Helldivers 2 Gets A Massive PC File Size Cut
PC game installs keep getting bigger, but our drives do not. In 2025 it is normal to see single titles eating 100 or even 200 GB of SSD space, which hurts if you are juggling a library of modern games on a 1 TB drive.
That is why the latest update for Helldivers 2 is such a big deal for PC players. Developer Arrowhead has rolled out a new technical beta on Steam that slashes the game’s install size from around 154 GB all the way down to about 23 GB. That is a reduction of roughly 131 GB or about 85 percent of the original footprint.
This new slim build actually makes the PC install even smaller than the console versions, which sit at roughly 35 GB. For anyone trying to squeeze a few more games onto a crowded SSD, this is huge.
How Arrowhead Shrunk The Game And What It Means
Arrowhead explains that the big saving comes from one main change: fully de duplicating the game’s data. In plain terms, a lot of assets were stored more than once on your drive. By cleaning that up and keeping only a single copy of repeated data, they have reclaimed a huge amount of space.
Why was the PC version bloated in the first place? Earlier, the studio had said that Helldivers 2 on PC duplicated a lot of its data to play nicely with older mechanical hard drives. Traditional HDDs are slow at seeking lots of tiny files spread across the disk, so developers sometimes duplicate data to keep reads more sequential and speed up loading on those drives.
That design choice meant the PC version was roughly three times larger than the console builds. The new slim version suggests Arrowhead and support studio Nixxes have now found a way to keep performance acceptable without relying on so much duplication, even for players still using HDDs.
For PC gamers, this raises a tempting question: how many other massive installs could be trimmed with similar optimizations? Huge titles like Call of Duty are famous for swallowing entire SSDs. While not every game can cut 80 percent of its size overnight, Helldivers 2 shows that careful data management can make a serious difference.
Arrowhead says that switching to the slim build should have only minimal effect on load times. You might see a difference of a few seconds at most, which is a tradeoff most PC players will gladly accept in exchange for more than 100 GB of extra free space.
Importantly, there are no gameplay or feature differences between the legacy and slim versions. Both connect to the same ongoing galactic war, use the same accounts, and share your progression, unlocks, and purchases. You are not moving to a different branch of the game in terms of content, only in terms of how it sits on your drive.
How To Opt In To The Slim Beta On Steam
The smaller build is currently available as a public technical beta on Steam. Arrowhead has run several rounds of internal QA and is now inviting early adopters to test it in the real world. Because this is a beta, there is a chance of bugs or unexpected issues, but the studio sounds confident about its stability.
If you want to grab back more than 100 GB on your PC, here is how to switch:
- Open Steam and go to your Library.
- Right click Helldivers 2 and select Properties.
- Go to the Betas tab.
- From the drop down, choose the option labeled something like Slim beta.
- Let Steam update or reinstall the game to the new build.
After that, Helldivers 2 should occupy roughly 23 GB instead of the original 154 GB. What you do with all that extra space is up to you, whether it is downloading more games, installing high resolution texture packs elsewhere, or storing 4K movie rips.
If you prefer to play it safe, you can stay on the legacy build for now. Both versions share the same servers and progression, so you can switch later once the slim build exits beta or once you feel comfortable trying it.
Why This Matters For PC Hardware And Future Games
From a PC hardware and storage perspective, this kind of optimization is very welcome. Modern AAA games increasingly expect players to have fast SSDs with plenty of headroom. For anyone on a smaller NVMe drive or still running a mixed setup with SSD plus HDD, every saved gigabyte matters.
Helldivers 2’s shrink highlights a few useful points for PC gamers:
- Data layout and duplication can massively affect install size without changing the actual content.
- Optimizations designed to help slower HDDs can bloat installs on systems that use SSDs.
- Studios can revisit their storage strategies after launch to better balance performance and footprint.
It also puts polite pressure on other developers of storage hungry titles. When one high profile live service game proves it can cut its size by more than 80 percent and keep performance almost unchanged, players are going to look at other 150 GB plus installs and wonder what could be better optimized.
For now, if you are a Helldivers 2 player on PC, this slim beta is one of the easiest ways to win back a big chunk of your storage without buying new hardware. It is a reminder that sometimes performance is not just about more teraflops or higher frame rates. Smart data management can be just as important for keeping your gaming rig running smoothly and your SSD ready for the next wave of releases.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/helldivers-2-cuts-its-install-size-from-154gb-to-23gb-in-a-beta-you-can-opt-into-now-defeating-liberty-hating-storage-reqs-with-no-functional-differences-between-versions/
