World of Warcraft: Shadowlandsrecently had its release date revealed as part of the Gamescom Opening Night Live broadcast. Alongside the announcement, Blizzard also launched pre-orders, as well as one other very interesting piece of information. The minimum and recommended PC hardware requirements forWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlandsare now available. And to say that some meaningful changes have been made sinceBattle for Azerothwould be an understatement.
Near every single one ofShadowlands' requirements, regardless of whether it’s a minimum requirement or a recommended requirement, has been upped sinceWorld of Warcraft’s previous expansion. That includes CPU, GPU, and storage, with storage device being a particularly big step up. The only piece of hardware that won’t be needing an upgrade is RAM, as it’s consistent between bothShadowlandsandBattle for Azeroth(with one notable extra detail).
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To start with perhaps the biggest change,Shadowlandsnow requiresWorld of Warcraftplayers to have aSolid State Drivefor storage. An SSD has been recommended inWorld of Warcraftfor some time, butBattle for Azeroth’s minimum requirements allowed for a 7200 RPG HDD instead. WithShadowlands, the minimum requirements now ask for a 100GB SSD, which is alsoShadowlands' recommended storage as well.
Both the minimum and recommended specifications for players’CPU and GPUhave been increased, as well. For CPUs, the minimum requirements inShadowlandshave been increased from an Intel i5-760 or AMD FX-8100 up to an Intel i5-3450 or AMD FX-8300. The recommended CPU specifications have been increased from an Intel i7-4770 or AMD FC-8300 inBattle for Azerothup to an Intel i7-6700k or Ryzen 7 2700X inShadowlands.
GPU requirements are similarly scaled up by about a generation. Minimum requirements have been boosted from an Invidia GT 560 2GB/AMD HD 7850 2GB/Intel HD Graphics 530 to a Nvidia GTX 760 2GB/AMD RX 560 2GB/Intel UHD Graphics 630. Recommended requirements are increasing from an Nvidia GTX 960/AMD R9 280 to an Nvidia GTX 1080/AMD RX Vega 64. Recommended GPU requirements have always been somewhat high forWorld of Warcraftdue to the MMO’s scale.
It’ll be those who are nearWorld of Warcraft’s minimum specifications that will be in the worst place, of course.World of Warcrafthas always been an MMO that welcomes players in regardless of their PC hardware, at least to an extent. It’snot exactly an MMO with cutting-edge graphics. But Blizzard’s minimum upgrades, especially the newly required SSD, are certain to lead to many PC gamers asking whether it’s time to purchase a new computer or laptop.
