Clearly not wanting to be left out in the shade by the ridiculous number of remasters and definitive editions hitting the current-gen consoles, Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin will be hitting PC next week. Essentially a game of the year edition bundling together Dark Souls II with its season pass content, the headline feature for returning players is the engine upgrade from DirectX 9 to DirectX 11. 

All sorts of flashy new features, graphics, sound and performance upgrades are yours if you splash out for it on PC. By now we're used to upgrades like this coming courtesy of a free patch, but current Dark Souls 2 owners do at least get 20 bucks knocked off the asking price if they double dip. Before you get busy playing the definitive version of Dark Souls 2, looking the best it has ever looked, you'd best check out the official Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin system requirements.

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin DirectX 11 Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1 GHz or AMD A8 3870K 3.6 GHz
• RAM: 4 GB System Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 465 or Radeon HD 6870
• HDD: 23GB available space
• DX: DirectX 11

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin DirectX 11 Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 8 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz or AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 or AMD Radeon HD 7850
• Additional: Xbox 360 Gamepad Recommended

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is slightly unusual in that it comes with two sets of system requirements - with two separate versions to buy (make sure you grab the right one!). The first bunch are basically identical to bog-standard Dark Souls 2, and that's because they are enough to run the game in DX9 mode. If you already own Dark Souls 2 and don't have a DirectX11-capable card, then there's no point buying the upgrade. For point of reference you can see the original Dark Souls 2 system requirements here. 

Moving on to the Scholar of the First Sin system requirements, and what we're basically seeing here is the recommended Dark Souls 2 requirements become the minimum DaS2: Scholar of the First Sin system requirements. 

There's some pretty demanding hardware needed here, but provided you have a DX11 GPU and a semi-decent processor you should be good to go. The 8GB RAM requirement seems way overboard so I wouldn't pay too much heed to that, but crucially if you don't think you're going to have enough power to run this, you can buy the DirectX 9 version. It's going to be available on steam as a separate game. 

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run the Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin benchmark chart. 

If you want to quickly see how Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin will run on your PC then remember you can now take GD with you to check any website against any PC using our Chrome GD Anywhere Extension.