Helldivers 2 players on PC can finally free up a huge amount of storage. Arrowhead has confirmed that the game’s installation size has dropped by almost 85 percent, bringing it down from around 154GB to just 23GB. This change is now available through a new optional “slim version” on Steam.
The studio worked with Nixxes to achieve this reduction. Earlier, Arrowhead had duplicated many in-game assets to help players using older mechanical HDDs load the game faster. This was a common strategy for older hard drives, where spreading copies of the same data across the disk helped the system pick up what it needed more quickly. But on modern SSDs, this method is unnecessary and simply wastes space.
Back in October, Arrowhead warned that removing these duplicates could make HDD loading times up to ten times slower. However, the worst-case scenario did not happen. After testing, the team found that the impact on loading is very small. The studio says players will experience “seconds at most” of additional loading time.
According to their new update, Helldivers 2’s loading process works differently compared to many other games. Most of the waiting time comes from level generation, not asset loading. Since level generation happens in parallel with reading assets, the reduction does not significantly affect how long players wait, even for those still using mechanical HDDs.
Players can try this lighter build right now by opting into the slim version on Steam. Arrowhead describes this as a low-risk test, and users can switch back anytime if they notice issues. The studio wants real-world feedback before making it the default download for everyone.
Interestingly, this change has already given the game a boost. As per Techlomedia’s Steam charts, Helldivers 2 recently saw its player count jump by nearly 100 percent, reaching over 66,000 concurrent players. The game had been hovering around the 30,000 average mark for a while, so this sudden spike suggests that the reduced install size and renewed attention have pulled many players back.
If everything goes smoothly, Arrowhead plans to permanently replace the old version next year. Supporting two separate builds adds extra work for developers, QA teams, and release pipelines, and the studio does not see a reason to maintain the heavier version when the slimmer one performs nearly the same.
For PC players, this change is a huge win. Storage-heavy games are becoming common, and finding 150GB of free space is not easy on many systems. Shrinking Helldivers 2 down to 23GB makes it far more accessible, especially for players with smaller SSDs or packed libraries.
