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Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2's PC version has become quite a hot topic due to its size, currently around 150 GB, roughly three times larger than on consoles, caused mostly by asset duplication. Arrowhead's Deputy Technical Director, Brendan Armstrong, recently explained the reasons behind this in a Steam blog post, which is intended to be the first in a series covering the game's technical challenges.
In game development, duplicating data helps improve load times on older media like HDDs and DVDs. This approach is unnecessary on SSDs, so Helldivers 2's console versions don't duplicate assets. With the widespread adoption of SSDs, the need for data duplication has largely vanished: SSDs can access any data almost instantly, no matter its location on the drive.
Arrowhead suspects only a small number of Helldivers 2 players are still using mechanical HDDs, but it's important to remember that mission load times are determined by the slowest member of the squad. The idea of optional 4K textures has been considered, but developers say it's too complex to implement given the current scope of work.
The good news is that Arrowhead is actively exploring other solutions in parallel and plans to roll them out in future updates as they become ready. This includes targeting the worst cases of asset duplication and making improvements to the game engine.
"We cannot eliminate all duplication without making loading times for mechanical HDDs 10 times slower, and we do not feel that this is acceptable. There are, however, some compromises that we can make which will improve the installation size without blowing out the loading times too much", Brendan concluded.
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