Summary
Two of the year’s biggest RPGs are releasing very close to each other, withBaldur’s Gate 3having just been released andStarfieldcoming early next month. While there are a lot of comparisons being made between these two games, one similarity they share is having massive download sizes, pointing towards just how big in scale these games are. For players who are interested in picking up bothBaldur’s Gate 3andStarfield, it may be tough to find the storage space on their hard drives to accommodate the overwhelming size of these games' files.
Gamers have been dealing with ever-increasing file sizes for games as modern titles are becoming more and more ambitious and storage is becoming more and more limited. Couple this issue with the relatively new trend of AAA games likeAlan Wake 2andLike a Dragon Gaidenonly releasing digitally, and hard drive space becomes an even more precious commodity. The huge file sizes ofBaldur’s Gate 3andStarfieldmean players will have to be judicious about which games they have installed on their systems or invest in additional storage solutions.
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Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 Will Push Players' System Storage to Its Limits
Starfieldhas been touted as a massive RPG with an expansive network of over 1,000 planets players will be able to explore, so it’s no surprise that it will require a lot of hard drive space to download and install. Bethesda indicates thatStarfield’s download size will be 125GB making it well above the standardsize of past Bethesda titles. With such a hefty file size to manage, it would be in most players' best interest to preload the game if they plan to play on release day as 125GB will likely take quite some time to fully download and install.
Players who have already hopped intoBaldur’s Gate 3will likely know the struggle of installing such a large game as Steam recommends having 150GB of storage space available, but the actual download size ends up being about 122GB. This comes very close to the download size ofStarfield, meaning players will need around 250GB of free space on their system in order to have both games installed at the same time.Baldur’s Gate 3is a similarly vast game with developer Larian stating players may need18 playthroughs ofBaldur’s Gate 3to see all it has to offer, so it having such a large file size is not surprising.
While both of these games have individually massive file sizes, only PC players will have to worry about finding space for both games for now. Along with being available now on PC,Baldur’s Gate 3will be coming to PS5 in September, but no release date for Xbox Series X/S has been solidified, with Larian statingBaldur’s Gate 3likely won’t come to the consolefor some time due to technical limitations.Starfieldis in a similar situation where it will be an Xbox console exclusive with a PC version available at launch as well, meaning PS5 players will miss out on the game entirely.
It’s a welcome trend to see so many content-filled games releasing in this day and age, but the massive file sizes associated with these games clash with the relatively limited space most systems will have. PC players will generally have an easier time upgrading their storage solutions, but even one 125GB game is still a massive use of storage space on a console like the PS5 or Xbox Series X. Digital-only consoles like theXbox Series Sor PS5 Digital Edition are going to suffer the most from this practice, and could make a compelling argument against the all-digital future the industry seems to be heading towards.
Starfieldreleases on September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
