Death Stranding 2 system requirements are here, and you'll need an RTX 4080 to play at 4K

The Death Stranding 2 system requirements are rasonably accessible for the most part, with CPU and GPU specs being quite modest for playing at 1080p. However, you'll need an RTX 4080 or RX 9070 XT to play 4K at 60fps, plus the download size is fairly large, even by modern standards.

Crucially, you won't need the very latest and best graphics card to at least run Death Stranding 2, and, moreover, it's great to see that the Death Stranding 2 system requirements include hardware recommendations for not just minimum requirements and recommended specs, but for four different tiers of performance. Plus, they include expected resolutions and frame rates, from 1080p at 30fps all the way up to 4K at 60fps.

Here are the Death Stranding 2 system requirements for PC:

The Death Stranding 2 minimum requirements stipulate you'll need either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT to play this game at 1080p with a typical frame rate of 30fps. Those are old mid-range graphics cards, so most PC gamers will have no issue getting Death Stranding 2 running, in terms of graphics performance.

When it comes to CPU requirements, this game does require a slightly more modern chip than some games, but still only requires an AMD Ryzen 3 3100 or old Intel Core i3 10100, both of which are entry-level chips that are well over five years old.

One point to note for older systems, though, is that this game requires 16GB of RAM and the Death Stranding 2 download size is a sizeable 150GB. We've long recommended gamers upgrade to at least 16GB of RAM, so it's not an extreme ask. However, if you are stuck on 8GB or less, it does make things tricky, as current RAM prices are very high.

SSDs have risen in price, too, though not by as much as RAM. If you can, we'd definitely recommend uninstalling some other games to make room on your current drive, rather than pay the currently inflated prices for an SSD upgrade. Still, while the best SSDs for gaming are expensive at the moment, you can still get affordable upgrades, such as this 500GB Crucial P310 drive. It's not the fastest, but it's only $79.99 and is fine for storing your game library.

As for the Death Stranding 2 recommended specs, this game self-defines "recommended" as its High spec tier, rather than its Medium spec tier. As such, the requirements jump up quite a lot.

An AMD Radeon 6800 or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is required to meet its 60fps at 1440p expectations, and you'll need either an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel Core i7 11700 CPU as well. Those are all much more modern and higher-end components than we'd expect for a recommended spec, but again, this is reflected in the higher 1440p performance than we'd normally expect. Thankfully, RAM requirements don't rise at all, even for the Very High tier.

Death Stranding 2's Medium tier is what I'd normally expect to see for a recommended spec. Just an AMD RX 6600 or Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU are required, while CPU requirements are middling too. With those components, you should get smooth 60fps performance at 1080p, making it an ideal spec to aim for if you're looking to upgrade components to play this game on keyboard and mouse - the minimum tier's 30fps would only be playable on controller.

Finally, if you're looking to crank this game up to max and play at 4K at a smooth 60fps, you'll really need to have a high-spec system. The Death Stranding 2 Very High spec lists an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 as the GPUs required to hit this tier. Meanwhile, powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel Core i7-11700 CPUs are required too.

All in all, while the Very High spec is quite demanding, there's nothing too surprising in the Death Stranding 2 system requirements. This is a graphically-rich, modern game and 4K remains a tough test even for top-tier GPUs. Thankfully, the game will include upscaling and frame generation support - as well as ultrawide resolution support for epic widescreen views while playing this equally epic adventure - so there's every chance you'll be able to get a smooth frame rate even on lower-tier GPUs, if your graphics card supports these features.

When it comes to Steam Deck compatibility, the answer to the question, "can you play Death Stranding 2 on the Steam Deck?" is likely to be Yes, as Death Stranding is Steam Deck Verified, but Valve hasn't officially confirmed this yet.