Stalker 2 PC requirements are fairly demanding, needing a decent-sized SSD

Stalker 2
(Image credit: GSC Game World)

Stalker 2, the long-awaited sequel to the open world shooter which is set to launch in April 2022, has had its system requirements revealed – and they’re relatively hefty in some respects.

While some elements of the PC spec are not so demanding, there are a couple of minimum requirements which will raise some eyebrows, mainly on the GPU and storage front. Let’s look at those requirements in full first:

Minimum requirements

  • OS: Windows 10
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
  • RAM: 8GB
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
  • Drive Space: 150GB - SSD required

Recommended requirements

  • OS: Windows 10
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • RAM: 16GB
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER / GTX 1080 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
  • Drive Space: 150GB - SSD required

As mentioned, the minimum spec calling for at least a GTX 1060 (6GB) graphics card – or Radeon RX 580 – seems fairly steep (remember, this is the bare minimum GPU you can use, and so isn’t going to provide that great a result). With the recommended spec, you’ll need to have an RTX 2070 Super or RX 5700 XT, no less.

Also, an SSD is a requirement, so those gamers still using a hard drive will be out of luck. Doubling up the pain here is the installation size being 150GB, a whopping chunk of space that smaller SSDs could struggle with (for those gamers who bought a small and more affordable model).

Drive chomping

That said, this isn’t so surprising, as we’ve seen some pretty huge install sizes in recent history – for example, Red Dead Redemption 2 also took up 150GB of drive space, then there’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which eats up over 200GB these days.

Stalker 2 isn’t the only contemporary game to be asking for an SSD, either, as it joins the likes of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Marvel’s Avengers, to pick a couple of examples that recommend an SSD.

Stalker 2’s spec insists on an SSD as a minimum requirement, though, making it compulsory. That’s in much the same vein as World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, which specifies an SSD in the minimum requirements, though says a hard disk is usable, while noting “depending on the performance of the drive, player experience may be impacted on HDD [hard disk drive]”. We suspect it’s the same case with Stalker 2, just that the caveat has been dispensed with.

The minimum requirement calls for 8GB of RAM, but like many games now, the recommended spec is 16GB.

As mentioned, Stalker 2 is due to debut next year on April 28, and has been in the works for a long, long time. In fact, the sequel was expected to arrive in 2012 originally, and a few years back we heard about a fresh release timeframe of 2021 – although that has obviously slid slightly now. There’s no guarantee that it might not slide a bit further, too, but better that than release a buggy game.

Via Wccftech

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).