Game file sizes

[Apteryx]

Ok so why the hell are game file sizes so big these days? I'm unsure of the validity of this but I heard that the latest Call of Duty game (Modern Warfare III 2023) is 240 gigabytes. 240 GIGABYTES! For a game that only has six hours of campaign time, and like 20 multiplayer maps! Why is it so big? Horizon Zero Dawn has a massive hand-crafted world with thousands of quests, dialogue lines, music pieces, and character models yet it is only 70 gigabytes. Satisfactory has a similar-sized world to HZD with comparable texture and lighting quality to MWIII, and is only 30 gigabytes, 40 if you build a ton of stuff because optimization of save files is a little buggy rn. Elden Ring again has a massive hand-crafted world with hundreds (probably thousands) of enemies with their own extremely complex designs and animations, it has some really good textures and lighting, and yet it's only a little bigger than HZD at about 80-90 gigabytes. What on earth is taking up all of this drive space on the more recent AAA games?

[Apteryx]

Seriously how are two college students able to optimize their game's file size better than a multi-billion dollar corporation

[Triple G]

4k graphics?

[Tristin]

Unlike the old days, storage spaces are much cheaper. And it costs money to optimize codes and clean up the sh*ts they make. So why not just dump it.

Plastics the same.

[Original Cast Recording]

I remember hearing that the audio files alone took up like 40% or more of the biggest CoD games' install. (Wouldn't swear to that number, but it was a lot.)

[Talby]

At least storage is cheap and dropping, despite inflation...

[Hairy Hands Harry]

Texture packs mostly.

[sleeps]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Harry The Gamer:

Texture packs mostly.

and sound effects

that is the case of titanfall 2. the game has enough content for like what? 20 gb? but the game itself is 60gb because of sound effects.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

Compression is an ancient secret of the past.

[Apteryx]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von TGC> The Games Collector:

Compression is an ancient secret of the past.

Another ancient secret is how to make a game that is fun without a battle pass

[sleeps]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Apteryx:

Seriously how are two college students able to optimize their game's file size better than a multi-billion dollar corporation

it's not like they have the resource to create such a big file to begin with

[Apteryx]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von sleeps:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Apteryx:

Seriously how are two college students able to optimize their game's file size better than a multi-billion dollar corporation

it's not like they have the resource to create such a big file to begin with

Yet with the resources they have, they made a game I put 145 hours (and counting) into. No AAA game did that aside from Doom Eternal

[sleeps]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Apteryx:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von sleeps:

it's not like they have the resource to create such a big file to begin with

Yet with the resources they have, they made a game I put 145 hours (and counting) into. No AAA game did that aside from Doom Eternal

not to argue but in my case, it's fairly equal. tf2 and l4d2 is like 600 and 200 hours respectively, but other than that, witcher 3 and new vegas both i got like 100, and witcher 3 is a very big game. as of indie games, if you count kingdom come deliverance as one, i got like 72 hours. i don't want to argue if they're indie to begin with. but let's say that they created a bonker game.