The Last of Us 2 download size is pretty huge, but it could bode well for players

(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

The Last of Us 2 file size will apparently take a significant chunk of your hard drive, with over 100GB of space needed to download the game.

Naughty Dog's highly-anticipated game – a sequel to the acclaimed 2013 PS3 game The Last of Us – is set to be one of the biggest releases of 2020.

It's had something of a rocky journey, after suffering a number of game delays, a leaked story outline (that we recommend you avoid) and an indefinite postponement, even if we now have a specific June 19 release date in sight to assuage us.

It's a big game by any measure, and those looking to play the game on a 500GB PS4 will likely have to make a decent amount of room on their hard drive in order to install the game.

As developers' ambitions get bigger, and more levels, rendering, and overall detail is packed into games near the end of the PS4's life cycle, so too do game file sizes. It's interesting to see The Last of Us 2 join the 'mile-high club' for video game sizes, alongside the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2, which offered a huge open world that made the file size entirely unsurprising.

What could we see in The Last of Us 2?

The Last of Us 2 is set to be over twice the size of The Last of Us Remastered, which had a download size of just 47GB.

Twice the gigabytes doesn't necessarily translate to twice the number of missions, characters, or other petty metrics, but it does still suggest a massive game. 

There may well be more of a roaming element, with the gameplay so far possibly taking place more out in the wilderness than in the clustered cities and camps that Joel and Ellie often moved between in the original game.

We know there'll be improved enemy AI, as well, though we hope the game will retain the claustrophobic encounters of the first game with smarter clickers rather than simply throwing in more of them. More detailed animations are a shoo-in, too, and it can be hard to overstate how much increasing detail in every frame can bulk up the file size.

We'll get our best look when the game actually releases, of course, and we're just happy the end is finally in sight.

Henry St Leger

Henry is a freelance technology journalist, and former News & Features Editor for TechRadar, where he specialized in home entertainment gadgets such as TVs, projectors, soundbars, and smart speakers. Other bylines include Edge, T3, iMore, GamesRadar, NBC News, Healthline, and The Times.