Sept 21, 2007

Is a mortgage-busting PC upgrade the only way to play Crysis? Will your humble rig handle Crytek's hugely ambitious shooterfest? Well, according to EA, who "accidentally" let slip the game's minimum system requirements, few people will struggle to get the game running.

We're pretty shocked, given that just the thought of installing Crysis on our house Alienware has been giving us indigestion, worried as we are that the stunning visuals, environment effects and fluid action gameplay won't survive the traslation from super-powered dev setup to home PC system.

For your info, we've included the leaked specs below. Bear in mind, though, that as EA deems these accidentally released specs as "unofficial" they are subject to change. Even so, to get an informed expert view on what the predictions could mean - and what sort of experience you might get at that level - we've enlisted the help of PC Gamer's intrepid news editor, Craig Pearson. His verdict follows the specs.

Craig Pearson: "If this truly reflects Crysis's minimum requirements, those are perfectly reasonable specs for a modern PC to live up to, although 16GB of Hard-drive space is a huge amount.

"However, there's a definite question mark over what Crysis will look like on a PC matching them: the minimum required Radeon graphics card is over four years old, many generations of technology out of date for running a modern shooter with all the effects you'd expect. And Crysis is a very modern shooter.

"Let's put it this way: you can be sure that all the incredible screenshots and gorgeous videos we've seen so far were taken on a PC way above these specs. You're gonna need a bigger boat."