A hot potato: One of the many titles announced at last week's Game Awards was Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade for the PC. Square Enix has now revealed the game's system requirements, which are pretty undemanding, but what could put off many users is its price: $70, the same as the PS5 version.
We first heard about Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade at Sony's State of Play earlier this year. The game is the PS5's enhanced version of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which includes a photo mode and the Intermission DLC featuring Yuffie Kisaragi.
PC players can enjoy 4K resolution and HDR support, XInput- and DirectInput-compliant controller support, keyboard and mouse support, and a framerate of up to 120 frames per second on powerful rigs.
In addition to containing the same graphical enhancements and content as the PlayStation 5 version, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade's PC incarnation brings with it a less-welcome element: the price. The RPG will cost $70 when it launches on the Epic Games Store this Thursday (December 16).
Square Enix has also released the PC system specs, which are a lot easier to swallow than the price---apart from the 100GB of required storage space, though that sort of chunk is becoming increasingly common these days.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade minimum system requirements
- OS: Windows 10 64 bit (version 2004 or later)
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3330 / AMD FX-8350
- Memory: 8 GB
- Storage: 100 GB
- DirectX: Version 12 or later
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 780 / Radeon RX 480 (3GB VRAM)
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade recommended system requirements
- Assuming a resolution of 2560x1440 (Max: 3840x2160)
- OS: Windows 10 64 bit (version 2004 or later)
- Processor: IntelCore i7-3770 / AMD Ryzen 3 3100
- Memory: 12 GB
- Storage: 100 GB
- DirectX: Version 12 or later
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 1080 / Radeon RX 5700 (8GB VRAM)
Not surprisingly, seeing a PC game with the same $70 price tag as its PS5 counterpart has brought plenty of anger from the community, but it's something we might have to get used to. Another Square Enix title shown off at The Game Awards, Forspoken, is available to pre-purchase on Steam for $70 ($94.99 for the Digital Deluxe bundle).
If this does become the norm for AAA releases, expect it to push more people onto subscription services like Microsoft's newly renamed PC Game Pass---or piracy. Unless, that is, you share the same view as Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar/2K parent Take-Two Interactive, who believes we're "ready" for games to become more expensive.