It was recently announced that Red Dead Redemption 2’s install size would be 105GB, making it the largest install from disc I’ve ever seen. I can only assume this means the campaign and the online mode are considered separate instances; if they aren’t, hoo boy, this game could be HUGE in every sense of the word.
(That file size is so massive, it has even scared the horsie in the image above.)
Prior to this, the largest install I’d seen was for Destiny 2 at 69GB (I know, nice); that’s still an enormous file size. I’d thought the largest was surely The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, however that came in at 63GB.
With games getting more and more complex and requiring more space, this has me a bit concerned. The standard PS4 is 500GB, and only really 400 and change is available from the get go. You can get a Pro with 1TB, but 105GB is still a sizeable chunk on either setup. I now have a 4TB external drive, and I love it, so I’m not as worried about all that space being taken up with one game, but is this the direction we are headed in the near future? If so, systems are going to need to increase in data capacity far sooner than later. I like the ease of external drives, but I’d still prefer the drive be part of the system internally.
Even as I write this, I know games will generally have larger and larger install sizes. I know a lot of folks already do the old switcheroo when it comes to deleting older games to make room for new ones. I do wonder how long this is sustainable before consoles see a massive increase in capacity. I have to imagine next gen will have a standard 2TB hard drive at the least.
What do you think about these ever-increasing install sizes? Have you had to make adjustments to your consoles to accommodate the data requirements of modern games?
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This weekend I’m going to challenge myself to play and complete two new to me games; I just want to break out of the current gaming rut I’m in. Honestly? I think I want to finally play Shape of the World, as well as Blackwood Crossing. I still want to try out Strange Brigade and, so help me god, if I don’t start Shadow of the Tomb Raider by the end of the day, I’m not going to let myself play any video games at all this weekend.
What will you be playing this weekend?
Please be safe out there friends, and please take care of yourselves. Cheers.
Categories: games
Rebekah Lang 
It’s crazy to think about a quarter of a 500 GB system ( not counting the 100 ish gigs that the system eats up) is going to be taken up by Red Dead. It’s one game! I know ESO is pretty huge at this point (i think 100 gigs or around there) but that is an MMO that has 3 years ish of content at this point. Wowzers. Red Dead gon be big. I need to get me an external drive. Still rocking the ol’ 500gb ps4 haha.
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It really is. For ONE game! I do recommend the external drives on Amazon. I got my 4TB Western Digital drive for under $100.
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Halo’s Master Chief Collection was pretty close to 100g at one point so this is something I’ve come to terms with over this gen. I bought an external drive pretty early on and have been using that since but I’m not sure that even 2TB is going to be good enough for next gen to start.
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I recall that being a large file but I don’t recall the size; that’s bonkers. I think it was smart you were an early adopter of the external drive. I’m a huge fan now that I’ve got one!
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I just find myself wondering if it really *needs* to be 100+GB, or if the devs just haven’t bothered to optimise and compress as much as they could have, working on the assumption that people “probably” have the space available. Thankfully I tend not to play a lot of big-budget triple-A stuff these days; the Japanese stuff I enjoy still tends to weigh in at no more than 10GB tops, usually significantly less.
(He says, looking back to the Atari ST era, when pirate groups were so much better at compression than actual game developers that they could literally fit six full games in fully playable format on one floppy disk.)
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That’s a good point and I also wonder that. I haven’t played Persona 5 yet but that’s the largest install for a JRPG that I can think of offhand.
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I remember playing The Sims for the first time and being amazed by being 600 or so mb. SO BIG! Now we’re getting crazy with 100gb!
It sucks when I have to download games this big, but with pre-download and background downloads…it’s not THAT bad. It also sucks if you have a data cap. Installing from the disc is not a BIG problem for me as I usually don’t play more than two games at the same time and don’t replay games soon as I first beat them, so I can always uninstall the last few games I played. That said, I still have an external hd for my Xbox and changed the 500gb hd from my PS4 to a 750gb one…so I have a little bit extra space than usual.
Yesterday I started (and finished) a game you really enjoyed. Donut County! Really pretty and cute game. Really enjoyed the game! It will probably crack my Top 10 this year. Now I don’t know what I will be playing! I’m thinking about starting the Halo franchise for the first time! I’ll also be playing some sports games.
Have a nice weekend and lots of fun!
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It’s so crazy, isn’t it? I mean, to see how drastically things have changed in our lifetime is bonkers. And yes, data caps seem like they would put the harsh on all this data real fast.
YEAHHH DONUT COUNTY!! I’m glad you enjoyed it! I just thought it was so odd and charming.
If you do wind up playing Halo, I’m curious what you think of it. I have no nostalgia for that series and played through the first four on the Master Chief Collection and I just didn’t connect with them. It’s even weirder because I love the Destiny universe so much.
I hope you are having a good week!
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OK, IT guy here so I do kind of know where we head from here. Its a long statement but I will attempt to be brief.
What do you think about these ever-increasing install sizes? Have you had to make adjustments to your consoles to accommodate the data requirements of modern games?
This was the natural way of things. It has always been like this. From the Playstation to the PS2 to the 3 and now 4. PS1’s CD’s held up to 700MB, PS2 DVD’s up to 4.7GB PS3’s Blu Ray up to 20GB and PS4’s up to ~40GB. Hard drives are going to have to increase to compensate regardless of how we feel.
The problem isnt that file sizes are getting bigger, its that its expensive to scale with this changing tech while keeping the price down. The price of a 1TB HDD in general was $150+ USD when the PS4 came out. They only started offering this size increase when the price started to come down and SSD’s became prominent as they came down in price. That being said, more RAM, VRAM, SSD’s and SATA III/ NVME should be the next logical step to take.
Unfortunately even this isnt it for several reasons,
1) Hardware prices are going up (Blame profit margins and investors for this). This means that as people still want to continue playing new games, They will need to seek either cheaper means of doing so (Buying AMD instead of Intel/Nvidia).
2) With the advent of GaaS (think Fortnite, Destiny games, The Division etc.) more games are going to move to this model where it is platform agnostic, the only install needed is the client, and patches are mostly server side. Fortnite already does this. I also think that this is a problem but thats another argument for another time.
What will you be playing this weekend?
Probably either Spider-Man or Dragon Quest XI
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Oh, I absolutely knew install sizes would go this route (file sizes only seem to increase), I just didn’t think we’d see a game with an install size over 100GB until next gen. It was a bit of a shock.
I hope you enjoyed whatever you played! :)
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