The PlayStation 5 has one of the smallest storage sizes of any console over the last decade, but it’s not as bad as it seems. Sony is reportedly using a specialized data compression technology that can shrink game file sizes by as much as 60%. This would more than compensate for 825GB of storage on the console.

Twisted Voxel reported that the survival game Subnautica has just a 5GB file size on the PS5. Compare this to 14GB on the PlayStation 4 and you’re saving more than 60% of storage space.

TechRadar reports that Control: Ultimate Edition also benefits significantly from Sony’s compression tech, coming in at just 25.79GB on the PS5 compared to 42.5GB on the Xbox Series X. That’s a 39% reduction in file size.

A lot is still unknown about Sony’s compression technology, all we know at this time is Sony’s name for the tech, so-called “Kraken”. We don’t know if all PS5 games are supported, or if games need to be optimized for this compression tech. Kraken could also extend to support PS4 games and older but we’re making educated guesses at this point.

Traditionally, compression technologies have never required game developers to optimize for compression, so technically all games running on the PS5’s built-in SSD should support Kraken.

Hopefully, PS5’s Kraken compression will expand to the console’s second M.2 SSD slot, once Sony unlocks it. We could also see Kraken coming to external USB drives, but that could be wishing for too much.

It’s great to see such massive advances in compression technology in an era where games are doubling in size every three to four years. Hopefully it means people can upgrade their storage a bit less often and keep more games on their systems.