Helldivers 2 Is About to Shrink on PC as Arrowhead Prepares a Massive 85% Install Size Cut

Arrowhead Game Studios is about to surprise Helldivers 2 PC players with a huge gift. The developer has revealed that the game's install size will soon be reduced dramatically—by approximately 85%—due to major technical improvements made with the assistance of PlayStation-owned Nixxes Software.

The announcement was made on the game's official Steam page, and Arrowhead's deputy technical director Brendan Armstrong confirmed that the PC version will be reduced from approximately 154GB to only 23GB. This means that players can reclaim over 131GB of storage space, a significant improvement at a time when large games frequently require hundreds of gigabytes.

Why Was Helldivers 2 So Large on PC?

Earlier in October, Armstrong outlined the underlying reason for the huge install size. The PC version was created to accommodate players who still use older mechanical hard drives (HDDs). Because HDDs take longer to read data, Arrowhead duplicated many frequently used assets—such as textures and sound files—across the game's data to improve loading times for those users.

However, due to the extremely fast read speeds of modern SSDs, this duplication was unnecessary. The extra data was unnecessary for the console versions of Helldivers 2, so the PC version was much larger.

What Changed?

After running fresh in-game tests and gathering real player data, Arrowhead learned two key things:

• Only about 11% of active PC players currently use an HDD.

• The loading durations in Helldivers 2 are primarily determined by level generation rather than asset loading. This procedure operates in parallel, thus deleting duplicated files has little impact on load times—even on slower storage.

  
  

With these new insights, Arrowhead and Nixxes were able to safely eliminate the duplicated data while maintaining performance. What was the result? The game has been reduced to one-sixth its prior size, with HDD users experiencing only minor changes in mission loading times.

‘Slim’ Version Available Now in Public Beta

The smaller version of the game has not yet been officially released, but PC users can test it via a public beta on Steam. Armstrong ensures that players that join the beta will remain connected to the same universal battle as everyone else, with

• Full access to matchmaking

• The same account and progression

• All purchases and unlocks carrying over

  
  

Players can switch back to the full-sized version anytime if they run into problems, especially those using mods, which may not yet work properly with the slimmer build.

A Big Win for PC Players

Huge game installs have become the standard for AAA titles, but Arrowhead's successful decrease demonstrates that better data management can make a significant impact. If additional developers follow this lead, it may save PC players hundreds of terabytes in the future.

For the time being, Helldivers 2 gamers can enjoy the rare sight of a big game dropping by a significant margin.