NetEase Games is addressing the growing storage demands of its hero shooter, Marvel Rivals, with a substantial file size reduction planned for the upcoming Season 9.5 update, scheduled for August 7.
The update will introduce a significant overhaul to the game's texture compression, a change the developer states will be implemented "without sacrificing a single pixel of visual fidelity." This initiative aims to combat the common issue in live-service games where file sizes balloon over time due to continuous content updates.
Currently, Marvel Rivals occupies approximately 73 GB on consoles and around 100 GB on PC. Season 9.5 is set to reduce these figures by 15 GB for consoles and a notable 40 GB for PC players. This nearly 50% reduction on PC brings the game's footprint closer to its launch size of roughly 40 GB on consoles and 70 GB on PC in 2024.
While players can anticipate new content, including swimsuit skins and the addition of The Hood as a playable hero, the storage optimization is highlighted as a key, albeit less flashy, improvement. The development team acknowledges that the Season 9.5 installation will be larger than typical updates due to the need to repackage the game's assets entirely. However, this one-time inconvenience is expected to be beneficial in the long run for players concerned about dwindling storage space.