XCOM 2’s PC requirements look forgiving

By Brad Jones December 11, 2015

XCOM 2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

XCOM 2 is set to be one of the biggest PC gaming releases of early 2016, following up on the stellar reboot to the classic strategy series released back in 2012. Now, developer Firaxis has released official guidelines for the sort of system specs players will need to run the game at its best.

Happily, they’re not all that intensive. XCOM has long been known as one of the more brutal video game franchises in terms of gameplay difficulty, but there will likely be no similar pressure for your hardware once the game is out in the wild in February of next year.

The full specifications are as follows, according to a report from PC Gamer:

Minimum:

OS: Windows® 7, 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core 2.6 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 or better
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 45 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card

Recommended:

OS: Windows® 7, 64-bit
Processor: 3GHz Quad Core
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: 2GB ATI Radeon HD 7970, 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 or better
Storage: 45 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card

Given that a 2.6 GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and a basic graphics card are all that’s needed to get XCOM 2 up and running, it’s likely that most relatively modern systems will be able to give it a whirl.

This seems like a tactical move on the part of Firaxis. The first game was released on everything from the Xbox 360 to iOS, but its sequel is focusing solely on the PC to ensure an end product that’s faithful to previous installments. To make up for that smaller potential audience, it seems that the game is being made hardware-friendly.

However, that doesn’t seem to have had too much of an effect on the game’s graphics — gameplay footage shared earlier in the year demonstrates that it’s a very pretty game. That is, when you’re not staring down a Chryssalid that just wiped out your entire squad.

XCOM 2 will release for the PC on February 5, 2016.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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