Returnal: 32GB of RAM is recommended for PC porting

It has long been an open secret that Returnal, which was released as a surprise hit exclusively for the PlayStation 5 in April 2021, will also be released for the PC at some point. As part of the Game Awards 2022, the port of the third-person shooter with rogue-like elements was officially announced for next year.

The game follows a slew of formerly PlayStation-only titles that are gradually making their way to PC. Finally, in 2025, Sony wants to publish around half of the new releases on PC and mobile devices. When exactly Returnal will appear on the PC, however, is not yet certain. However, a release in the first quarter is not to be expected: The PC adaptation of the PlayStation 5 remake of The Last of Us Part 1 is scheduled to appear on March 3, 2023, presumably blocking this period for further Sony ports. A release is therefore conceivable in the second quarter at the earliest.

Surprising system requirements

In the meantime, the Steam shop page Returnals has been provided with the official system requirements. On the one hand, no outstanding demands are placed on the processor and graphics card in either configuration. An AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super already represent the recommendation, with the developers Housemarque and Climax Studios giving no clues as to which resolution, refresh rate and graphics settings the configurations refer to – that at a later date there will be even higher requirements for a possible ray tracing implementation and high resolutions are submitted later is not unusual. Potential support for DLSS or FSR has not yet been confirmed either; Sony only promises “a series of specific adjustments and upgrades” for the PC.

Screenshots of the PC version of Returnal (Image: Housemarque, Climax Studios)

However, the recommended amount of RAM is quite outstanding: Unlike in almost all other current games, the almost obligatory 16 GB RAM is not mentioned, but double the amount with 32 GB RAM. 16 GB of RAM, on the other hand, should even be minimal in the system. On the one hand, the information does not fit into the picture of the other system requirements and, on the other hand, raises questions when looking at the PlayStation 5: Sony's current game console itself only has 16 GB of combined working and graphics memory, which raises fears of an unclean porting. Ultimately, however, it cannot be ruled out that the information given is provisional and generously chosen on purpose.

Gameplay in time warp is a success

USP and recipe for success are in returnal setting and gameplay. The space pilot Selen strands her spaceship on a remote planet and is then stuck in a time warp. While exploring the unknown world, players encounter the ruins of a foreign culture and hostile aliens.

If Selen dies, she finds herself aboard her spaceship shortly afterwards – with intact memory of what happened, but without any weapons or other items that may have been collected. The aim of the game is to find out the cause of the time warp and, in doing so, to reconstruct the history of the planet. Returnal has been praised by critics and players alike; On Metacritic, the shooter gets an average of 86 out of 100 points from the press.