Everybody's either mad or sad about the Alan Wake 2 system requirements

Alan Wake 2 key art - Alan Wake looking rough

(Image credit: Remedy Entertainment)

Alan Wake 2, Remedy's survival horror take on the story of a sad guy and his missing wife, is now just one week away—it's set to arrive on October 27. Now it's finally time to get a look at the game's PC system requirements, and you're going to need a pretty beefy PC to run it, which some fans are none too happy about.

First things first, let's have a look at the numbers:

Alan Wake 2 system requirements — (Image credit: Remedy Entertainment)

Minimum (1080p, 30 fps, Low graphics preset):

CPU: Intel i5-7600K or AMD equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600, 6GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Quality

Recommended (1080p, 60 fps, medium graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6700 XT, 8GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Performance

Recommended (1440, 30 fps, medium graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT, 8GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Performance

Ultra (4K, 60 fps, high graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT, 12GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Performance

Ray Tracing Low (1080p, 30 fps, medium/ray tracing low graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800 XT, 8GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Quality

Ray Tracing Medium (1080p, 60 fps, medium/ray tracing medium/path tracing on graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 4070, 12GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Quality

Ray Tracing High (4K, 60 fps, high/ray tracing high/path tracing on graphics preset):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent
GPU: GeForce RTX 4080, 16GB VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 90GB SSD
DLSS/FSR2: Quality

That's a pretty steep hardware demand, especially if you want to get up into the high-end eye candy: Not to put too fine a point on it, but an RTX 4080 GPU alone probably costs more than my entire PC.

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This has not gone over especially well with some followers on Twitter: Some question the game's "optimization," others hope that the requirements are inflated to help ensure borderline PCs have a good experience, a few say they'll take their chances with the console version, and of course there are folks here and there who simply bemoan their fate.

(For the record, I fall into the last group, but that's my response to pretty much everything.)

I too have been waiting to run the game at native 560p on my 3070... — (Image credit: hellolaingley (Twitter))

WTF — (Image credit: NoisePatrick (Twitter))

Yep. I need to upgrade my PC... — (Image credit: AzzioTK (Twitter))

uh-oh — (Image credit: markhachman (Twitter))

Waited 10 years for a game I won't be able to play. It's so ovah I can't believe it. — (Image credit: ImDor_ (Twitter))

RT medium: 1080p/60 4070/12gb.... pic.twitter.com/0mHGv5WzEOOctober 20, 2023

It's not much better on Reddit, where the word "insane" already appears a dozen times in the official system requirements thread. "Monsters wear many faces," CaramelChemical633 wrote. "And one of them is these system requirements."

Remedy's previous big release, Control, also dropped some eye-watering system requirements ahead of release, but in that case it appeared to be preliminary specs that ended up on the Epic Games Store—the official requirements, shared by Remedy a week later, were considerably more reasonable. In this case, though, these numbers are straight from the horse's mouth, so all we can do is buckle up and hope for the best when Alan Wake 2 arrives next week.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.