Arrowhead Game Studios has addressed Helldivers 2 Fans concerns about their PC file size, explains why it is so large and describes some potential solutions. Optimization has been a major issue among the game's fanbase recently, but Devs has been true to recognize the need for improvements and work with corrections. As part of it Helldivers 2 Team has now offered an insight into how ongoing development can be designed in the future.
While the Co-OP shooter remains popular over platforms, players have feelings towards it have been watching lately. At the end of September, Helldivers 2Steam reviews fell to “mixed” when PC users listed complaints about the game's stability and performance. CEO Shams Joranji said that the team was “well aware” about the problem and worked actively with it, and now the fans are looking at what is happening behind the scenes.
Helldivers 2's PC file size originates from its mechanical HDD support
In a steam update on October 3, Arrowhead's vice technical manager declared it Helldivers 2S inflated PC installation size originates from a quirk of mechanical HDD support. The game uses a technology called data duplication to speed up load times on hard drives by creating multiple copies of regular assets, so a hard drive read arm does not have to move that far to charge a level in full. SSDS charges data without physical movement, so they don't have the same problem. That is why Helldivers 2The PC file size is 140 GB when the console version, which is optimized for SSDs, is only 35 GB.
Other games have also struggled with load -time problems at HDDS before. In particular, Star field Requires an SSD because rendering would take too long on HDDs, as it must physically move between places. Helldivers 2Data duplication minimizes these load times, but it also leads to archives and leaves Devs with an uncertain way forward. Posten explains that in the short and medium term, the arrowhead will remove unused assets and bundles regular files to minimize HDD loading times while shrinks the total file size. In addition, however, the solution is less clear.
Arrowhead said it cannot optimize solely for SSDs, even if they become more common until it knows how many Helldivers 2 PC players use HDDs, as it does not want to leave these users with a worse experience. It also flowed the idea of making 4K structures optional and said that Devs will experiment with compression and improvements to the gaming engine to see what works best. The studio has confirmed that it has no plans for one Helldivers 3 Currently, which frees up time and resources to focus on these optimizations, but when a permanent solution comes out is still uncertain.
- Published
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February 8, 2024
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / blood and gore, intense violence, purchases in the game, users interact
- Developer
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Arrowhead Game Studios, Nixxes
- Publisher
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Sony Interactive Entertainment, Playstation Publishing
