Frictional Games’ SOMA may scare you, but won’t frighten your gaming PC

By Jon Martindale August 25, 2015

frictional soma games settings somaspecs — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Most of the time when you check out an upcoming game’s minimum and recommended specifications, it’s time to get your wallet out. However that’s not the case with Frictional Games’ upcoming horror, exploration title SOMA, which actually seems very reasonable in terms of computing demands.

Released along with news that pre-orders are now possible via Steam and GoG, the specifications of this underwater tale of life, machinery, and the line between, is optimized in a way that most gamers should be able to tackle at decent levels of detail.

Minimum specifications (via PCGamer) are:

CPU: 2.0GHz Intel Core i3 or AMD A6
RAM: 4GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 460M or AMD Radeon HD 5770
Storage: 25GB
OS: Windows 7 64bit

Recommended specifications are:

CPU: 2.9GHz Intel Core i5 or AMD FX
RAM: 8GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 480M or AMD Radeon HD 8770
Storage: 25GB
OS: Windows 7 64bit

The fact that a mobile GPU can even feature in the recommended specifications is surprising in itself, but the fact that it’s a five year old mobile GPU too is surprising. The same goes for AMD’s 8000 series GPU, which is far from the top end, and was even a rebadge when it released in 2013.

If this was a large, open world AAA title that nobody had yet seen, these specifications may have had fans worried, suggesting perhaps that the visuals are not up to contemporary standards. Frictional is known more for its ability to create immersive atmospheres, but SOMA is far from an ugly game. More likely these specs are testament to the time Frictional has spent developing (five years) and optimizing the game.

It’s likely also a consideration to make sure as many people as possible can play this game as it was meant to be when it release on September 22 for PC and PS4 – and that’s never a bad thing.

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