How powerful does your PC need to be to run MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries?

Piranha Games has released the final PC system requirements of MechWarrior 5; Mercenaries, allowing PC gamers to judge whether or not their system is ready for some high octane mechanised combat.

Unlike most games, MechWarrior 5 explicitly recommends SSD storage, stating that the game requires 55GB of SSD storage space, which is practically a first for a PC game.  

DirectX 11 will be the graphical API of choice for MechWarrior 5, though the game will also support DirectX 12. When Nvidia announced its RTX series of graphics cards in 2018, the company confirmed that MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries will support real-time raytracing and DLSS after a post-launch update, which means that the game has to support DirectX 12, as Microsoft’s DXR (DirectX Raytracing) API doesn’t work with DirectX 11 titles.

MechWarrior 5 will be the first single-player title in the series since 2002, placing players in 3015, during the final decade of the Third Succession War. The game will offer a full campaign as well as support for Co-op. This will allow PC players to MechSuit up with their fellow MechWarriors online, though the game’s standard single-player modes will require no internet connectivity to function normally. 

Pirhana Games’ MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries was developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4, which should allow the game to deliver support for real-time raytracing with relative ease. So far, MechWarrior 5 has only been announced for Windows-powered PCs and is due to release on December 10th. 

GPU-wise, MechWarrior 5 will run on a Geforce GTX 770/ Radeon RX 280X or higher, with Pirhana Games recommending Nvidia’s GTX 1070 and AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 56. The game requires 8GB of system memory, though 16GB is recommended.  

When it comes to CPUs, MechWarrior 5 appears to favour Intel processors, asking players for a minimum of either an Intel Core i3-7100 or a Ryzen 3 1200 while recommending an Intel i7-6700K or an AMD Ryzen 7 1700. It is unclear why Pirhana Games is asking for more cores on AMD’s Ryzen processors, though these system requirements could come down to single-threaded performance.