Square Enix Reveals Shadow of the Tomb Raider Minimum Specs

Square Enix has published the minimum and recommended hardware specifications for its upcoming AAA blockbuster, Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

The minimum hardware requirements are surprisingly low and don't start much higher than its predecessor, Rise of the Tomb Raider. Whereas Rise needs at least a Core i3-2100 or AMD equivalent, 6GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 650 2GB or Radeon HD 7770 graphics card, Shadow of the Tomb Raider requires a slightly newer Core i3-3220 (or AMD equivalent), 8GB of memory (2GB more), and a GTX 660 (one model higher than Rise of the Tomb Raider's minimum) or 1050 and the same HD 7770 for your graphics card. The only minimum requirement that substantially increased was the storage space, which went from 25GB (RoTR) to 40GB (SoTR).

Recommended specifications for Shadow of the Tomb Raider are also par for the course, with Square Enix suggesting a Core i7-4770K or Ryzen 5 1600 processor, 16GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 480 8GB graphics card. Rise of the Tomb Raider had a costlier GPU recommendation at launch with a GTX 970 (which, in its heyday, was more expensive than the GTX 1060), and it's comforting to know you won't need to buy one of the top tier graphics cards (and spend a ridiculous sum of money) to get to the recommended performance milestones for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The new game is also the first Tomb Raider title to list DirectX 12 as the recommended API, signalling that Square Enix has likely learned its DX12 lessons well from the previous iteration of the franchise.

You can pre-order Shadow of the Tomb Raider before it arrives on September 14 from the Steam Store, starting at $60 for a standard digital copy. There's also a Digital Deluxe Edition bundle for $70 that includes in-game items and early access, in addition to a Croft version for $90 that includes all that plus a season pass and more. See the photo above for the full details of each individual game edition.