Forspoken PC requirements are out, and they are steep

Luminous Productions’ fantastical new IP Forspoken is set to release in a week’s time, and the developer has recently taken to Twitter to reveal the system requirements for the PC version of the title. Considering the hardware required for minimum, maximum, and ultra performance, Forspoken appears to be a pretty demanding title requiring top-of-the-line components to run at the highest settings.

Unfortunately, running the game in a resolution as low as 720p at 30 fps may be a challenge for some setups. To meet Forspoken’s minimum settings, PC players will need a Ryzen 5 1600 or an Intel Core i7-3770 CPU, an 8GB AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT or a 6 GB GeForce GTX 1060, and 16 GB of RAM. The recommended specs call for an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or an Intel Core i7-8700K, a 12GB AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or an 8GB GeForce GTX 3070 GPU, and 24 GB of RAM. The latter setup is said to yield stable performance at 1440p and 30 fps. 

Finally, fans hoping to play in 4K at 60 fps will need either a Ryzen 7 5800X (listed as Ryzen 5) or an Intel Core i7-12700K CPU, an 16 GB AMD Radeon 6800 XT or a 16 GB GeForce GTX 4080 GPU, and a total of 32 GB of RAM. Very few rigs are likely to meet these mandates, and those who do may well sacrifice visual fidelity in favor of a performance boost. All requirements ask for 150 GB of storage space, which is honestly quite staggering.

Learn more about #Forspoken's PC performance and requirements. pic.twitter.com/3gEKwaz2op

— Forspoken (@Forspoken) January 17, 2023

Forspoken PC requirements could spell trouble for some

These are some fairly steep system requirements, and some rigs may seriously struggle to keep up. Additionally, publisher Square Enix directly compares AMD’s RX 6800 XT to Nvidia’s RTX 4080, though these two cards aren’t exactly analogous. It’s also worth reiterating that meeting the minimum requirements may only provide stable performance at 720p, indicating that players on less powerful hardware may want to strongly consider upgrading before jumping into Forspoken’s fantasy world. It will have Microsoft’s DirectStorage support, however, so loading should be smooth for those running an SSD.

Forspoken has endured numerous delays; originally slated for a May 2022 release, the title was first pushed back to October before again being delayed until January 2023. That shouldn’t necessarily be a cause for alarm, as gamers tend to be in favor of delays should they serve to further polish a title or spare a development team of crunch. However, these high requirements, along with the game’s status as a next-gen-only title, mean that many prospective players won’t be able to access the game during its release window.