Steam just asked NieR: Automata owners for a small favor: free up roughly 366 gigabytes. A Nov. 6 update that added Simplified and Traditional Chinese plus Korean language support accidentally inflated the install requirement from about 50GB to 366.56GB, Automaton reports, and the official NieR PR account has confirmed the studio is investigating.
The bug is uglier on the download gate than on the drive. Checking each of the game’s eight DLC packages shows every one of them listing a file size as large as the base game; added together they push the Steam requirement past 360GB. Once the game and DLC actually land, Automaton notes the installed footprint is still around 40–50GB — the 366GB figure is the prerequisite Steam thinks you need before it will start.
NieR PR posted a temporary workaround in Japanese: uncheck all DLC under Steam → Properties → DLC, download the base game first, then re-enable the DLC packs afterward. Eurogamer and other outlets repeated the same steps for English readers while Square Enix works on a real fix. Eurogamer frames it as a botched language patch, not a new content dump.
This is the first Steam update NieR: Automata has received since July 15, 2021 — a five-year gap that made the sudden language pack feel like a gift until the storage meter lit up. Console versions on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch are not part of the Steam-side complaint.
The timing is awkward for Square Enix’s PC reputation in a week when the company is also talking publicly about funding priorities after the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, including Yoshinori Kitase’s comments that new games may get more love than remakes. Shipping a language update that triples the perceived install size is not the PC hygiene story anyone wanted attached to a 2017 classic.
Until a corrected build ships, the actionable advice is narrow: do not wipe a drive to make room for 366GB; use the DLC-uncheck workaround, install the base game, then pull DLC in smaller bites. Players who already updated without the workaround and hit the wall can wait for Square Enix’s fix rather than rearranging an entire Steam library.
Language support for Chinese and Korean players is still the intended win here. The studio’s own apology and the public workaround are the clean public record until a patch note confirms the size gate is back to something a mid-range SSD can swallow without a fire drill.
