What you need to know
- Remedy announced that the minimum requirements for Alan Wake 2 have been lowered.
- The new minimum required GPUs are either a GeForce GTX 1070 or a Radeon RX 5600 XT.
- The game used to require the GPU to support mesh shaders but Remedy removed this requirement to allow more GPUs to play the game.
Alan Wake 2 has been in the headlines for all the right reasons since it was released. It performed well critically, and we loved the game in our Alan Wake 2 review where we stated "There's an ocean of darkness waiting in Remedy Entertainment's latest game." Now, thanks to some hard work to optimize the game by Remedy, even more players will be able to play the game.
This doesn't solve the game's biggest problem though, which is that it's still locked in the much less popular Epic Games store. The last number we have for sales of the game is that it has sold 1.3 million copies, which is the fastest-selling Remedy game ever, but the game has yet to recoup its development costs. If the game were to launch on Steam, it would likely double or triple these sales numbers, but it is one of the Epic Games Store's major exclusives.
What are the minimum requirements for Alan Wake 2?
As you can see in the image above, the minimum requirements for playing Alan Wake 2 now show that the game can be played on a GeForce GTX 1070 or a Radeon RX 5600 XT. This means there are about 14 or so new GPUs that can play the game if my research is correct. You will still need to have an Intel i5-7600K or AMD equivalent or newer with 16 GB RAM, running Windows 10/11 64-bit, and 90GB of space on an SSD to play the game.
If you're interested in checking out other patch notes for recent patches, feel free to check them out at the Alan Wake website. For a quick glance comparison at the new and old minimum system requirements, check out the differences below.
Current Alan Wake 2 minimum system requirements
- Video Card: GeForce GTX 1070 or Radeon RX 5600
- Processor: Intel i5-7600K or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Hard Drive Space: 90GB SSD
Previous Alan Wake 2 minimum system requirements
- Video Card: GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600
- Processor: Intel i5-7600K or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Hard Drive Space: 90GB SSD
If we take a look at the previous minimum system requirements, we can see that an RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600 was the minimum GPU required. That means that all of the RTX 1600 series cards were excluded from playing the game, which make up a large percentage of the overall players according to the Steam Hardware Survey.
| GPU | Overall Steam Hardware Survey percantage |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 | 4.11% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER | 2.19% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 1.58% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 | 1.21% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 | 1.10% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 | 0.78% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti | 0.68% |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT | 0.62% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | 0.53% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER | 0.49% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti | 0.40% |
| AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT | 0.21% |
| AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT | 0.18% |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 | 0.17% |
| Total % | 14.25% |
I went through the Steam Hardware Survey and tried to grab each GPU that is between the new minimum RTX 1070/Radeon RX 5600 XT and the old minimum RTX 2060/Radeon RX 6600 and get the percentage of the total gamer population to see how many new players will have access to play Alan Wake 2 thanks to this change.
Roughly 14.25% more players can now buy the game, if they are willing to install the Epic Game's Store. The decision by Remedy to lower the minimum requirements seems like the juice will have been worth the squeeze.
You can see the official @alanwakeofficial Instagram account post the update below as well.
Remedy is on the rise and moves like these win long-time fans.
With recent reports that Remedy has purchased the rights to the Control series from 505 games, as well as the Max Payne remake under development, and Alan Wake 2 being a Game of the Year nominee, Remedy is on a meteoric rise.
It's great to see a company that has so many irons in the fire continue to improve and work to bring its games to more gamers. Remedy makes some of the most unique games in the industry, with games like Quantum Break starting to get the love it deserves. While Alan Wake 2 didn't win Game of the Year last year, it did win a lot of other categories and did receive a nomination.
Other companies should look to Remedy and see that sometimes we can expand the player base instead of trying to nickel and dime through pointless battle passes, microtransactions, or artificial grinding that can be skipped through in-game purchases.
Hopefully, Alan Wake 2 can start to turn a profit soon, and more people will pick up and play this awesome game. Opening the game up to around 14% more gamers was a smart move and I'm glad to see this type of strategy in 2024 from a game studio.
