Ah, yes. The “let’s bloat our game size to bully other games off your SSD so you’ll be reluctant to ever uninstall it, because reinstalling it would be a big pain, that way you’ll play it indefinitely and give us extra money in micro transactions” strategy.
It’s huge because studios don’t optimize anymore
I would agree that most studios dont optimize well, however i still remember how small elden rings download was compared to how sprawling the game world ended up being. It was mind numbing every time the map would double in size with each new area, then to find there was even an underside to the map… it just was perfect.