Summary
- Stellar Blade will be around 35GB in size, according to its newly leaked retail box.
- With the game still being months away from hitting the market, the quoted figure is ostensibly just a rough estimate.
- Nevertheless, the leak indicates that Stellar Blade will have a much smaller file size than typical contemporary AAA releases, which nowadays often surpass 100GB.
The download size of Stellar Blade may be in the ballpark of 35GB, as suggested by one newly emerged leak. Although the source of the claim seems to be a prematurely revealed official estimate, that's quite a modest figure for a contemporary AAA game, to the point that some fans have already expressed skepticism about whether Stellar Blade could truly end up being so small.
Software install sizes have gotten bulkier over the years, with video games being no exception to that trend. The steady increase in standard display resolutions and content expectations, among other factors, has led to the gaming industry consistently putting out bigger and bigger downloads. As far as Sony's latest console is concerned, the largest PS5 games by file sizes range from the 99GB Horizon Forbidden West to the absolutely humongous Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which requires over 312GB of storage space.
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Stellar Blade May Boast Stellar File Compression
The PlayStation 5 exclusive Stellar Blade should be a far cry from those figures, according to its Japanese retail box which surfaced online over the final weekend of February. The packaging, shared by Twitter user Genki_JPN, states that the game requires "more than 35GB" of free storage space to install. That notice is ostensibly a rough estimate, as the game itself is still some two months out, slated for release on April 26. But even if Stellar Blade ends up warranting a larger install size than what its box suggests, this development is a fairly strong indicator that the game will be much more compact than a typical AAA release, like the 145GB Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth scheduled to hit the market in late February.
Fan reactions to this leak seem somewhat divided; some people interpreted the notice as a sign that Stellar Blade would have stellar file compression, while others expressed doubts about the feasibility of a modern AAA experience with high-fidelity graphics coming in such a small package.
Some fans speculated that the download size estimate could point to the game being a relatively short experience, but that shouldn't be the case when considering Shift Up's past statements on the matter. The most recent one comes from late 2023, when the developer reflected on Stellar Blade's latest delay. The occasion saw the game's director, Kim Hyung Tae, state that Stellar Blade would take between 25 and 50 hours to complete, depending on how thorough the player is.
Between that and Stellar Blade's impressive graphics, the upcoming title looks like it could easily weigh twice as much as its box states it will. Delivering anything close to the 35GB file size mentioned on the leaked packaging would ostensibly require Shift Up to either raise the bar for AAA game compression, employ some immensely clever asset reuse, or do both.
Stellar Blade
- Released
- April 26, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
RECLAIM EARTH FOR HUMANKIND The future of humanity hangs in the balance in Stellar Blade, an all-new story-driven action adventure. Ravaged by strange, powerful creatures, Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of the decimated human race has fled to a Colony in outer space. After travelling from the Colony, 7th Airborne Squad member EVE arrives on the desolate remains of our planet with a clear-cut mission: to save humankind by reclaiming Earth from the Naytiba – the malevolent force that has devastated it. But as EVE tackles the Naytiba one-by-one, piecing together the mysteries of the past in the ruins of human civilization, she realizes that her mission is far from straightforward. In fact, almost nothing is as it seems…
- Developer(s)
- Shift Up
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
