Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater sparks controversy due to 100 GB storage space requirement

First unveiled two years ago, the Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is finally releasing on August 28. The game is a comprehensive remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, a PS2 classic that was released back in 2004. It is built using Unreal Engine 5 and looks every bit as good as you’d expect from a modern AAA title.

However, the game’s storage size requirement has now stirred a heated debate online. The controversy started when X user Rock solid complained about the 100 GB storage space requirement of the PC version of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, calling it “ridiculous” for a remake of a PS2 game. The post, which has since garnered close to 2 million views, gave rise to some heated debate around optimizations, or lack thereof, in modern AAA games.

Some gamers contend that a modern AAA game being 100 GB in size is not an issue, as game assets like textures, animations, cutscenes, and sound demand a ton of storage space. Others argue that this doesn’t excuse a game like Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a linear single-player title with no open world, requiring 100 GB of hard drive space.

Another side to this debate is the choice of game engine and the role of developers. Unreal Engine has earned a reputation for being a game engine that, while producing great-looking games, is a resource hog and a poor performer. 

So, some gamers argue that Metal Gear Solid Delta running on UE5 is contributing a lot to the game’s 100 GB size, while others put the responsibility solely on the developers for not optimizing the title enough.

For what it’s worth, it has become common for AAA titles, even ones that are linear and don’t have an open world design, to require more than 100 GB of storage space. For instance, games like Indiana Jones and The Great Circle and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 require 120 GB and 128 GB of space, respectively.

That said, we have seen AAA game developers increasingly release games in a sub-optimal state. So, the concerns of gamers that the developer of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater might not have optimized the game enough is valid, if overblown.

In addition to 100 GB of SSD space, the official “Recommended” Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater system requirements listed on Steam include:

• An Intel Core i7-8700K or a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
• An RTX 3080 GPU
• 16 GB of RAM

So, while you can get away with a modern, affordable CPU, you will need at least a mid-range GPU like an RTX 5060 to run the game well.