Video game file sizes are ballooning at an incredible rate. Currently, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War holds the file size record at a whopping 250 GB. While few games come close to matching that earth-shattering requirement, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s massive file size is going to be a problem for many space-strapped gamers.
Early in April, EA revealed the PC version system requirements for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Most of the hardware specs are reasonable save for the storage. According to the web page, Jedi: Survivor will take up 155 GB of space and also require an SSD. HDDs just won’t cut it. Console versions aren’t much better, as the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 versions will allegedly require 134 GB and 148 GB, respectively. However, rumor has it the Xbox Series S version will only require around 45 GB. This revelation made millions of gamer voices cry out in terror. Unlike Alderaan, though, they’ve yet to stop. If anything, those voices have started demanding answers. Why is Jedi: Survivor‘s total file size so dang big?
Before we can answer why the game requires so much space, let’s debunk the obvious theory first. No, the game isn’t quite that big from an exploration standpoint. Jedi: Survivor isn’t an open-world title, and the game isn’t that long either. Our own reviewer says that the game is about 25-55 hours long (depending on what you want to do), and that seems to be the rough consensus. For context, the previous game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is about 17 to 30 hours long.
Moreover, file size doesn’t necessarily correlate with game size. Another recent title, Hogwarts Legacy, requires 85 GB on PC, 77 GB on Xbox Series X/S, and 107 GB on PS5. Not only is that game an open-world title, unlike Jedi: Survivor, but depending on what you do, Hogwarts Legacy can provide anywhere between 35 and 100 hours of content. So why does Jedi: Survivor require so much more system storage? Based on what we’ve seen and what’s been said, it’s all in the presentation.
As impressive as Jedi: Fallen Order looks, Respawn Entertainment went all out for Jedi Survivor. The game is full of 4K textures and environmental effects that look plain amazing. Unfortunately, those high-resolution assets have bloated the title’s file size requirements. Assuming the rumors of the Xbox Series S’ port’s 40 GB requirement hold true, then it seems that those 4K textures almost have to be the culprit. After all, the Series S’ resolution only goes up to 1440p. Extra file room for 4K textures would be wasted on a version of the game that can’t support 4K resolution. Moreover, the Xbox Series S’ CPU and GPU are weaker than the Series X’s components, so cutting out data for environmental effects the Series S’ processors probably couldn’t handle makes sense.
For what it’s worth, our own Matthew Byrd supports this theory based on what he’s seen. Actually, he (and other reviewers) noted that the PS5 version of the game still struggles to load those textures in certain situations. It’s a very taxing game from a technical perspective. Of course, that opens up the discussion of whether or not Jedi: Survivor is poorly optimized. That certainly seems to be a possibility based on the issues that the game’s reviewers across all platforms have encountered so far. Jedi Survivor is a reasonably large game with a ton of high-quality textures, but the fact that other games that check those same boxes haven’t come close to matching Survivor‘s file size suggests that the game’s file size didn’t have to be quite this big.
Until computer engineers crack Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, compile its files, and order them in size, we won’t know the full story behind the game’s whopping 155 GB requirement. However, if you’re hurting for file size, be sure to check out our breakdown of how to free up extra storage space on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.