NieR: Automata's 366GB patch is nine copies of one game
The 366.56GB install demand equals a 40.73GB game counted nine times, and eight of those copies are DLC entries.
What Steam asked for
On 6 November, Japan time, Square Enix published a Steam update for NieR: Automata whose notes list one change: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean language support. The port had gone without a patch since July 2021, on a game that has sold more than 10 million copies.
Anyone who tried to install or reinstall met a free-space check of 366.56GB. The store page for the same game asks for 50GB. The Steam discussion board for the update filled with threads about the figure, and recent reviews turned negative.
RPG Site's Mikhail Madnani checked on 5 November and found the client would not begin the download at all, which ruled out a bad label on a store field.
The arithmetic behind 366.56GB
The Steam library screen gave the mechanism away. All eight DLC entries for the game were listed at 40.73GB, the same size as the base install. Nine items at that size is 366.57GB.
| Figure | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Free space Steam requested | 366.56GB | Steam library dialog, reported by Zero1 Gaming and RetroFlex |
| Base game, as listed in the library | 40.73GB | Same dialog |
| Each of the eight DLC entries | 40.73GB | Same dialog |
| 40.73GB × 9 | 366.57GB | Our calculation |
| Difference from the reported figure | 0.01GB | Display rounding |
| Store page requirement | 50GB | Steam appdetails, app 524220 |
| Patch download, as reported | 107MB to 8GB | Steam community threads, collected by Bognor Regis News |
| Installed size after the bug | about 40.7GB | Game*Spark and AUTOMATON, cited by Zero1 and RetroFlex |
One hundredth of a gigabyte separates the multiplication from the number players saw, and that gap is rounding in the client. The multiplier is the part worth keeping: the installer was reserving room for nine copies of a 40.73GB game.
Why the count is nine
Steam adds the base app to every DLC ticked in your library before it checks free space, then quotes the total in the dialog. Once each DLC reported the base game's size, the total grew by a full game per add-on.
The add-ons are worth naming. Steam's appdetails endpoint lists eight DLC app IDs under app 524220. One is the 3C3C1D119440927 content pack. The other seven are music releases: the original soundtrack, Arranged & Unreleased Tracks, the Orchestral Arrangement Album, Piano Collections, the Orchestral Arrangement Album Addendum, Piano Journeys, and a recording of the re:12024 concert.
By the numbers in the library, Steam was holding 40.73GB of disk space for a piano album.
Square Enix has not confirmed that reading. Its posts describe the symptom, the workaround and the fix, and never name a cause. RetroFlex and Zero1 Gaming both attribute the per-DLC figure to tests by other outlets. The arithmetic is consistent, and the explanation behind it remains an inference, which is how we are presenting it.
What Square Enix said, and when
Three posts carry the timeline.
- 5 November, 15:26 UTC, which is 6 November in Japan: the "Update Content" notes go up with the three languages.
- 6 November, 11:46 UTC: a post titled "Regarding the November 6 (JST) Update" acknowledges that installation "requires significantly more storage space than intended".
- 9 November, 08:15 UTC: a new post titled "Bug Fix Notice" says the problem is fixed. The 6 November post now carries an appended line: "We have identified the cause and resolved the issue."
The acknowledgement also contained the workaround:
As a temporary workaround, you can download the base game using the intended amount of storage space by going to "Properties" → "DLC" in Steam and unchecking each DLC item.
Neither post mentions save data.
What to do now
If your client has the 9 November fix, run the install again and read the number the dialog quotes. A 366.56GB check means your client has not picked up the change.
Where the inflated check persists, the workaround still works: open the game's Properties, switch to the DLC tab, untick all eight items and start the download. The base game then downloads at its own size. You can tick the add-ons again afterwards if you want the content pack.
Check the result against a measured install. Game*Spark and AUTOMATON both installed the game while the bug was live and reported roughly 40.7GB on disk, which lines up with the 40.73GB each library entry displayed. We did not run our own install, so those two figures are theirs.
What the three figures show
For the days the bug was live, three capacities described the same game and none of them agreed: 50GB on the store page, 366.56GB at the install check, and a patch download players reported anywhere from 107MB to 8GB.
Each comes from a different place. The 50GB is a spec sheet written years ago and rarely revisited, the same kind of label we wrote about in our piece on Steam Deck Verified. The 366.56GB is computed at install time from depot metadata, which is why it moved with the update and why it broke with the update. The patch size is a delta, and the reports of it differ by a factor of more than seventy.
Only one of the three has been checked against a drive: the 40.73GB per entry, and the 40.7GB that two Japanese outlets measured after installing.
The fix notice runs to one sentence and does not say what went wrong.
