Some time ago I didn't understand this, I was making comparisons between quite big titles with some other game that maybe wasn't so big but weighed much more. Then I understood what you explain here about the weight of the graphic quality. Although I also think that in some cases companies are somewhat to blame for not optimizing their games well.

Starfield scares me hahaha, I usually put everything heavy on my 1TB HDD, but maybe I should clean it up a bit before it arrives 😅.