Killzone: Shadow Fall Spanned 290 GB Before Compression

The launch title for the PlayStation 4 that Sony is hoping will help lure gamers to the console is Killzone: Shadow Fall. Sony announced Shadow Fall as a launch title for the PlayStation 4 back in February of 2013. Since the game was announced we've seen a tech demo giving us a glimpse of what the game looks like behind the scenes and a game play walk-through video.

Some new tidbits about Killzone: Shadow Fall have now surfaced claiming that the game tipped the scales at 290 GB before it is compressed to fit on a PlayStation 4 Blu-ray disc. That compression mashed the 290 GB size down to 40 GB. One reason for the huge amount of data Shadow Fall packs is the huge open game area.

Another reason the game was so large before compression according to technical director Michiel van der Leeuw is because the game has no assets that have been made to a lower specification. The technical director also says that he guesses the surface area in Shadow Fall is 5 to 10 times larger than the area in Killzone 3.

van der Leeuw said:

I think at some point the disc image that we were generating was around 180 gigs. And if we would have put all the levels in, which we didn't, because then the disc image generator broke, it would have been around 290 gigs of data.

Even with the final game size compressed to 40 GB that will still be a massive file to download for gamers who purchase this title digitally. The PlayGo system for the PlayStation 4 allows players to begin playing when only part of the game has been downloaded, but will still require an estimated 7.5 GB be downloaded first.

SOURCE: Forbes