The system requirements for World of Warcraft’s upcoming Shadowlands expansion have been revealed. For the most part, there has been nothing to shock or surprise gamers; this is a title that has been active now for close to 16 years after all. This is, however, aside for one key detail; that being that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will require 100GB and an SSD.
Unlike harder hardware requirements for higher RAM, newer graphics cards, or even newer operating systems, the requirement of an SSD shouldn’t prevent those who cannot afford one or do not have access to one from playing the game. However, they will find that the load times are far longer than were they on a Solid State Drive. As it currently stands, World of Warcraft requires around 62.3GB of hard drive space. This means that this new expansion will be either be adding close to 40GB or that space is for future content. The requirement of 100GB might seem excessive at first, but bear in mind that after a recent update, the PC port of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game now requires over 200GB!
Originally releasing in 2004, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment and is a spinoff from the real-time strategy games of the same name and is one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. 2019 saw the release of World of Warcraft Classic. This new version allows players to play the game as it was before any of its expansions launched.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be the game’s 8th expansion and will allow players to explore the titular Shadowlands, the Warcraft’s realm of death. The expansion will feature an overhauled leveling system and access to the Death Knight character class for races that did not previously have access to it.
The price of Solid State Drives has come down considerably over the years; You can find 120GB drives for around £20 (or your regional equivalent) if you shop around. But for some gamers, the process of having to upgrade their machine might be a little too much, especially for a game as old as it is.
What about you, dear reader? Are you still excited for this new expansion? Is the news that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will require 100GB and an SSD putting you off it? Are you reluctant to upgrade to SSD for this update? Lets us know in the comments below!
Kerl
Is the news that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will require 100GB and an SSD putting you off it?
YES – if they only want the rich players, ore ones that have nothing else to do then investing in their PC … Even if it might not be alot of money, it’s still annoying that you HAVE to do it.
GAME CERTAINLY SHOULD ALLOW MORE OPTIONS for lower amount of space on disk aswell as loading times <- Anyone with some sense can see: Why should we suddenly NEED an SSD? It always worked without… If people want better grafics let them, but let the ones that don't also play on low grafics! Easy as that. People get treat like they were dumb.
Kerl
Pc games were never about best grafics – while you could – but about accessibility.
Everyone has one for programs to work with, email, calc, grafic programs and so on – so installing a game was always more or less easy. If you wanted the best grafics you bought an extra grafics card – that’s it. The new way of Blizzard – in almost all attempts – is disgusting to me. Many years before they were always aiming to reach as many players as possible (low spec while offering good quality for high spec), and their games had alot of love in them, today it’s nothing else but towards console and new-style web-games, can’t even begin with..
If at least there was some more respect to their very own earlier work, be it Diablo 2 remake, or WoW classic, everywhere IMO they are spoiling those classic games – that shouldn’t be touched really but maybe bugs – with new style that just doesn’t fit, be it a more blue looking bone spear (from the legendary really ghosty looking necromancer) or making female ghosts in wow fifty fity male female.. lol. People know these things differently, and the original artists had reasons in terms of lore and atmosphere for Everything they did back then. Now some young wannabes just change it. If you want such games there are enough of em.. It got too much of 0815 business and seemingly short term earnings.
Kerl
And it doesn’t matter what kind of change, it could be the Demon Hunter suddenly wearing simple sword or clubs as weapon of choice!! Or taking all crap loot of Diablo2… (all those things had some kind of reason creating a certain feel , say for crap loot a strong contrast feeling when you suddenly find an Elite in D2 in hell dif, it’s certain reward that you will long remember, just as example which many only looking at it superficially don’t understand ). Now some wannabes just change it like no problem. If you want such games of blizzard with say just colored spells there are enough of em.. If you want new modern games were you can customze everything. Classic games are just one example were it looks so off. It got too much of 0815 business and seemingly short term earnings.
They get sub or new purchase, it should be reason enough – in terms of business alone, or i.e. – from my experience ingame first hand: – maintaining players that like the company for its decisions and playing games as they feel at home there – to not spoil the old games. As opposed to people actually playing the old games without paying a dime where it can’t be spoiled (…). (Keep in mind I didn’t speak of any faster Exp buffs or things that would actually help, these are a complete other topic and kind of change that is discussable).
Stokanator
“PC gamers were never about graphics”? The single and only reason I switched from consoles to PC is because of the far superior graphics (with the right hardware of course). My nearly 2 year old PC still outperforms a PS5 or Xbox Series X.
michael
odd my load times are just as fast as normal once I have entered the zones for the first time using a normal HDD, as for the ram they require, I play it just fine on 3 gigs, I wonder why they put these specs on there like that, heck my video card is a R7 240 2gb and I am running max settings without a single issue, not sure why they are blowing the specs up but unless its going to change in 3 days those insane amounts of ram and video memory and a SSD is far from needed