(Image credit: Konami)

From our early thoughts with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, it seems to be a near shot-for-shot remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 but much prettier. The first Metal Gear game in Unreal Engine 5, the Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater system requirements show the hotly anticipated remake is one of a few games recently that require an RTX card to even play the game on minimum settings.

Unveiled in a recent update to the Steam page for the game, the system requirements are mostly what you might expect from a modern game, except you need, at minimum, an RTX 2060 Super which is a mid-range card from just five years ago.

This is one of a handful of games recently to suggest the same, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Doom: The Dark Ages all requiring the same GPU.

Another minimum spec indicative of contemporary game requirements is the storage, which currently requires 100 GB to fit the game on. Game file sizes are a little less fixed in stone than other elements here, so this is subject to change, but you will want to clear some room in advance either way. An SSD is also recommended, though seemingly not required to boot the game up. You can see the full list below:

Header Cell – Column 0
Minimum
Recommended

OS
Windows 10, Windows 11 (64-bit OS required)
Windows 10, Windows 11 (64-bit OS required)

Processor
Intel i5 8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Intel i7 8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600

Memory
16 GB RAM
16 GB RAM

Graphics
RTX 2060 Super (or later)
RTX 3080 (or later)

DirectX
Version 12
Version 12

Storage
100 GB
100 GB

Additional notes
SDD recommended
SDD recommended

Though an AMD CPU is mentioned in both sets of specs, an AMG GPU is not. There is also no mention of an Intel GPU either. That being said, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain also doesn’t mention an AMD GPU in its system requirements and works fine with one so we’ll have to wait until launch to see how non-Nvidia cards handle the game.

Aside from the elephant in the room that is the graphics card recommendation, the CPU requirements aren’t too tough, with both AMD and Intel choices available in budget rigs at the time of their launch. The recommended GPU of an RTX 3080 isn’t too bad, considering Indiana Jones and the Great Circle recommends an RTX 2080 Ti, and Ultra settings require an RTX 4080. The RTX 3080 was still a reasonably expensive card on its launch (especially with crypto miners sending prices skyrocketing) but getting recommended specs with a high-end card from 2020 is a little better than some similar games.

Notably, the switch from Konami’s own Fox Engine to Unreal Engine 5 could have some role in the GPU requirement. An RTX 2000-series card or later is required for hardware-based ray tracing with Lumen, Unreal Engine 5’s dynamic illumination and reflection system. If Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater requires hardware-based rather than software-based Lumen, this could explain what’s going on here. We’ll know much more about it coming up to launch on August 28, this year.