The God of War Ragnarok system requirements are here ahead of its September 19 release date, and you’ll want to do some spring cleaning beforehand. Given its sheer size, you’ll likely need to play Jenga with your game installs because the PC version demands more than double the SSD space compared to its PS5 counterpart.
Whereas the original release sits at 84GB, the PC port jumps to an imposing 190GB, which is 2.26x bigger. This eclipses notoriously large games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3 at 150GB each. Time to upgrade to the best SSD, I guess.
Sony games are always larger when making the jump to Windows, partly due to the lack of proprietary compression and the need to please a wider range of hardware. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart went from 43GB to 75GB, Horizon Forbidden West bloated from 86GB to 122GB, and most recently, Ghost of Tsushima lept from 60GB to 75 GB. It’s also not strictly a PC problem, as the original God of War started at 109GB on PS4 but fell to 86GB on PS5 with the 2021 enhancement update. Must be the beauty of the custom architecture.
Still, this is the first time we’ve seen such a large storage inflation, and it makes you wonder about game optimisation. One thing to be thankful for is that there’s no beating around the bush. Sony Santa Monica and Jetpack Interactive tell you exactly what you need and which resolution you need.
| Minimum 1080p at 30fps, low | Recommended 1080p at 60fps, medium | High 1440p at 60fps, high | |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Intel Core i5-4670K | AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Intel Core i5-8600 | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Intel Core i7-7700K |
| GPU | AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 | AMD Radeon RX 6700 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super | AMD Radeon RX 6800 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 |
| RAM | 8GB | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 190GB SSD | 190GB SSD | 190GB SSD |
As much as God of War Ragnarok deserves a good ribbing for its frankly obscene storage request, specs aren’t half as demanding as Star Wars: Outlaws. You can rock decade-old CPUs and run the action-adventure game without as much as a hiccup, let alone stutter. It’s also one of the last games to allow for 8GB of memory, but I sincerely recommend you at least double that as soon as you can.
Graphics cards are another matter. While you can get away with something a little older, you will be relegated to 30fps at the lowest of low settings. It’s good to create a baseline, and it spells good news if you have plans to play through Ragnarok on your Steam Deck, but otherwise, it’s worth aiming a little higher.
| High 4K at 60fps, high | Ultra 4K at 60fps, ultra | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Intel Core i7-7700K | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Intel Core i5-11600K |
| GPU | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti |
| RAM | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 190GB SSD | 190GB SSD |
Aside from minimum, all of these requirements target 60fps native, without the help of any upscalers. The developers have already confirmed that it’ll “harness the power of the platform” by including Nvidia DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS, which you might need to reach triple-figure frame rates. Alongside those, you’ll also see Nvidia Reflex for low latency, Super ultrawide aspect ratios up to 32:9, unlocked frame rates, and spatial 3D audio if you have the compatible kit.
I truly admire how direct Jetpack Interactive is about what the game expects, especially when terms like minimum and recommended are otherwise useless without qualifications. It’d be nice to see some Intel GPU love, but I can appreciate that most people haven’t yet seen the appeal of Team Blue’s approach to graphics cards. Maybe in time, it’ll become a mainstay like the others.
