprising at first. The developers only deleted things that were already duplicated or triplicated.
Developer Arrowhead explains in a blog post why the game has become smaller and what exactly they did.
Game was deliberately bloated for HDDs
Why was the game so large in the first place? In a statement, the developers explained why Helldivers is so large on PC and so small on console. In consideration of players who did not have the game installed on an SSD, they had added thousands of data files in duplicate.
The idea was to speed up load times for systems using a slow hard drive (HDD). Because of the many duplicate files, the disk’s read head did not have to search for the correct files for as long.
However, it is exactly these duplicate and triplicate files that have now been deleted. They have abandoned the compromise of bloating the game for better load times in order to improve load times for players with a hard drive in their computer.
Do players with hard drives have a disadvantage? Only partially, as the developers themselves explain on Steam: For players with a hard drive in their computer, loading times may be extended by a few seconds. This is a good compromise for the fact that the game is now only around 20 GB in size. Currently, this update is optional on PC, as Arrowhead is still testing it to ensure that nothing has been overlooked.
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