In the nick of time, Helldivers 2 rolls out a "slim version" shrinking file sizes by a whopping 85% on PC: "It's a low-risk way to save ~131GB of space on your drive"

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In the nick of time, Helldivers 2 rolls out a "slim version" shrinking file sizes by a whopping 85% on PC: "It's a low-risk way to save ~131GB of space on your drive" News By Anthony McGlynn published 2 December 2025

The public beta is now underway

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Sweet liberty, the Helldivers 2 PC file size is finally getting a substantial reduction after months of bloating and taking up chunks of people's hard drives. In a new update, Arrowhead Game Studios has shaved around 85% of the overall memory requirement down, creating a "slim version."

The numbers are as follows: the files for Helldivers 2 used to amount to around 154GB, but now they stand at a grand total of around 23GB. That's a massive difference, and one that's been long overdue in the eyes of players who've had to dedicate an increasingly large partition of their space to the multiplayer shooter.

This also means load times are becoming reduced, something the devs actually feared would get worse instead of better. "I am pleased to say that our worst case projections did not come to pass. These loading time projections were based on industry data - comparing the loading times between SSD and HDD users where data duplication was and was not used," the tech blog states.

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• Helldivers 2 devs have heard our complaints and "have escalated the priority" of addressing the absurd 140GB PC file size, but there's no word on when changes are coming
• Helldivers 2's 150GB PC install is "unacceptably large," and Arrowhead hopes to work out a solution that could "theoretically slice the size in half"
• Helldivers 2 dev says "there are no easy solutions" to fix the massive 150GB PC file size, but Arrowhead is "sure to find a better balance between loading times and installation size soon"

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Here's a small bit of bad news: this patch isn't going to all players just yet. A public technical beta is going right now, and you can sign-up if you fancy being one of the first to see what these changes do to the game and help Arrowhead make any changes necessary.

"You will still be able to matchmake and play with all other players," the notes state. "You can also opt-out at any time if you experience issues. It's a low-risk way to save ~131GB of space on your drive and help us extend our testing to real-life conditions."

Should all go well, the "slim version" of Helldivers 2 will become the norm and everyone can enjoy giving a reasonable slice of their valuable memory to democracy. "Given the very minor differences in loading times between the two versions, there is no justification for us to keep supporting the legacy version long term," the blog post reads.

"Maintaining the legacy version alongside the slim version would only add extra burden to our developers, build machines, QA teams and release processes. Assuming all goes smoothly, the legacy version will be discontinued some time next year."

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Helldivers 2 patch brings balance changes and bug fixes, but fans are devastated that "Factory Striders will no longer be launched to sky erratically" now: "Worst change ever."

TOPICS Sony CATEGORIES PC Gaming PS5 Xbox Series X Platforms PlayStation Xbox Anthony McGlynnSocial Links NavigationContributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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