God of War: Ragnarok's PC port requires an incredible 190GB for installation — PSN account is also a requirement

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Got bloat? Compared to 107GB on PS4 and 84GB on PS5 at launch, PC install size is close to both console target installs combined.

Official screenshot of the God of War: Ragnarok PC port.
(Image credit: Jetpack Interactive, Sony Santa Monica)

Yesterday, the God of War: Ragnarok PC port's system requirements were posted to Steam before its September 19 launch— and some of the listed requirements are already raising some eyebrows. One of the biggest points of contention is the 190 GB install size, which seems close to the combined file size of both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions, respectively, which weighed in at 107 GB and 84 GB when the game launched.

However, the requirement of a PlayStation Network account for a single-player game has also drawn controversy—mainly because PSN is available in far fewer countries than Steam, effectively locking Ragnarok away from many PC players due to arbitrary account restrictions.

A silver lining revealed by a glance at the official system requirements is that these targets are all being met without using upscaling technology. While some games calculate the usage of DLSS or FSR in system requirements, the developers of the Ragnarok PC port at Jetpack Interactive, porting the AAA console-targeted Sony Santa Monica original, have fortunately sidestepped this misleading practice. Additionally, Nvidia DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR 3.1, Intel XeSS 1.3, and Frame Generation are all still supported despite not being used to "cheat" the system requirements, which is an excellent boon for performance and image quality across the board.

God of War: Ragnarok PC System Requirements

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 Minimum PresetRecommended PresetHigh PresetPerformance PresetUltra Preset
In-Game Graphics Settings Target, Native Resolution1080p @ 30 FPS, Low Settings1080p @ 60 FPS, Medium Settings1440p @ 60 FPS, High Settings4K @ 60 FPS, High Settings4K @ 60 FPS, Ultra Settings
GPU RequirementNvidia GTX 1060 or AMD RX 5500 XTNvidia RTX 2060 Super or AMD RX 5700Nvidia RTX 3070 or AMD RX 6800Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti or AMD RX 6900 XTNvidia RTX 4070 Ti or AMD RX 7900 XT
CPU RequirementIntel Core i5-4670K or AMD Ryzen 3 1200Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600Intel Core i7-7700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700XIntel Core i7-7700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700XIntel Core i5-11600K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
RAM Capacity Requirement8 GB RAM16 GB RAM16 GB RAM16 GB RAM16 GB RAM
Operating System RequirementWindows 10 64-bitWindows 10 64-bitWindows 10 64-bitWindows 10 64-bitWindows 10 64-bit
Storage Space Requirement190 GB SSD190 GB SSD190 GB SSD190 GB SSD190 GB SSD

In any case, most of these system requirements seem quite reasonable, even the 190 GB install size, considering the much wider platform support expected of a PC release. It's not like we haven't seen games this big before. In June 2023, Starfield drew controversy for its 125 GB install size requirement, while Modern Warfare III has required 213 GB for a full install of the game with "HQ textures" since November of the same year.

PC installs for AAA games in the hundred(s) of gigabytes have been commonplace for some time, with the Red Dead Redemption 2 PC port weighing in at 150 GB when it was released in 2019.

However, God of War Ragnarok is a simple-player game, which makes its requirement for a PlayStation Network account to be playable quite egregious. It may also result in Steam Deck compatibility being completely off-the-table despite God of War (2014) running so well on the handheld and targeting a very similar level of fidelity, just at a relatively smaller scale.

Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Roland Of Gilead
    I wish more studios would have the requirements in native rather than including the upscaling tech. Honest approach. I like it.
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    "However, the requirement of a PlayStation Network account for a single-player game has also drawn controversy—mainly because PSN is available in far fewer countries than Steam, effectively locking Ragnarok away from many PC players due to arbitrary account restrictions."

    This makes an excellent case for piracy.
    Reply
  • JeffreyP55
    Way back when during my Amiga days, I could fit a whole game on a AmigaDOS formatted 880k 3.5" IBM style 720k 3.5" floppy. I admit, sometimes two or more.
    Reply
  • txfeinbergs
    evdjj3j said:
    "However, the requirement of a PlayStation Network account for a single-player game has also drawn controversy—mainly because PSN is available in far fewer countries than Steam, effectively locking Ragnarok away from many PC players due to arbitrary account restrictions."

    This makes an excellent case for piracy.
    No, it does not. There is no valid excuse for stealing something maybe other than if you are starving to death. Pretty sure a game doesn't qualify.
    Reply
  • vijosef
    All that space for what?
    Graphics stopped improving around 2010. Far Cry 2 is still the best looking, more realistic Far Cry.
    Games keep demanding more and more hardware, to deliver nothing.
    Reply
  • txfeinbergs
    vijosef said:
    All that space for what?
    Graphics stopped improving around 2010. Far Cry 2 is still the best looking, more realistic Far Cry.
    Games keep demanding more and more hardware, to deliver nothing.
    I can name a few games that have improved. AFOP, and Senua's Sage Hellblade 2 (oh, and the second Plague's Tale Requiem). Those games actually made my jaw hit the floor.
    Reply
  • UnforcedERROR
    vijosef said:
    All that space for what?
    Graphics stopped improving around 2010. Far Cry 2 is still the best looking, more realistic Far Cry.
    Games keep demanding more and more hardware, to deliver nothing.
    I will never understand the "graphics stopped improving" take. There are somewhat diminishing returns, but to say they stopped improving is disingenuous at best. Also, the opinion that Far Cry 2 looks the best is strange to me as well. Far Cry may not be as exciting as it once was, but you can look at 2 and see how dated it is visually. Good for the time, but not even remotely close to current standards.
    Reply
  • FunSurfer
    Something weird with the cpu requirements, ryzen 5 3600 is better for gaming than ryzen 7 2700x but appears on a lower tier, so you say 'but the 2700x is an 8 core cpu and the 3600 has only 6 cores', so why the i7 7700k is on the same tier with the 2700x while it has only 4 cores?
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    I own a PS5, a PSN, & a pc/steam acct...I will never play a game on PC that requires a PSN acct as Sony has a bad history of data issues & i would rather not have it tied to any other acct/email.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    evdjj3j said:
    "However, the requirement of a PlayStation Network account for a single-player game has also drawn controversy—mainly because PSN is available in far fewer countries than Steam, effectively locking Ragnarok away from many PC players due to arbitrary account restrictions."

    This makes an excellent case for piracy.
    If the rules and conditions of the game are offensive to you, don't patronize the game and/or company.

    Piracy for a game is never justified.
    Reply