Marvel Rivals has given you back 30% of your disk space since August 7 — how to check that the recompression actually applied

This is the line in the 9.5 season patch notes that got the least attention, and yet it's the one freeing up the most space on your drive. Since the update on August 7, 2026, NetEase has changed the way Marvel Rivals compresses its textures. The game's footprint after installation drops by roughly 30% on PC.

Eleven days later, many players haven't noticed — because the mechanism is counter-intuitive: the update download was heavier than usual, and the gain only appears once installation is complete. On a machine that ran out of space along the way, the process may never have gone through.

Here's exactly what the publisher says, what it actually means, and how to check in thirty seconds whether your installation has really slimmed down.

The official figure isn't "40 GB", it's a percentage — and it varies fourfold depending on the machine

The official patch notes from August 7 are unambiguous: "Optimized texture resource compression strategy across all platforms, reducing disk footprint after installation." Then come the values, platform by platform.

The "40 GB" figure circulating everywhere is a conversion made by the press based on a typical PC installation, not a figure published by NetEase. Depending on the actual size of your folder before August 7, the gain will vary. The percentage, however, is official.

NetEase doesn't explain the gap between platforms. The fact remains that PlayStation 4, the most space-constrained machine of the bunch, is also the one that gets the smallest benefit: seven percent, versus thirty on PC.

One point the patch notes don't mention: nothing about visual quality

Several outlets have written that the process happens "without any loss of visual quality." This phrase is not in the official patch notes. NetEase describes an "optimized compression strategy" and stops there; the publisher makes no comment on texture quality before and after, nor on the settings involved.

This nuance isn't just rhetorical: if you play on Ultra on a large screen and some surfaces look less sharp than they did in July, no line in the official patch notes tells you otherwise.

Checking the actual size of your installation, platform by platform

The simplest approach is still to look for yourself. It takes a minute:

• Steam: Library, right-click on Marvel Rivals, Properties, Installed Files tab. The size on disk is displayed at the top.
• Epic Games Store: Library, three-dot menu on the game's tile, Manage. The installed size appears in the panel.
• PlayStation 5: Settings → Storage → Games and Apps. The list can be sorted by descending size.
• Xbox Series X|S: My games and apps → Manage → Installed items, then Marvel Rivals.

If the figure hasn't changed since the start of the month, the installation hasn't been recompressed.

What to do if the space hasn't been freed up

Two possible scenarios, in this order:

1. Check file integrity. On Steam, Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files. On the Epic Games Store, Manage → Verify. The client will re-download whatever is missing, in the new compression.
2. Reinstall if verification changes nothing. It takes a while, but it's the only way to guarantee that all textures are rebuilt in the new format. Leave yourself some margin: during the operation, the old and new versions briefly coexist on the disk.

An important corollary for smaller setups: you need free space to gain space. A machine filled to the brim can't complete the recompression. Free up a few dozen gigabytes before running the verification, not after.

On consoles, verification doesn't exist: it's reinstall or nothing

The distinction matters and is rarely mentioned. On PC, both storefronts offer a repair tool that rebuilds missing or outdated files without redownloading everything. Neither PlayStation 5 nor Xbox Series offers an equivalent for an installed game: the system offers to delete, not to verify.

If your console install still weighs as much as it did in July, the only available move is therefore uninstalling followed by a full download. On PlayStation 5, remember to remove the game from Settings → Storage rather than from the home screen: the result is the same, but you can watch the space being freed up in real time and move straight on to the next step.

One case requires no action: players who installed the game fresh after August 7. They downloaded the recompressed textures from the start and have nothing to recover.

The most reliable figure available today: the Steam page

In the absence of any communication from NetEase about the final size, the only public reference point is the game's Steam page, which currently states 70 GB of available disk space as both the minimum and recommended requirement, with a recommendation to install on an SSD.

That's not the exact installation size — a Steam page always states a margin — but it's a useful order of magnitude: if your folder far exceeds this figure, the recompression probably hasn't happened on your system.

What the recovered space is for between now and September 11

Season 9.5 runs until September 11, 2026, the date on which Season 10 takes over. Until then, three events launched on August 13 — Krakoan Reels Vol. 2, Summer Snapshot and Pop & Win — continue until September 24, the Creed of Akabba event closes on August 27, and the co-op mode against Ultron ends the same day.

Each of these deadlines comes with patches and content that will once again take up space. Better for the recompression to be done beforehand, rather than in the middle of a 20 GB download on a season-switch evening.

One last remark, applicable on PC: the space taken up by Marvel Rivals isn't limited to its installation folder. The shader cache, regenerated every time the graphics driver changes, lives elsewhere on the system drive. It can be purged without risk — the game rebuilds it on the next match, at the cost of a few seconds of stutter on the first map.