You'll Need 97GB Of Free Space For 'Middle-earth: Shadow Of War'

It’s no secret that the overall file sizes for PC games are on the rise. One such evidence is Monolith Productions’ Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which comes out tomorrow. You’ll need to clear some storage for the game, as the initial download requires about 97GB of free space.

According to a tweet from IGN reviews executive editor Dan Stapleton, the massive file size includes voice acting for the game’s Uruk characters as well as 4K video. Our own download of the game, specifically the Gold Edition variant, confirmed the file size. However, we noticed that the download also included two other pieces, simply called “HD Cinematics” and “HD Content,” which could be the 4K assets Stapleton mentioned. Unchecking these options after the download was completed brought down the overall file size to about 69GB, which was 9GB more than the initial storage requirement published by Monolith earlier this year.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War isn’t the only title this year to reach the 90-plus GB file size at launch. Turn 10 Studios’ Forza Motorsport 7 requires about 95GB of space, but it’s unclear as to how much of the file is reserved for 4K content. We reached out to Monolith to get additional information on the HD assets for the game, and we’ll update as we get more details.

If you do plan to grab Middle-earth: Shadow of War tomorrow, make sure you meet the hardware requirements and download the latest driver for your Nvidia GPU. If you’re still on the fence about the game, you can check out our hands-on coverage of it from E3 earlier this year.