Video games are slapped together because deadlines must be hit. The most popular titles can cost >$100 million to produce so there is huge pressure to get it out the door. Customers expect cutting edge graphics which contributes to production budget bloat (so does marketing). A lot of PC games are console first and ported over. The new console generation (PS5) means more VRAM is available so games expand to fill it. Just like how Blu-ray was a large increase over DVD capacity. Later 50GB was a ceiling commonly bumped up against. Once 50GB was exceeded why not have a 100GB install size since you’ve blown past the Blu-ray limit anyway?
This is not true about AW2 though - it's pretty clear that it's a PC-first title. Consoles run the game at medium-low settings. Max settings are for future PCs. Even the 4090 can't run it @ native 4k 60 fps with everything maxed out.
