With the original title premiering way back in 2007, STALKER fans have been waiting for a long time for a mainline sequel. That sequel is now well on its way in the form of STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl, but fans may need to clean out their Xbox Series X/S consoles' storage in order to actually play it.
While the game is still several months off from its planned release date, STALKER 2 initially revealed its file size to be quite massive back at E3 2021. While some fans initially balked at the concept of the game requiring 150 GB in storage space, it seems players will now need to make even more room for the game.
The Xbox page for STALKER 2 has updated information on the game's requirements, now revealing that the game will require a stunning 180 GB of hard drive space. While the Xbox Series X sports a 1 TB hard drive inherently, this will still take up nearly a fifth of the drive all on its own. It's worse for players with Xbox Series S, as the console launched with about half the storage space, with a 512 GB SSD. While it's possible to expand the storage space of an Xbox Series console, doing so can be expensive and isn't necessarily accessible for everyone.
It's worth pointing out that with the game still several months out, it's possible that STALKER 2's file size could change again or improve. Further optimization of the game could result in a smaller download size when it actually launches, and the developer has previously noted that the Steam PC version's specs aren't finalized and could be subject to change. That being said, the Xbox version seems to be going in the wrong direction, as the PC version is still described as taking up 150 GB.
While one game at this size isn't much of a problem for players, unfortunately, it's not the only one. Call of Duty: Vanguard made waves prior to its release in part due to its file size, and even some older games have rivaled STALKER 2's requirements, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare clocking in at over 200 GB, and Quantum Break nearly matching STALKER 2 at 178GB.
It's reasonable for new games to have pretty large file sizes, especially when ambitious developers seek to harness the capabilities of these next-gen consoles and graphics cards. This is unlikely to be the last game taking up this much - or even more - storage space, and it may be something gamers just have to get used to as advances like increased texture sizes and ray tracing demand more resources.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl launches April 28, 2022 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Xbox