Very few things in life are scarier than an angry internet mob, much more so if their criticism is valid. Case in point, the backlash against the PC requirements of Alan Wake 2.
Not long after the upcoming Remedy Entertainment sequel went viral for its steep PC requirements – it’s right up there with Immortals of Aveum – someone on Reddit crunched the numbers and found out a truly horrifying figure: “Only 7% of players will be able to run the game at real 1080P 60FPS.”
This is in light of the revelation that Alan Wake 2 will require either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 or an AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPU as a start.
The concerns initially arose last Friday when Remedy Entertainment detailed the demanding specifications needed for the sequel. Even for the minimum experience, players will need a GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600 GPU, alongside an Intel i5-7600K or AMD equivalent CPU, and 16GB of RAM, to get the game running at a cinematic 1080p version at 30fps on low graphical presets. Elevate those requirements for medium graphical settings and 1440p resolution, and a GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU is what you’ll need. Finally, for those aiming for the high-end experience, with ultra settings at 2160p and 60fps, must have the latest 12GB GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, DLSS or FSR2 set to performance, and a Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent CPU.
And this doesn’t even factor in the ray tracing, an entirely separate set of recommended PC requirements. For a medium graphical preset with ray tracing enabled at 1080p and 30fps, players will need to have a GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU with 8GB of VRAM. Those hoping to fully maximize the game’s visual prowess will need a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU with 16GB of VRAM, a Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent CPU, and 16GB of RAM.
Adding to the concerns, all the configurations, regardless of their graphical intensity, demand an SSD with a minimum storage capacity of 90GB.
Another critical point that generated much discussion was a now-deleted post by a Remedy developer, suggesting that the upcoming release might be dependent on mesh shader support to function. Mesh shaders were introduced as part of DirectX 12 Ultimate’s release in 2020 and require explicit GPU support. For Nvidia, this means starting from the Turing and above RTX 20-series, while for AMD, it starts from the RX 6000-series. This revelation means that anyone hoping to run Alan Wake 2 on older graphics cards, specifically Nvidia’s RTX 10-series and AMD’s RX 5000-series, might be out of luck.
The significance of mesh shaders is their potential to optimize the rendering process by replacing traditional vertex and geometry shaders in the pipeline. However, with Alan Wake 2 possibly forgoing other shading techniques, it could put a lot of users with older graphics cards on the sideline. While some Redditors hinted at the possibility of modders adding a vertex shader path dropped from the game due to performance issues, this still leaves a sizable portion of the community uncertain about their ability to play.
Adding to this, the necessity for DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and FSR2 (FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0) was highlighted in the game’s system requirements for all settings, from minimum to ultra. Such a requirement suggests a game specifically developed with upscaling technologies in mind, making it even more challenging for players without the latest hardware.
There are other implications to consider too. For instance, how will this title fare on consoles, specifically Xbox Series S, which some critics argue lacks the GPU power to run such intensive games? Given that other developers have previously expressed their reluctance to cater to this console, it raises questions about the game’s performance and visuals on such platforms.
Alan Wake 2’s design, which carries a cinematic grindhouse movie flair, may look stunning with its dynamic lighting and the realism that path tracing offers. Still, its hardware demands could discourage a significant number of players from an otherwise otherworldly experience.
Whether Alan Wake 2 sets a precedent for future games remains a question, but for now, many potential players might need to weigh their excitement against the cost and feasibility of required upgrades.
