Beloved RPG gets bizarre new update that takes up more space than GTA 6

With GTA VI finally launching on November 19, plenty of gamers are already preparing to make some difficult decisions about what stays on their consoles’ hard drives, but another beloved RPG has somehow managed to eclipse Rockstar's upcoming blockbuster.

As previously reported, Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to demand up to 212GB of storage, immediately entering the realm of one of the biggest single-player titles ever by modern gaming standards, in terms of file size, considering the sheer scale of Vice City and the wider state of Leonida.

However, another game has unexpectedly surpassed that figure despite being almost a decade old. Stranger still, it hasn't received a major expansion, graphical overhaul or additional playable content.

Instead, what’s happened is that a relatively minor update intended to make the adventure more accessible has created a rather ridiculous storage problem.

NieR: Automata's latest update brings its installation size to 366GB

The new Steam update adds three language options for PC players, but it resulted in the game's storage becoming over seven times bigger (Square Enix)

Square Enix's beloved 2017 action RPG NieR: Automata is currently asking Steam users for an eye-watering 366.56GB of available space when attempting a fresh installation, compared with its usual requirement of approximately 50GB.

The problem came up when a new PC update rolled in to introduce Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean language support; that’s purely the entire update, with nothing else mentioned in the patch notes.

Then, as pointed out by gaming news figure Wario64 on BlueSky, then confirmed via testing by GamesRadar+ and RPG Site, the game devs seemed to have duplicated the base game's files across multiple DLC packages — rather than just adding interchangeable language files — inflating the total to its ginormous size.

For perspective, that means NieR: Automata is now demanding around 155GB more installation space than GTA VI, despite the latter being an enormous modern open-world adventure developed over more than a decade later.

Fortunately, if you currently have the RPG already installed on your PC and you haven’t updated NieR: Automata, your version should still be at the original approximate 50GB size — and not over seven times bigger, like others are experiencing.

Square Enix has acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix

Players can temporarily avoid the issue by disabling DLC downloads on Steam (Square Enix)

Following complaints from players, the official NieR PR account addressed the situation on X (formerly Twitter); when translated, the Japanese post states: “We have confirmed an issue where, after applying the latest update to the Steam version of ‘NieR: Automata,’ an excessive storage capacity requirement is displayed during installation. We are currently investigating the cause and working on a resolution.”

In the meantime, the Square Enix post has provided a temporary workaround, as well. Steam users can navigate to the game's ‘Properties’ menu, select ‘DLC’, and untick the additional content to download the base game without the excessive storage requirement.

There's currently no confirmed timeframe for a permanent fix, although Square Enix's wording (and the fact the developer/publisher has acknowledged the problem in general) does suggest that this is taking priority, so we predict it hopefully shouldn’t take too long.