The upcoming tactical shooter MMO Cinder City has significantly revised its system requirements, notably reducing the recommended RAM from an eye-watering 64GB to a more conventional 32GB. This change comes after the game’s Steam page initially listed these demanding specifications upon its recent launch.
When Cinder City's system requirements first appeared, the minimum RAM was set at 32GB, with the recommended specifications escalating to a substantial 64GB. These figures, particularly the recommended amount, were twice what is typically expected for modern, high-end 3D games, drawing considerable attention during a period of global component shortages.
A representative for the publisher, NC (formerly NCsoft), was contacted for clarification. While no explicit statement was immediately provided, the recommended specifications on the Steam page have since been updated. The GPU requirement has also seen an increase, shifting from an RTX 4060 to an RTX 4070, alongside the reduction in RAM.
These revised specifications are still met with some skepticism, as Cinder City is still some distance from its public release, lacking a confirmed launch window. The author notes a potential disconnect between the minimum RAM requirement of 32GB and a GPU requirement of an older RTX 2060, suggesting these figures may still be placeholders.
The game is not without precedent for high system demands. Titles such as Escape from Tarkov and Seafarer also list 64GB of RAM for their higher settings, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 includes 64GB in its 'Ideal' tier. However, the article points out that even these instances do not constitute a majority among PC games, and that developers have previously scaled back system requirements in response to hardware availability issues.
Cinder City is set in a post-ruination Seoul, a setting the author finds underutilized in gaming and a welcome change from more common locales. However, initial impressions of the gunplay are undecided, and character designs are noted to sometimes fall into a pattern where male characters wear heavy armor while female characters are depicted in lighter tactical attire.