I watched a video where huge portions for the data of Team Fortress 2

If you think about what the majority of files in an installed game are, this should make intuitive sense. The smallest part of the installed game is the executable that runs the game. Then you've got animations, audio, textures, level geometry, pre-rendered video, and so on. Consider - while you're playing the game, at any specific point in time, do you actually need all of those assets at the same time? Do you need every animation for every skeleton, every texture for every model, and every level at the same time?

The answer is "No". When I'm playing level 2, there's no need for the game to load any data specific to level 8, or 11, or 17, or any other level than the level I'm currently playing. We really only need to load the data common across the whole game (e.g. player models and animations, UI, etc.) and the level-specific data for the level we're playing. Thus, as long as we're staying in level 2 without advancing, the level-specific data for level 17 may as well not exist. If we delete it from the disk, nothing bad will happen until we try to get into level 17. It's not unlike the transit department blocking off parts of a road you're currently taking. As long you're not trying to get into the parts that are closed off (missing/corrupted data), you're actually probably fine. If you do go in, you'll probably crash.

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