343 Industries explains Halo 5: Guardian’s 46GB install size

Did you know that Halo 5: Guardians has the eighth biggest install size of any Xbox One game? It’s 46GB at launch; what makes the install size of a game like Halo 5 46GB, and a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider just 20GB?

KF: I’d say just the scale. Not a complete technical answer, but the scale of the content in the game is just mind-blowing. We have different types of warthogs and different types of scorpions; when you get really deep into the requisition system, there’s also legendary variants of all the weapons. There’s a massive amount of ways you can customise the look of your Spartan character a well. So we’ve got a huge customisation system with everything from helmets, visors, skins and emblems, right through to actual animations. We actually just showed off the new assassination animation that you could get from the requisition system.

So that coupled with our very, very, large set of maps – we have 20 multiplayer maps that will be available at launch and then we’re going to have 15 post launch. There’s also hundreds and hundreds of Forge pieces that players can use to customise the levels. There’s a lot of content and when I walk around the halls at 343 Industries looking at all the people doing hard work – building all sorts of stuff for the game – it doesn’t surprise me at all that we have a large install.