If Hogwarts Legacy unpacking is going slowly on Steam, it’s likely not an issue. Most people who find the game is stuck unpacking are those who preloaded it. Unfortunately, the way the preload files are stored means it can take a lot longer to unpack them than if you downloaded the game once it’s released.
Why is Hogwarts Legacy unpacking slow or stuck?
If Hogwarts Legacy is unpacking slowly or seems stuck, odds are you preloaded the game. For most people, it’ll only take 5-20 minutes for the game to unpack. However, depending on your PC and install drive, it could take much longer.
When Steam preloads a game, it downloads an encrypted and compressed version. So, when the game releases, it has to decrypt and decompress it. If you have enough space on your install drive, it shouldn’t take too long. However, if your drive is almost full, you might find Hogwarts Legacy takes hours to unpack.
The reason for this is because if there’s not enough space to decrypt and decompress the game all at once, it has to do the work in chunks. It takes more time because Steam has to verify the files after each piece is processed, then delete the preload data before moving on to the next part.
Fortunately, if you have fast internet, you can delete your preload and redownload Hogwarts Legacy, and it’ll take less time than it would to let it unpack.
