
PS5 users won't have had to worry about this, but Helldivers 2 on PC has a much larger install size than the console version.
However, developer Arrowhead, in conjunction with Sony's PC specialist Nixxes Software, has managed to make a dramatic reduction that'll make it an even smaller install than it is on PS5.
In an update on its Steam page (thanks, Wario64), Arrowhead has announced the game's installation size is being trimmed from 154GB to 23GB, a significant reduction of about 85 per cent.
This has been achieved by "completely de-duplicating our data", according to the studio, paying thanks to support from Nixxes.
"Our testing shows that for the small percentage of players still using mechanical hard disk drives, mission loading times have only increased by a few seconds in the worst cases," the update reads, meaning that the impact on the game itself is very minor.
This update to Helldivers 2 on PC is in a beta phase that players are able to opt into as of right now. Once any issues in the "slim" version of the game are eliminated, it'll become the default version for all PC users, and the old version will be discontinued.
"There are no functional differences between the legacy and slim versions besides the installation size," the team says, stressing that the new version is compatible with your save data and progression.
For the record, the game's install size on PS5 is just under 36GB.
It's a net win for the PC player base, then — you'll be able to use that precious storage space for something else.
Are you a Helldivers 2 PC user? What do you make of this news? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source store.steampowered.com, via x.com]





Comments 17
I’m sure CoD or Fallout76 would be happy to take those excess GB’s to add to their ever ballooning install sizes
Activision needs to call the Nixxes team to get this CoD mess fixed xD
About time! Been eating up a lot of space on my drive.
@Frmknst LOLZ
Was holding off on ps cause I didn't want to pay for online. And had to hold off on the pc version too because of that ridiculous amount of storage it takes up. I'll finally be able to try it out... on a sale anyway 😂
Hopefully we get a new faction or big update announced at the game awards.
Devs are still duplicating data for better loading times from mechanical hard drives on PC? Last time I had a mechanical drive in a PC was over 10 years ago.
Who the heck has a PC capable of playing Helldivers 2 that still has a mechanical HDD in it?
I opted into the beta on Steam this morning and the file size was reduced from 135 gb to about 24 gb.
Nixxes are wizards and they worked their magic and I'm super grateful, the game was getting so bloated lol.
Yet if you stay with the main game version they released a new patch today and it upped the install size from 134 to 155GB ?????
I'm downloading the BETA now seeing if they fixed the massive stuttering issues with the HELLPOD drop screen and then after 10 mins of playing on the main game branch. The game would tank in FPS and my controller wouldn't work and LAG big time
@Sweetz Apparently they got that from technical data, but it's an excuse they just didn't want to do anything to fix it. I wonder if this is Sony stepping in and getting Nixxies to help because on PC players have dropped out from lack of content but mostly performance issues
@Sweetz in my experience there’s a fair amount of people who are running PC games dramatically below recommended specs. I know a friend of mine who was playing it on a 2012ish AMD CPU (which was back in their bad CPU design days) who was playing with everything minimal as possible and I think getting a very stuttery 20-30 at best. No idea how the hell they compensated but they managed to play decently in the game.
They were on a mechanical drive till I went round and installed an SSD for them. I’ve got some similar friends who have only updated to an SSD in the past year or so despite copious badgering from me (and in 1 case actually bought the SSD but couldn’t be bothered to install it or do a windows install until the whole PC broke).
@Frmknst To each their own. Just because you prefer PvP games more that doesn't meant everyone does.
@Frmknst so why r u here in the first place mate?
Just to sh** on the game
Nixxes should try do the same in a bunch of PS5 1st party games. I don't care about PC, but i want smaller games installed on my SSD
Well I downloaded the Slim line Beta last night after quitting the game about 2 months ago, it'd 23.5GB in size which insane and realisation how stupid it was for them to do what they did based on a 10% mechanical HDD user base (according to tech data they saw).
Before all the patches in October it ran really good for me on PC with my Ryzen 5600/RX6600 8GB, 32GB DDR4 at 1080p. I was getting 80fps average everywhere in game even with the chaos going on from Strategems going off, then it was just tanking FPS after 10mins of play and I mean really really bad that it was also giving me input lag.
Beta version seems to be working great I still get the stutter during the hellpod drop scene, but now getting 80fps and I've done 4 matches last night. Also never checked if my GPU hotspot was as high on this beta compared to normal pushes it to 83 degrees at the junction spot (centre) which is fine and 63 outter edge
The big question is if they decided to keep that branch or swap it over wil patches just do it all over again. But I think they are going to keep the beta branch for SSD users
@Nakatomi_Uk Not sure why you're trying to imply the developers are lazy or stupid when their blog posts about this have been quite transparent about why they did it. As it turns out, they've realised they were playing it a bit too safe in duplicating as much data as they were, and that the impact on a tenth of their playerbase is not as significant as feared.
The slimmed-down version will replace the existing version next year as their post states, it isn't feasible nor necessary to maintain two different builds.
Games still has unplayable performance and stuttering but this is a start
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