Microsoft may have paid for the latest installment in the long-running Tomb Raider franchise to be a timed Xbox One exclusive, but that deal was only ever going to last for a short while. This week, the game will be released for PC — and you’ll need a potent rig to run it.
First and foremost, it’s important to stress that Rise of the Tomb Raider seems to have been very faithfully ported to the PC. This isn’t a slapdash job akin to the Batman: Arkham Knight fiasco that played out last year, it’s just that the already handsome Xbox One version has been outfitted with some extra options to really push its limits.
Digital Foundry put the game through its paces, publishing the findings in a report posted on Eurogamer. Apparently, though, the extra work put in to ensure that Rise of the Tomb Raider sparkled as an Xbox One exclusive means that a budget PC might not be able to recreate the console experience, even if the game is still playable on such hardware.
To test out the more advanced graphical options, Digital Foundry compared an Nvidia GTX 970 and an AMD R9 390. With unlocked framerates and all settings maxed out, the AMD card offered a slight framerate advantage. However, it was noted that the GTX 970 actually fared better in some parts of the game, with cut-scenes, close-ups and interiors managed better by the R9.
The report states that players will need a rig packed with an i5 quad-core processor and a GTX 970 or comparable graphics card for results similar to the Xbox One version of the game. That’s a formidable set of specs, but not altogether unsurprising given that Lara Croft’s latest excursion is something of a graphical showcase.
This is only the first of two Rise of the Tomb Raider ports scheduled for 2016, and Xbox fans will no doubt be interested to see how both versions of the adventure measure up to the original release. The game is out for PC tomorrow, with a PlayStation 4 launch scheduled for the fall.
