Heart of Chernobyl PC requirements probably won’t nuke your rig

It’s been roughly 14 years since we scoured the post-apocalyptic ruins of Russia in STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. That’s a long time to wait for a sequel, but within the last couple of years we’ve been getting closer and closer to seeing it realized. STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl was given a lengthy gameplay trailer during E3 on Sunday, along with a 2024 release date. But that doesn’t mean news has dried up. Today we got a look at the PC requirements for STALKER 2, including the minimum and recommended specs.

At a glance, the PC requirements for the game aren’t so bad. If you’re running a Radeon RX 580 8 GB or an Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB, you’ll meet some of the minimum specs. You’ll also need 8 GB of RAM and at least a Ryzen 5 1600X/Intel i5-7600K along with one of the aforementioned GPUs. The requirements, found at the game’s Steam page, also suggest installing on an SSD. In fact, I’m also suggesting it, because an SSD is game-changing, my friend.

The recommended PC specs for STALKER 2 are where things get a bit iffy. It includes two Nvidia GPUs: a GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB and an RTX 2070 8 GB. You’ll be able to play the game fine with the 1080 Ti, however the 2070 is what’s recommended for ray tracing. If you’re running AMD, then it recommends the RX 5700 XT 8 GB. On the CPU side of things, you’re looking at a Ryzen 7 3700X or an i7-9700K. Finally, the recommended specs suggest having 16 GB of RAM.

That is a lot of wasteland

STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl is an open-world game, and will very likely be massive. So massive, in fact, that you’ll need 150 GB of drive space to fit it all. That’s a pretty big chunk of Russia, right there, so hopefully you’ll be prepped before diving into the game’s radiation-soaked world. The game will release for PC on April 28, 2024.