Returnal comes to PC on February 15, Sony reveals PC features and final system requirements

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: Returnal already shocked users when its basic system specs recommended they have 32GB of RAM in December. Sony has further expanded and slightly revised its system requirements while confirming a few PC-exclusive features in its recent release date announcement. You can get by with just 16GB of RAM unless you want to play Returnal in 4K.

Sony's latest PC port of a formerly PlayStation 5-exclusive game – the award-winning Returnal – lands on February 15. Like some other games arriving in the first quarter of 2023, it will require a reasonably beefy setup to play at 60 frames per second, especially in 4K or with ray tracing.

The roguelike third-person shooter's minimum system requirements haven't changed since December: an Intel Core i5-6400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580, and 16GB of RAM to play the game at 720p and 60fps at low graphics settings.

However, the recommended specs previously listed 32GB of RAM along with a Core i7-8700 or Ryzen 7 2700X and an RTX 2070 Super or RX 6700 XT. The new specs list the same hardware and a 16GB RAM requirement to play Returnal at 1080p and 60fps at high settings.

Other games arriving soon, like the Dead Space remake, Forspoken, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, list similar GPU recommendations: a 2070, 3070, 6700, or 6800 with 16GB of system memory. Popular cards like the GTX 1060 and RX 580 have fallen to the minimum spec.

Sony added a "medium" spec in-between minimum and recommended for Returnal. It suggests 16GB of RAM, a Core i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 2600, and a GTX 1070 or RX 5600 XT to play at 1080p and 60fps at medium settings.

The infamous 32GB recommendation only emerges in Returnal's "Epic" and "Ray Tracing" requirements. While Sony suggests an RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT to play the game in 4K at maximum settings without ray tracing, adding RT only seems to slightly increase the recommended GPU spec to a 3080 Ti or 6950 XT. Square Enix's Forspoken, launching on January 24, also recommends 32GB of RAM for 4K gameplay.

Sony also revealed this week that, in addition to the PlayStation 5 version's ray-traced shadows, Returnal supports ray-traced reflections on PC. Enabling DLSS and FSR upscaling should help users mitigate the performance cost of ray tracing. The title will also feature in-game Nvidia Image Scaling settings as an alternative to FSR for those without RTX graphics cards.

The PC version supports 21:9 and 32:9 ultra widescreen. Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers through the DualSense controller make the jump to desktop but require a wired connection.

Returnal arrives on Steam and the Epic Games Store next month for $59.99.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97310-returnal-comes-pc-february-15-sony-reveals-pc.html

 

[Ohnooze]

I bought this for PS5 and really did not like it.
Wouldn't recommend unless you like starting over and over and over again. But hey to each his own.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

I bought this for PS5 and really did not like it.
Wouldn't recommend unless you like starting over and over and over again. But hey to each his own.

Yeah, honestly wasn't a fan of Rogue and so not really a fan of roguelikes/roguelites.

 

[dangh]

This is roguelike, do starting again and again is what should be happening. Expecting something else if genre is defined makes little sense.
And roguelike part is made really well. I was playing it already on ps5 and it is a great game. Well made, good presentation, story, mechanics. Good more people will be able to enjoy it.

 

[Ohnooze]

This is roguelike, do starting again and again is what should be happening. Expecting something else if genre is defined makes little sense.
And roguelike part is made really well. I was playing it already on ps5 and it is a great game. Well made, good presentation, story, mechanics. Good more people will be able to enjoy it.

Well I did say to each his own. I'm not familiar with rouge.

 

[Nintenboy01]

I thought the 32GB RAM recommendation was a crutch for not having DirectStorage or guaranteed speedy SSDs. Also the GPU recommendations are never logical in most of these games, particularly Forspoken

 

[Threadcount]

Well for me I personally never liked rouge like titles, but this one was great, I think mostly because of the space age guns you get as you progress, making it feel like those old arcade shooters with tons of bullets blasting the enemies, I know you start over and over again but the levels change making it feel fresh.

 

[MrJelly]

I thought the 32GB RAM recommendation was a crutch for not having DirectStorage or guaranteed speedy SSDs. Also the GPU recommendations are never logical in most of these games, particularly Forspoken

The Recommended specs and expected 1080p60 performance are on par with a PS5. Returnal’s native resolution on PS5 is only around 1080p, they then used temporal upsampling to get to 1440p and then checkerboard rendering to get to 4K.

 

[amghwk]

A game that run just fine on a 2 year console, now requires state of the art tomorrow's PC specs? No thanks.

 

[MrJelly]

A game that run just fine on a 2 year console, now requires state of the art tomorrow's PC specs? No thanks.

According to the requirements sheet, 2 years old mid tier GPU will give you 1080p60 with high details (or 4k60 with aggressive upscaling, the game will support FSR and DLSS), the same what PS5. Even a 6 years old mid tier PC will run the game in 1080p60 with medium details. But hey, when console doesn't show you in the settings at what base resolution and detail level the game runs, it has to be 4k ultra, right, right? LOL no.

 

[EdmondRC]

These charts are becoming meaningless. Does the game support DLSS? Is DLSS being used to achieve the EPIC 4K @ 60fps or is that native? A lot of other GPUs could potentially achieve 4K 60fps with DLSS if that is native.

 

[kira setsu]

Its odd they always exclude 1080p maxed out or 1440p maxed out these days.

just skipped all over my 3070ti, reading between the marketing lines I'll be fine though.

 

[neeyik]

Does the game support DLSS? Is DLSS being used to achieve the EPIC 4K @ 60fps or is that native?

The source article for the chart states "use of performance enhancing upscaling like NVIDIA DLSS is recommended when using both ray-traced reflections and ray-traced shadows."

The game has DLSS and FSR, as well as Nvidia's basic image upscaler.

 

[fb020997]

Its odd they always exclude 1080p maxed out or 1440p maxed out these days.

just skipped all over my 3070ti, reading between the marketing lines I'll be fine though.

I too don’t understand that, especially as I prefer 1440p120 (as I can’t notice any difference between 120 and more fps, my wallet thanks me) to 4k60.