NieR: Automata’s unusually enormous Steam install appears to be back under control. A recent PC update briefly pushed the action RPG from an expected size of around 50GB to more than 366GB, turning what should have been a fairly manageable installation into a serious storage problem. The official NieR account now says it identified the cause and resolved the issue, while apologizing for the disruption.
The problematic update added Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean language support. Those additions are meaningful accessibility and localization improvements, but the resulting jump in required disk space was plainly not intended. At its peak, the installed footprint was more than seven times its earlier size—an increase of roughly 600%.
“We have identified the cause and now resolved this issue,” the official account said, adding: “Apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
For Steam players who paused an update or held off on installing it, the practical message is simple: the oversized-install issue has been addressed. Anyone who used the earlier temporary workaround—removing the game’s DLC to reduce the storage requirement—may want to check their installation and DLC status now that the problem has been fixed.
A small-sounding patch with a very large result
Language packs can add files to a game, especially when an update includes localized text, interface assets, audio, video, or other materials. But nothing in the stated purpose of this patch explains a rise from approximately 50GB to over 366GB. The account has confirmed that a cause was found, but it has not publicly detailed what that cause was.
That distinction matters. It is reasonable to say the storage expansion was a bug connected with the update; it is not possible, from the information available, to state whether the issue involved duplicated data, incorrect packaging, an installation process problem, or something else entirely. The fix confirms the size was unintended, not the precise technical pathway that produced it.
In plain terms, an install size is the amount of drive capacity a game occupies after Steam has placed and processed its files on a PC. It is separate from an update’s download size. A patch can be small to download yet require significant temporary space while the platform unpacks, replaces, or rearranges files. Here, however, the reported issue was not merely a brief demand for working space during an update: NieR: Automata’s installation itself had swelled to an extraordinary 366GB-plus figure.
For players with large internal SSDs, that may have been an absurd curiosity. For everyone sharing a smaller system drive among multiple games, media, applications and operating-system files, it could force real decisions: uninstall another title, postpone the update, or skip playing until the situation was repaired.
Related coverage includes NieR: Automata Steam Storage Bug Fixed After Update Swelled Game to 366GB.
Why disk-space bugs can be more disruptive than they sound
Storage requirements are easy to dismiss as a technical footnote until an update consumes a substantial part of a drive. A 50GB game is a routine install by modern PC standards; a game exceeding 366GB can dominate a library drive. It may also be especially troublesome when Steam needs room to download a patch while preserving existing files, meaning the free space a user needs at update time can differ from the title’s normal installed size.
The earlier workaround illustrated the oddity of the situation. Players were advised to uninstall DLC to bring the game back down toward the intended footprint. DLC, or downloadable content, is optional additional content installed alongside the main game. Removing it may be a workable temporary way to free room, but it is a compromise: a player loses access to content they may want simply to keep a base installation at a sensible size.
That is why the confirmed resolution is more important than the joke potential of a comically oversized folder. A storage fault can interrupt an otherwise ordinary patch cycle, particularly for players with bandwidth caps, limited free capacity, or several large games installed at once.
PC players trying to make sense of storage-related demands should also keep the basic categories separate:
- Download size: the amount of data transferred over an internet connection.
- Installed size: the space occupied once a game is set up on the drive.
- Temporary update space: extra capacity potentially required while files are unpacked or replaced.
- Reserved free space: the amount of empty room a player keeps available so updates and normal system tasks can proceed.
Those figures do not always match. Still, a sustained installed size above 366GB for a game ordinarily around 50GB is well beyond a normal difference between download data and installed files.
How the NieR figure compared with other reported heavyweight installs
The scale became more striking in comparison with other recent storage numbers. At over 366GB, the affected NieR: Automata installation was more than 72% larger than the reported 212GB pre-load size for Grand Theft Auto VI on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
It also exceeded 300GB, the amount players were reportedly told to reserve in advance for the pre-load of Phantom Blade Zero, despite that action RPG being described as a 145GB game. These comparisons are not like-for-like measurements: a pre-load reservation, a game’s final install footprint, and an accidental PC installation bloat can refer to different stages of getting a title onto a machine. But they communicate the central point effectively. The erroneous NieR installation was enormous even beside the kind of numbers associated with high-profile modern releases.
The episode arrives at a time when storage planning is increasingly part of PC gaming’s routine maintenance. Large texture packages, audio assets, optional content and ongoing updates can make free space as valuable as download bandwidth. That does not make a 366GB outcome expected; it makes a clearly communicated fix especially welcome.
For a wider look at how hardware capacity shapes what software can run locally, see our guide to RAM, VRAM and model size for local AI on a gaming PC. Those components are different from SSD storage, but the underlying planning lesson is similar: the listed requirement matters, and the type of capacity matters just as much.
What Steam players should do now
The official statement says the cause has been resolved, so the immediate emergency workaround should no longer be the default answer. Players who encountered the bloated requirement can take a measured approach rather than assuming their drive has permanently lost hundreds of gigabytes.
- Check whether Steam has completed the latest update for NieR: Automata.
- Review the game’s current installed size in Steam or in the drive’s storage settings.
- If DLC was removed solely to avoid the abnormal storage demand, check whether it can now be reinstalled within the game’s normal expected footprint.
- If the listed size still appears unusually high after the fix, avoid assuming a cause that has not been confirmed; confirm the update status and use Steam’s available installation-management options as appropriate.
This is intentionally conservative advice. The information released confirms a resolution, but it does not provide a detailed repair procedure for an individual installation that remains abnormal. There is no basis to promise that one particular step will solve every leftover local issue.
An apology with understandable understatement
The first acknowledgement from the official account said the game required “significantly more storage space than intended.” That is accurate, if understated. A jump of more than 300GB above a roughly 50GB baseline is not the kind of discrepancy players ordinarily expect from a localization patch.
Fortunately, the update’s intended new language options are not being framed as the problem themselves. Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean support are useful additions. The issue was the unintended storage effect that accompanied the update, and the latest message says that specific problem has been resolved.
That leaves the incident as one of those memorable PC patch mishaps where the numbers tell the story better than any dramatic framing could. NieR: Automata briefly asked players to make room for a larger installation than several of the biggest recently discussed game downloads and pre-loads. Now, after a temporary DLC-removal workaround and an official apology, its storage appetite should be back where it belongs.
