PC games began to require hard drives – solid state drives

All indications are that SSDs are set to become the new minimum specification for modern PC gaming. While SSDs are an ever-present in the latest and greatest gaming PCs and laptops, we haven’t seen game developers really push the minimum SSD requirement… until this week.

Microsoft revealed during last week’s Xbox Games Showcase that Bethesda’s new IP from 25 years ago, Starfield, will require 125GB of SSD storage exclusively when it debuts on September 6th. The reference is not a recommendation but the minimum specification for playing Starfield on PC.

One game is not a trend, but at the same time CD Projekt Red also revealed that it is raising the minimum specification for Cyberpunk 2077 to require at least an SSD and phasing out support for HDD. While the system requirements change for Cyberpunk 2077 is related to the upcoming Phantom Liberty expansion that will not be released on older Xbox One and PS4 consoles with hard drives, the base PC game will soon be updated with minimum SSD specs.

“One of the changes is the option to stop supporting hard drives for minimum requirements. SSDs provide faster load times, improved streaming, and better overall performance compared to hard drives,” CD Projekt Red explains in a blog post.

Cyberpunk 2077 won’t suddenly stop working on hard drives, but CD Projekt Red will end active support and stop testing the game on hard drives, so players may eventually experience performance issues or bugs.

It’s inevitable that we’ll see more PC games require solid state drives as game developers continue to leave the Xbox One and PS4 consoles behind and start pushing the boundaries of the Xbox Series S/X and PS5. The Xbox One and PS4 both launched with hard drives, and consoles always have a huge impact on how you develop a multiplatform game.

Now that the current generation of consoles come with SSDs, we’re ready to see what developers can do with this fast-loading technology, and now that they’re ready to leave hard drives in the history locker. l While we hope to see more games support DirectStorage. The entire development is expected to be a gradual transition, as the developers are unlikely to prevent the game from running on hard drives, but in terms of performance, the difference is quite significant for the gamer.