Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB, thanks to the help of PC port veterans — ditching HDD optimization, 85% size reduction accomplished by de-duplicating game data

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PC players can now opt into a slim version that’s 85% smaller.

Helldivers 2 game poster
(Image credit: Xbox)

It's no surprise to see modern AAA games occupying hundreds of gigabytes of storage these days, especially if you are gaming on a PC. But somehow, Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers behind the popular co-op shooter Helldivers 2, have managed to substantially cut the game’s size by 85%.

As per a recent post on Steam, this reduction was made possible with support from Nixxes Software, best known for developing high-quality PC ports of Sony’s biggest PlayStation titles. The developers were able to achieve this by de-duplicating game data, which resulted in bringing the size down from ~154GB to just ~23GB, saving a massive ~131GB of storage space.

Originally, the game’s large install size was attributed to optimization for mechanical hard drives since duplicating data is used to reduce loading times on older storage media. However, it turns out that Arrowhead’s estimates for load times on HDDs, based on industry data, were incorrect.

With their latest data measurements specific to the game, the developers have confirmed the small number of players (11% last week) using mechanical hard drives will witness mission load times increase by only a few seconds in worst cases. Additionally, the post reads, “the majority of the loading time in Helldivers 2 is due to level-generation rather than asset loading. This level generation happens in parallel with loading assets from the disk and so is the main determining factor of the loading time.”

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Kunal Khullar
Kunal Khullar
News Contributor

Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware.  He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hotaru251
    i mean...its 2025...almost 2026 just accept that HDD for gaming is not gonna cut it. You can buy a 500GB ssd for sub $50.
    Don't be like the windows OS and drag dead weight (32bit x86) that holds you back.
    Reply
  • Gururu
    Having the option is key. I wonder if every other +100GB game has the same accommodations.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    If you're a pc gamer in 2025, you should SSD's should be minimum spec for all AAA titles. I bought a 256GB SATA SSD for $20 years ago. You can get 256GB Sata SSD's on ebay for $15 now. I mean common, it's cheaper than most AAA titles. Even consoles are SSD only now.
    Reply
  • teeejay94
    hotaru251 said:
    i mean...its 2025...almost 2026 just accept that HDD for gaming is not gonna cut it. You can buy a 500GB ssd for sub $50.
    Don't be like the windows OS and drag dead weight (32bit x86) that holds you back.
    Just accept that you can't get 12TB for 300$ on a SSD 💯 SSDs are also garbage for long term storage.
    Reply
  • deadcat27
    This is maddening to say the least. Just to sell a few more copies of a title, devs and publishers are wasting space on my storage which is crazy expensive per gb so that I can subsidize other players because they are too cheap or ill-informed to have proper modern hardware. I can't imagine what this has cost the rest of us and it's doubtful that this de-gigafication has anything to do with the user experience but rather the file transfer and hosting fees for the publishers. This 11% is the same group that creates a troubleshooting post/ticket about how their game runs poorly on their PC and when prompted for more detailed system info they reply simply, "It's a Windows PC."

    Over a decade ago, in 2011-12, I was playing WoW installed on Sandisk CZ80 because my system drive, a crucial m4 64gb, wasn't big enough to handle the OS and wow. I think even as a USB stick its TP and RA was way way faster than the standard hdd at the time and that 64gb was way less than $100. It wasn't anything special, just a i3-2120 and a gt560 and I bet that whole system cost ~$5-600ish and likely outperformed many of its contemporaries simply because it was using sata ssd and a USB flash drive. I can't imagine if I had used that system with just a hdd.

    This nonsense is directly related to how some titles still have a forced pre-roll when starting up to allow for a hdd to load the game as if its a console while my system had the whole thing loaded before the pre-roll even displayed on my screen. This inconvenience only cost me 20 seconds of my life and not expensive nand though.

    Just think. A modern W11 install fully configured after its trimming might only be around 25-35gb (ymmv). If the all game space we needed could get reduced like this we could all be using 100% SLC drives rather than a single game needlessly taking up most of it with current designs !
    Ugh!
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    teeejay94 said:
    Just accept that you can't get 12TB for 300$ on a SSD 💯 SSDs are also garbage for long term storage.

    No one is saying for long term storage, just for gaming.

    It's not fair that we need to take up 154GB of SSD space instead of 23GB just to accomodate the 11% of the player base that refuse to get an SSD for games.
    Reply
  • tennis2
    can someone explain this to me? If the "necessary" file size is 23GB and presumably not all of that data needed to be duplicated....say 1/2 of it(?), then they duplicated that 12GB roughly TEN TIMES OVER!?!?!

    Or am I thinking about it wrong and it's more of a pre-rendered asset library that doesn't need to exist.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    I took note of the amount of free space on my games drive before updating and switching to the Slim branch. Then I compared it with the number after all the updating and switch was complete. 179GB of space appeared to be freed up. That's HUGE. The game should have NEVER wasted that much space. My number is probably inflated a bit due to downloading the update packages. Still, the game has some serious PC port issues. I am glad they're finally fixing things.
    Reply
  • Pyranna87
    teeejay94 said:
    Just accept that you can't get 12TB for 300$ on a SSD 💯 SSDs are also garbage for long term storage.
    For modern gaming, you want good read speeds. Huge capacity and long term unpowered storage are not important issues for most people. The vast majority of gamers would probably be more than fine with a 1TB nvme.
    Reply
  • tennis2
    Gururu said:
    Having the option is key. I wonder if every other +100GB game has the same accommodations.
    Well, between that and the 30GB HD audio pack....
    Reply