The team behind Helldivers 2 has shared a huge update, and it’s great news for PC players. The latest technical beta patch cuts the game’s installation size from around 154GB down to just 23GB. That’s a massive 85% reduction, saving players about 131GB of space. For anyone who struggles with storage, this is one of the biggest improvements the game has received so far.

In the latest Helldivers 2 Tech Blog, the developers explain how they reached this breakthrough. In earlier posts, the team talked about wanting to shrink the PC version so it matches the smaller file size seen on consoles. They tried small fixes over the past few patches, but those weren’t enough, especially as they continued adding new content.

Now, thanks to their work with Nixxes Software, the studio has finally completed a more advanced solution. They achieved this by fully de-duplicating their data, which means the game no longer stores multiple copies of the same files. After several rounds of internal testing, they are confident enough to release this new “slim version” through a public technical beta on Steam. And the best part is that it’s available right now.

Players with older HDDs shouldn’t worry about long loading times

Players were naturally worried that shrinking the files would lead to longer load times. For those wondering, duplicated data is used to help players with older hard drives load games faster. But this is not the case with the latest update. Even for players still using older HDDs, mission loading times increased by only a few seconds in the worst cases.

The developers said their earlier warnings were based on general industry data, not on numbers from Helldivers 2. Now that they have real in-game testing, they know the game loads differently than most titles. In Helldivers 2, most of the load time comes from level generation, not asset loading. Because of that, removing duplicated data doesn’t slow things down nearly as much as expected. Last week, only about 11% of players were still on HDDs, so this change should be smooth for most people.

How to use the ‘slim’ version

Anyone who wants to try the slim version can join the beta easily. You keep your same account, progress, and matchmaking. You can also leave the beta anytime if you run into issues. For those uses mods, the team recommends being careful, as any patch can break modded files. In any case, here are the steps you must follow to join the beta:

• Go to your Steam library
• Right-click on Helldivers 2 and select Properties
• Click on the Betas tab
• Click the drop-down menu next to the Beta Participation setting and select “prod_slim”
• Now, close the Properties and wait for the game to download the patch

Once the developers confirm the slim version works well for everyone, it will become the default version of the game. The old legacy version will stay available for a short time, mainly for troubleshooting, but it will be removed sometime next year.

Next up, we hope to see the developers optimize Helldivers 2 for Steam Deck – especially since this is something that has already been publicly considered by Arrowhead’s CEO.

About the Author

Abdul Haddi

Abdul is a tech writer and Editor for PC Guide, specializing in all things tech, gaming, and hardware.