A month ago, Returnal requirements for PC were published, long awaited game which was originally released as a a temporary PS5 exclusive. At that time, we were only able to find out the minimum and recommended requirements, that is, the range that Sony has expanded to include today five different levels:

• Minimum requirements for game movement in 720p and 60 FPS with low quality.
• Average motion requirements of Returnal in 1080p with 60 FPS and medium quality.
• Recommended requirements that will allow us to configure it at 1080p and 60 FPS with high quality.
• Epic requirements to play in 4K with “epic” quality and 60 FPS.
• Requirements to play with ray tracing, maximum quality and 4K while maintaining 60 FPS.

The return requirements are quite high, even at the minimum level. You could say that this is somewhat understandable since this is a game that is based on the technical foundation of the PS5, the hardware of which is much better than that of the PS4, but the truth is that even with that in mind, it is obvious that claims are inflated.

The PS5 version renders at native 1080p resolution, a resolution that is temporarily upsampled to 1440p and then checkerboarded to 4K. That said, we’re actually dealing with a title that renders at 1080p, and it shows in the final graphical treatment, as DigitalFoundry indicated in its technical analysis.

One of the big claims about Returnal was the use of ray-traced accelerated lighting, but that was something that caused a lot of confusion. The technology mentioned in PS5 has no real impact on Returnal’s graphical qualityand the game developer themselves confirmed that they were only using it to “improve performance”.

PC return requirements

The minimal requirements They are almost at the level of what the recommended port requirements of the previous generation of consoles were in games that are not very demanding:

• Windows 10 64-bit.
• Intel Core i5-6400 or Ryzen 5 1500X processor. There is an equivalence error, Ryzen 3 2300X would be correct.
• 16 GB of RAM.
• Graphics card GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB or Radeon RX 580 with 8 GB.
• 60 GB free space.
• SSD recommended.
• Configuration and performance: 720p and 60 FPS with low quality.

jumping into medium requirements we see a significant jump at the CPU and GPU level, although it’s not crazy since the GTX 1070 has been on the market for more than six years:

• Windows 10 64-bit.
• Intel Core i5-8400 processor or Ryzen 5 2600. The most accurate equivalent would be Ryzen 5 3500.
• 16 GB of RAM.
• Graphics card GeForce GTX 1070 with 8 GB or Radeon RX 5600 XT with 6 GB. There is another equivalency error, the closest would be the Radeon RX Vega 56.
• 60 GB free space.
• SSD recommended.
• Configuration and performance: 1080p and 60 FPS with medium quality.

IN recommended requirements We’re already getting to the more advanced generations of graphics cards and there’s a big leap:

• Windows 10 64-bit.
• Intel Core i7-8700 or Ryzen 7 2700X processor. We have another equivalency error here, the closest would be the Ryzen 5 3600.
• 16 GB of RAM.
• 8GB GeForce RTX 2070 Super or 12GB Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. Another mismatch as the Radeon RX 6600 XT is closest to the GeForce RTX 2070 Super.
• 60 GB free space.
• SSD recommended.
• Configuration and performance: 1080p and 60 FPS with high quality.

The higher requirements They allow us to enjoy the game in all its glory, but they are very high, as we will see below:

• Windows 10 64-bit.
• Intel Core i7-9700K or Ryzen 7 3700X processor.
• 32 GB of RAM.
• Graphics card 10 GB GeForce RTX 3080 or 16 GB Radeon RX 6800 XT.
• 60 GB free space.
• SSD recommended.
• Configuration and performance: 4K and 60 FPS with maximum quality.

Finally we have ray tracing requirementswhich require a very powerful computer:

• Windows 10 64-bit.
• Intel Core i9-11900K or Ryzen 9 5900X processor. Another equivalency error, the closest would be the Ryzen 7 5800X.
• 32 GB of RAM.
• 12GB GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or 16GB Radeon RX 6950 XT graphics card.
• 60 GB free space.
• SSD recommended.
• Configuration and performance: 4K and 60 FPS with maximum quality with ray tracing.

If we meet the return requirements but are a little tight and want to improve the flow, we can do this by activating DLSS or FSR technology, which will be integrated into the PC version. The game will be available from February 15.