Ever since Nintendo unveiled Super Mario Odyssey to the world at E3 this summer, fans have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of what appears to be Mario’s biggest adventure since the Super Mario Galaxy games. However, some gamers are concerned that this upcoming game may not be quite as big as they expected. According to the game’s listing on the official Japanese Nintendo Store site (translated by Nintendo Life), Super Mario Odyssey‘s file size is only 5.7 GB, making the whole game about the same size as some other AAA games’ save data.
This doesn’t necessarily mean it will be smaller than previous Mario games, though. Apparently, many more of Nintendo’s first-party games for the Switch are just as small. Arms is only 2.2 GB and Splatoon 2 comes in at 3.1 GB. In fact, Mario’s previous 3D game, Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U, was only 1.7 GB, making Super Mario Odyssey more than three times larger than that game.
The reason why Nintendo’s games seem so much smaller than other AAA games, such as NBA 2K18, is because they know how to best optimize for their consoles. Even though they may have better, higher-resolution 4K graphics than most of Nintendo’s offerings, some of them don’t know how to best optimize on the Switch, as evidenced by NBA 2K18 requiring 5GB of save data to be stored on the system memory. Other games such as Doom will obviously be pushing 20 to 30 GB, but hopefully Nintendo will help guide Bethesda to optimize the port as best they can.
Super Mario Odyssey launches October 27th for the Switch. Nintendo has also announced an Odyssey Switch bundle which will include the system and game, as well as red Joy-Cons and an Odyssey-themed Switch carrying case.