Arrowhead Games has released a slim version of Helldivers 2 that uses significantly less storage space.
The amount of storage space that some games take up on the hard drive has been a hot topic of discussion for years. Some titles require well over 100 GB without offering noticeably more content than significantly smaller games. Helldivers 2 now shows that optimization is possible.
Helldivers 2 shrinks to one-sixth of its original size
The popular co-op shooter from Arrowhead Games is one of those games that seems to take up a disproportionate amount of storage space. The title requires a whopping 154 GB. Now the developers have released a slim version and reduced this value to just 23 GB.
In a blog post on Steam, the studio explains that they have been working on optimizing the PC version for some time, but that the storage space saved has always been less than the newly added content.
The slim version has now been launched as a beta to ensure that there are no serious issues. Anyone who wants to participate can activate the “prod_slim” build under ‘Betas’ in the “Properties” tab in the Steam library.
There is an intense discussion about this on Reddit. In just 16 hours, the post has already garnered more than 18,000 likes and nearly 1,000 comments. One user writes, “The difference is simply an entire CoD game.”
Helldivers 2 File Size On PC Has Been Reduced By 85% From 154GB To Roughly 23GB With The Help Of Playstation PC Port Studio Nixxes
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Overall, the move is naturally welcomed, but it also draws criticism of other developers once again. Games such as Call of Duty, God of War: Ragnarök, and Street Fighter 6 should take a leaf out of their book, according to the general consensus. However, it’s unlikely to be that simple.
How did Arrowhead achieve this? As explained further in the blog post, the massive savings are primarily due to the removal of a large amount of duplicate data that was originally there to provide the best possible gaming experience for HDD users.
Industry data had indicated that loading times would be significantly longer with an HDD than with an SSD. However, the company has now collected enough of its own data to suggest that the difference is much smaller.
Even in the Slim version, loading times with an HDD are only a few seconds longer than for SSD users. If the beta is successful, the Slim version will completely replace the Legacy version. So if you can spare the storage space, you can simply wait and see and drink some Libertea.
