Call of Duty: Vanguard is less than half the size of Warzone

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The Call of Duty: Vanguard system requirements are here.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is out in a few short days, making now the perfect time to make sure your PC is up to the task. Activision published a new blog post this morning outlining Vanguard's PC system requirements and I'm pleasantly surprised by how flexible it'll be. There's also a shiny new PC-focused trailer that you can watch above.

The last few years of Call of Duty have boasted reasonable specs that scale nicely from older machines to newer hardware, but they've also been major storage hogs. Last year's Black Ops - Cold War required over 80GB at launch, which is a mercy compared to the 147GB that Call of Duty: Warzone requires right now.

Thankfully, Vanguard will be kinder than both at launch, requiring a minimum of 36GB (multiplayer and Zombies only) and 61GB for the whole package. That's installed, not downloaded. 61GB makes it less than half the size of Warzone, or a whopping five times smaller if you'll be uninstalling the Vanguard campaign when it's over.

Here are the full Call of Duty: Vanguard system requirements:

Call of Duty: Vanguard minimum system requirements

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest update)
Processor: Intel Core i3-4340 or AMD FX-6300
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 470
RAM: 8GB
VRAM: 2GB
Storage: 36GB at launch (Multiplayer and Zombies only)

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest update) or Windows 11 64-bit (latest update)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580
RAM: 12GB
VRAM: 4GB
Storage: 61GB at launch

Call of Duty: Vanguard competitive system requirements

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest update) or Windows 11 64-bit (latest update)
Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070/RTX 3060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
RAM: 16GB
VRAM: 8GB
Storage: 61GB at launch

Call of Duty: Vanguard ultra system requirements

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest update) or Windows 11 64-bit (latest update)
Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
RAM: 16GB
VRAM: 10GB
Storage: 61GB (with an optional "Hi-Rez assets cache" up to 64GB more)

While I appreciate the extra detail we get from the "Competitive" and "Ultra" spec lists, I wish the blog post outlined exactly what these labels mean. In lieu of specifics, it's probably safe to assume "Competitive" is what you should be targeting if you want to play at a super high framerate and keep the game looking pretty. "Ultra" likely refers to cranking everything up to the max while targeting 4K resolution.

The post also covers pre-loading, which is available on PC as soon as tomorrow. Those who pre-ordered Vanguard on Battle.net can start preloading on November 2 at 10AM PT. 

Morgan Park
Morgan Park
Staff Writer

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.

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