For example, both Final Fantasy XVI & STALKER 2 take up 152GB & 165GB on my 2TB external SSD. I mean, why are steam games HUGE as f*ck regarding their file sizes lately? Don’t even mention CoD (200GB?!), even with the fastest internet connection: you can’t bypass patience as these things take up time. For me, it took me about 2 days to finish (pause & resume download). I’ve finished installing KCD II (Royal Edition) and that was 85GB (took up 8-12 hours with fast internet, I was binge watching a TV show on Prime Video the entire time).
Equal parts textures and arranging duplicate data next to each other for fast streaming
The duplicate data isn’t necessary anymore when installed on SSDs but a bunch of games still have it.
Helldivers 2 on PC as an example went from a bloated 150+ GB install down to less than 40 GB at some point when they found out that the duplication both wasn’t helpful for the vast majority of PC players and it didn’t have the impact it used to. Now it is comparable to the console install, which was always smaller.