In brief: PlayStation 5 title Returnal jumping to the PC was one of many big announcements at last week’s game awards. It confirmed months-long rumors that the well-reviewed shooter would get a port, and now that its Steam listing is up, we know what system specs the developers are recommending: a whopping 32GB of RAM and at least an RTX 2070 Super / Radeon RX 6700 XT.
Third-person roguelike Returnal arrived on the PS5 last year to praise from critics and consumers alike, earning several nominations and prizes from various video game ceremonies. A Steam DB listing in May hinted at the game losing its PS5 exclusivity, and the port was confirmed at the Game Awards a few days ago.
“You want how much RAM?”
But those who plan on getting the best out of Returnal will need a fairly beastly rig. The game’s Steam page, which popped up straight after the PC-version announcement, lists an RTX 2070 Super / RX 6700 XT as the recommended graphics card. That’s comparatively high-end, though we’ve certainly seen more demanding GPU recommendations, such as the RTX 3070 for A Plague Tale Requiem. However, Returnal also suggests players have 32GB of RAM.
The good news is that those recommended specs (they also include an Intel i7-8700 / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X) are likely required for pushing the settings up to max with ray tracing enabled at 4K. The Verge notes that both Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered ask for 32GB of RAM only for their Ultimate Ray tracing settings (4K/60fps).
According to the latest Steam survey, 13.38% of participants pack 32GB in their systems, and only 2.6% use a 4K monitor as their primary display.
Thankfully, Retunal’s minimum specs are much more forgiving: an Intel Core i-6400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, GTX 1060 / Radeon RX 580, and 16GB of RAM. An SSD is a requirement in both sets of specs, as is 60GB of available space.
You can watch the entire Game Awards show right here.
Returnal minimum and recommended specs:
MINIMUM:
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
- Processor: Intel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz)
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB)
- Storage: 60 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SSD Recommended
RECOMMENDED:
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
- Processor: Intel i7-8700 (6 core 3.7 GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core 3.7 GHz)
- Memory: 32 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER (8 GB) AMD RX 6700 XT (12 GB)
- Storage: 60 GB available space