If you’ve ever wondered why Helldivers 2 is eating up over 150GB of your precious SSD space on PC, you’re not alone — and Arrowhead Game Studios has finally given us some answers. Unfortunately, those answers aren’t as simple as we might’ve hoped.
In a recent update posted to Steam, Arrowhead’s Technical Director, Brendan Armstrong, pulled back the curtain on a long-standing issue: why the PC version of Helldivers 2 is three times larger than its console counterpart. And spoiler alert: it all comes down to the need for backward compatibility with old-school hard drives.
HDDs: The Hidden Villain
“The biggest issue with traditional hard drives is time,” Armstrong explains. Unlike modern SSDs, HDDs rely on physical components — spinning disks and mechanical arms — to retrieve data. That process is slow, especially when a game like Helldivers 2 needs to pull assets from multiple locations quickly.
Think of it like this: if you’re loading into a mission with dense environments — trees, rocks, buildings, enemies — and those assets are scattered across a spinning disk, the system has to spend time hunting for every single piece. That’s a massive performance bottleneck, especially in real-time multiplayer games.
To get around this, Arrowhead made a conscious decision: duplicate game data. That’s right — many assets, like textures and sound effects, are repeated across the installation so the game can load faster. “Most of the PC version is made up of duplicate data,” Armstrong says. “It’s a strategy used to improve load times on slower media like mechanical hard drives and DVDs.”
Why Consoles Don’t Have This Problem
Modern consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X are equipped with ultra-fast SSDs. Those systems can pull data nearly instantly, meaning duplication isn’t necessary. That’s why the console versions of Helldivers 2 are so much leaner — they simply don’t have to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
But on PC, it’s more complicated. While SSDs are increasingly common, they're not yet universal. Based on internal estimates, Arrowhead believes around 12% of their PC player base still uses HDDs. And here’s the kicker: loading times in co-op missions are dictated by the slowest player. If one squadmate is on an HDD, everyone waits.
The Tradeoff: Load Times vs. File Size
Arrowhead admits the situation is far from ideal. They’ve started taking steps to trim unnecessary assets in the next update, cleaning up unused resources and patching obvious redundancies. But realistically, any savings will likely be offset by upcoming content.
Looking further ahead, the studio is exploring more ambitious ideas like reworking the game’s data compression or implementing console-style de-duplication. However, these options are risky, speculative, and could negatively impact performance — something no one wants in a game where every second counts.
No Easy Answers (Yet)
"We take your concerns seriously," Armstrong said, “but there’s no good solution right now.” Unless Arrowhead can confidently confirm that the vast majority of PC players have SSDs, they’re forced to continue supporting HDD users — even if it means bloating the game’s file size.
It’s a frustrating compromise, but it’s one the devs are aware of and actively working to improve. For now, they’re promising to keep a close eye on the tradeoffs between performance and disk space and find a better balance in the near future.
So, while you might not be getting your storage back anytime soon, you can rest assured that the Helldivers 2 team is on it — and they’re listening.
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