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Helldivers 2 has been a triumphant success on both PS5 and PC since its launch in early 2024, and the game is getting into bed with Xbox in just under a week. While the unanimous consensus is that the game is terrific, even Arrowhead admit there are big issues with optimization, and it appears especially worse on PC, although there are hiccups on PS5. One of the biggest complaints amongst the community is the extraordinarily larger file size on computer compared to console, and Helldivers 2 fans have uncovered the baffling reason why the game is 100GB bigger on PC.

Helldivers 2 sleuths uncover why HD2 is 100GB bigger on PC than PS5

On the Helldivers subreddit, there has been a lot of complaints recently about the file size of HD2 on PC compared to PS5. As evidenced by screenshots from the community, the PC file size at release was 70GB, but it has now become 131GB. On the other hand, PS5 is 35GB, and the Xbox Series X/S store lists the game at the “approximate size” of 35GB.

Naturally, there has been a lot of speculation as to why the game is so much bigger on PC. It’s natural for game file sizes to be bigger on PC than console, but 100GB seems extraordinary. While no official reason has been shared by Arrowhead, it has been uncovered by OP, RaidingForPants.

Per the Reddit OP, the 131GB file size is “not because of 4K textures… [it’s] because the game duplicates assets. And it does it a lot”. The OP reports that, “Instead of having 1 copy of a given texture (or other asset), that texture is instead duplicated and bundled in multiple different files with other assets that use that texture”.

An example cited is the “Devastator and the Heavy Devastator meshes (their 3D models) [which] are stored in separate files… [but] each of these files also has a copy of several of the same textures because they both use the same textures for their main body. The normal map for the devastator body appears 44 times in the game files”.

In addition to the above example, another “egregious case for file size” discovered is a “2K normal map for rocky environments that was duplicated 128 times for a total of 2 GB of space used”.

Lastly, the OP says, “I wrote a script to comb through the game files and count up the number of times each game resource appears, the output of which you can see in the image post, sorted by number of occurrences (only the first few results are shown). The total combined size of the game resources is 133.97 GB… But the actual size of unique resources is only 30.39 GB… you can cut 100 GB off the install size if the game only had 1 copy of each of its assets”.

Unfortunately, with the above discovery, we don’t know why assets are bafflingly duplicated so much. Some have speculated in the replies that it could perhaps be an “attempt to lower loadtimes” similar to a method used for games on PS4, but another user replied, “with SSDs this technique is not needed”.

Some have also speculated engine limitation, but there’s no official explanation provided by Arrowhead as of writing. All the Arrowhead CEO has previously said is that they are aware of optimization issues on PC, and that one of the biggest problems is that every time they add new content the game gets a lot of “technical debt” added due to “old tech”.

For more Helldivers 2, check out our guide to the best warbonds ranked, along with the best stratagems and best throwables. We also have a guide to the best weapons, and, if you’re coming back to HD2 for the first time in a long while, we have a bunch of tips and tricks to help you get reaccustomed to the battlefield.

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