Following such recent news highlights as “It’s out on March 5th” and “It’s got that Ben Starr guy in it,” Marathon’s announce-o-blaster continues firing with a newly unveiled set of PC system requirements. As seen on the Bungie FPS’s Steam page, they’re nicely accommodating to cheapo rigs and older tech, though are missing any storage requirements.

I wouldn’t bet on Marathon being much of an SSD muncher, though. Last year’s closed technical test barely bothered the scales with its 15GB download, and the fact that it only wants a 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT as a minimum GPU suggests it’s not going to be stuffed to its hot pink robosuit seams with high-rez textures. Presumably none of which have been stolen, anymore. Full specs are as follows:

Marathon minimum PC specs

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (4GB) / Intel Arc A580 (8GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

Marathon recommended PC specs

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 2060 (6GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8GB) / Intel Arc A770 (16GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

And no, there aren’t fictional processors in these ones.

I like how Bungie have noted the need for Resizable BAR on Intel GPUs; a lot of modern PCs, especially prebuilts, will have this enabled already, but it serves to remind us of these budget cards’ most unusual quirk. It’s also nice to see a modern shooter keep its requirements down, in general; hopefully this in turn means MAXIMUM FRAMERATES GRRR ARGH for mightier PCs.

Not sure about the Steam Deck, though. The sight of the GTX 1050 Ti in minimum specs is almost as reliable a shorthand for “Yes, this will run on tiny baby handheld hardware” as Valve’s own Verified programme, but the real issue here is Marathon’s use of BattlEye anti-cheat. While this can work in harmony with SteamOS – Gaming on Linux have a handy game compatibility list – it currently doesn’t on Bungie’s Destiny 2, so Marathon is likely off the table as well. We’ll know for sure on March 5th.