Still clinging to that giant 8TB spinning hard drive for installing your PC games? Well, it’s starting to look like SSDs will become the new minimum spec for modern PC games. While SSDs have come standard in the latest and greatest PC gaming rigs and laptops, we haven’t seen any real push for SSDs from game developers until this week.
Microsoft held its Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday, revealing that Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years, Star field, will need 125 GB of SSD storage when it debuts on September 6. It’s not a recommendation – it’s a minimum spec to play Star field on a PC.
A single game is not a trend, but at the same time, CD Projekt Red also revealed that it has reached the minimum specs of Cyberpunk 2077 to require at least an SSD and phase out HDD support. While system requirements change for Cyberpunk 2077 is related to the upcoming Phantom Freedom expansion not provided on older HDD-powered Xbox One and PS4 consoles, the base PC game will soon be updated to this minimum SSD specification.
“One of the changes is the choice to stop supporting HDDs for the minimum requirements – SSDs offer faster load times, improved streaming, and better overall performance compared to HDDs,” explained CD Projekt Red. in a blog post.
Cyberpunk 2077 won’t suddenly stop working on HDDs, but CD Projekt Red will end active support and stop testing the game on HDDs, so players may eventually run into performance issues or bugs.
Inevitably, we’ll see more PC games requiring SSDs at a minimum as game developers continue to move beyond the Xbox One and PS4 generation of consoles and begin pushing the boundaries of the Xbox Series S/X and PS5. Both the Xbox One and PS4 that come with HDDs and consoles always have a big influence on how a cross-platform game is developed.
With current gen consoles all SSD, we’re about to see what developers can do with this fast-charging technology now that they’re willing to leave HDDs in the history books. Hopefully we’ll see more games support DirectStorage as well. It will still be a gradual transition where games are unlikely to actually be blocked from running on HDDs, but if you still love whirling a spinning disc then enjoy the moment as developers are getting ready to to move into a world of SSD. speed and silence.
