Returnal official minimum and recommended PC system requirements revealed

Sony PlayStation exclusive Returnal will finally be making its way to PC in a few months' time, and its developers have announced the official hardware requirements for the game.

Since it is a PS5 exclusive, the game will be quite demanding on PC, with the recommended RAM requirement revealed to be 32 GB.

However, this won't be the first time a PS exclusive war has recommended 32 GB on PC. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered also demanded the same, but only for its Ultimate Ray Tracing (4K, 60fps) graphical preset. The rest of the requirements asked for 16 GB RAM.

EA had initially recommended 32 GB for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order when it came to PC. However, the developers soon traced it back to 16 GB, which will likely be the case for Returnal.

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Memory, graphics, storage, and everything to know about the minimum and recommended PC system requirements for Returnal

Here are all the minimum and recommended PC system requirements for Returnal:

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

Some of the most graphics-intensive PC games run perfectly with 16 GB RAM, with a Steam hardware survey showing that the majority of the titles are running on 8 GB.

So it’s quite odd that Returnal would require 32 GB when other games offer the same amount of graphics fidelity with less memory.

During the PC port announcement at The Game Awards 2022, Sony stated:

"Rest assured that you will be faced with a cutting-edge Housemarque challenge, and the bells and whistles are there to support the gameplay experience."

Additionally, when taking into account the September leaks, it’s likely that the PC port for the game will have ray tracing. This might be why the developers are asking for a spec with 32 GB of recommended RAM. They will likely scale it back to 16 GB when the game finally gets its release on PC in early 2023.