Nothing quite gets the blood pumping like slicing and dicing robotic limbs. The Surge 2 is nearly here; bigger, better, and this time set in the sprawling overworld of Jericho City. Deck13 have been improving their Souls-like formula game by game, and The Surge 2 has every chance of being a fantastic sci-fi riff on the genre. Before you grab your laser lance and start decking cyborgs though, here are the PC specs required for The Surge 2.

The Surge 2 Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 4-Core 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8320 8-Core 3.5 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GT 950 or Radeon R9 280
• HDD: 20 GB Available Space
• API: Vulkan

The Surge 2 Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 4-Core 3.6 GHz or AMD FX-8370 8-Core 4.1 GHz
• RAM: 16 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon RX Vega 56
• HDD: 20 GB Available Space
• API: Vulkan

We were actually a little bit surprised to see system requirements this high but, on reflection, they haven't changed a great deal from 2017's original The Surge. In fact, the CPU demands are identical between the two games. Using our new GD hardware rating scale, you can see both the minimum and recommended CPUs for The Surge 2 are low to mid-range for gaming rigs today. You'll want a quad-core processor in order to run The Surge 2 at acceptable frame rates.

Where things really change are the graphics cards though. Previously, you could get away with an ancient GeForce GTX 560 Ti or a Radeon R7 370 for The Surge 2's minimum spec. Now you'll need to step up a few gears with either a GeForce GTX 950 or a Radeon R9 280. This level of performance is pretty cheap these days though, so it should be attainable for most. 

As for recommended GPUs, you'll be wanting a mighty GeForce GTX 980 Ti or a Radeon RX Vega 56. For a modern Nvidia equivalent, look toward the GeForce RTX 2060. They're really quite high-end for the recommended graphics cards, even for AAA titles. The Surge 2 falls somewhat under AAA but it sounds as if it's going to require some hefty hardware grunt to max out the visuals. 

One last point of interest is The Surge 2 will be running on the Vulkan graphics API. Games which use this API tend to be fairly rare (Doom, Strange Brigade) but they usually showcase stronger performance than DX12 titles. Vulkan also tends to favour AMD hardware so we could well see a performance advantage for Team Red.

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run The Surge 2 System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarks and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the The Surge 2 benchmark chart.