Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis making headlines as the first good Xbox exclusive in a long while, in large part thanks to its glowing reviews. It offers players an exhilarating adventure as the iconic titular character, filled with action-packed escapades and thrilling puzzles. However, while fans of the original films and MachineGames' brand of first-person action games are enjoying it, there is one major caveat.
Among theGreat Circle’sbest featuresis a ridiculously large file size, the kind that would make any gamer blush. It’s becoming a point of controversy, not simply because it is taking up too much space on player’s already cramped Xbox Series X/S consoles, but becauseit’s continuing a gaming trend that people are quickly becoming exhausted with. WhileIndiana Jones and the Great Circleisn’t the first game to have a large file size, it might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Is 130GB On Xbox
It’s 87GB Without The High-Resolution Texture Pack
Indiana Jones and the Great Circleiscontinuing a recent gaming trendof having a ridiculously large file size that’s sure to require multiple games to be uninstalled in order to squeeze it in. On Xbox Series X/S,the game’s full file size comes in at a whopping 133.9GB, according to the officialXbox storelisting, with the console asking for 263.1GB of storage space before downloading it. This is unreasonably large, although perhaps not unexpected in today’s gaming climate.
It is worth noting that without the high-resolution texture pack,Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis around 87GB. While significantly smaller, this is still an enormous file size, especially when the base Xbox Series S only has 512GB of storage.
While this is one of thefew mistakes it makes, it is nevertheless a frustrating issue exacerbated for those who’ve already installed a library of necessary games. For those who play multiplayer shooters, for example, trying to get another 100GB+ game installed can be a challenge. Unfortunately, as aforementioned,Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis not the first game to do this, as many games before it have seen their file sizes balloon beyond expectations.
Video Game File Sizes Are Getting Out Of Control
They’re Becoming Unreasonably Huge
The most infamous example of increasing file sizes is theCall of Dutyfranchise, which, over the past few years, has seen its installation size rise to well beyond the 200GB mark.Black Ops 6is the worstin this regard, as it required 309.85GB of storage space to install at launch. However, other single-player titles have also suffered from increased file sizes, includingStar Wars Jedi: Survivor,Horizon Forbidden West,Forspoken,Red Dead Redemption 2, andStarfield.
Of course, this hasn’t come out of nowhere as file sizes have been slowly creeping up over the past few years.It’s largely down to texture resolution, with additional storage space needed to house the huge amounts of detailed texturesthat make up these photorealistic sprawling worlds players have been enjoying exploring. This is whyIndiana Jones and the Great Circle, for example, has a smaller file size when players drop the high-resolution texture pack.
Unfortunately, it is a price fans must pay to enjoy the grander scale and ambition of modern-day triple-A experiences, at least until a more efficient method of storing these high-resolution textures is developed.
Additionally, this is why games likeBlack Ops 6are always onlineas they use texture streaming to avoid downloading a lot of 2K or even 4K textures directly to the player’s PC or console. Unfortunately,it is a price fans must pay to enjoy the grander scale and ambition of modern-day triple-A experiences, at least until a more efficient method of storing these high-resolution textures is developed.
Console Storage Space Can’t Keep Up With Ballooning Game Sizes
1TB Is Just Not Enough Anymore
What makes this problem so frustrating is that consoles are failing to keep up with these ballooning file sizes. As aforementioned, the base Xbox Series S model comes in at just 512GB, meaning players could only install the equivalent of 3 and a halfIndiana Jones and the Great Circlesbefore they ran out of space.Even with the 1TB model for both the Series X and PlayStation 5 it can still be a struggle to have more than five or so games installedat any given time.
Of course, this isn’t as big of an issue for those who primarily play indie titles. However,if someone wanted to haveOverwatch 2,Fortnite,Black Ops 6,Starfield, andIndiana Jones and the Great Circleinstalled at once, they’d need at least 520GB of space. There are solutions to this problem, at least on the player’s side. This includes getting an external hard drive to store excess games on or replacing the SSD with a 2TB one.
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Metacritic Score Has Broken An Xbox Record For 2024
Just a day after launch, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is already breaking Metacritic records for this year’s Xbox releases with its high score.
However, these are costly and arguably an unreasonable expense, especially considering consoles should meet the current gaming standards. Players shouldn’t have to be forced to compromise in order to install one game, so it is up to either developers or the technical wizards behind the PS6 and whatever Xbox creates to remedy this issue. Simply put, it’s not feasible to own a console with less than 1TB of storage these days, especially if one wants to playIndiana Jones and the Great Circleas well as practically any other game.
