Brendan Armstrong, a deputy technical director at Arrowhead Game Studios, recently shed light on a lingering question for many players: why does Helldivers 2 take up approximately 150GB on PC, while only about a third of that on consoles? The answer, it turns out, is rooted in the developers’ efforts to accommodate the portion of the PC player base still utilizing older hard disk drives (HDDs) instead of modern solid-state drives (SSDs), a critical insight for any tech enthusiast, as Digital Tech Explorer aims to provide.
The Technical Explanation: Why PC Size Differs
According to Armstrong, the significant PC file size is a direct consequence of optimizing for slower hardware. A traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) stores data on a spinning platter, and a physical arm must move across that platter to read data. The time it takes for this arm to move, known as “seek” time, creates a notable performance bottleneck, leading to extended loading times.
To combat this, Arrowhead’s build system deliberately duplicates certain data files, such as a common tree texture or a sound effect. These copies are placed in physically close proximity to other assets they will be loaded with, like level geometry. When the game loads a level, the drive’s read head can access all the required information in a single, continuous sweep without having to seek different locations. This technique significantly accelerates loading times for HDD users, a critical factor in a multiplayer game where a match can’t commence until all players have loaded.
Developer’s Dilemma: Balancing HDDs and SSDs
This optimization strategy leads to a major question for developers and players alike: should they continue catering to players with older HDDs, or should they focus on optimizing the experience for those who have upgraded to a modern Solid-State Drive (SSD)? While the studio doesn’t have exact numbers, Armstrong provided a “very unreliable” estimate that around 12% of the player base might still rely on HDDs. While seemingly a minority, this still represents a substantial number of active Helldivers.
This is a key reason why many new games, like Starfield, explicitly require an SSD in their minimum system specifications. For a cooperative game like Helldivers 2, leaving behind players on older hardware presents a difficult decision, as one player’s extended load time impacts the entire squad. The dilemma involves balancing inclusivity with the technical advantages offered by newer hardware, a challenge often explored on platforms like Digital Tech Explorer.
Proposed Solutions and Future Commitments
Armstrong also addressed several potential fixes and explained their drawbacks. Simply removing the duplicated assets is not a viable option, as he noted Arrowhead “cannot eliminate all data duplication without making load times for mechanical HDDs 10 times slower, which they deem unacceptable.” Another suggestion, making 4K textures optional, would be a “substantial project” because the game was not architected with that functionality in mind from the start.
Instead, Arrowhead has committed to ensuring the game’s install size will stop growing. The team is also “exploring taking some of the most redundant assets and de-duplicating them by putting them in ‘very common assets’ bundles which will always be loaded under set conditions.” This compromise will unfortunately slightly increase loading times for HDD users, but not to an unacceptable extent. Armstrong described this as an “unfortunate but unavoidable” trade-off.
Ultimately, Armstrong promises that the team is working toward “a better balance between loading times and installation size soon.” However, he cautions that “there are no easy solutions.” Until the day most of the PC player base has migrated to SSDs, sacrificing extra hard drive space remains a necessary compromise to ensure that all players can load into missions and fight for democracy in a reasonable amount of time. This kind of in-depth technical storytelling is what TechTalesLeo aims to deliver, helping to bridge the gap between complex game development decisions and the everyday player experience.