WoW Shadowlands Requires an SSD to Play, Blizzard Says; Shadowlands Pre-Patch 9.0.1 Expected To Release Between September 22 and 29
The system requirements for the upcoming World of Warcraft Shadowlands expansion have been updated, and according to Blizzard, an SSD drive is required to play the expansion.
The minimum and recommended system requirements for both the PC and Mac version of World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion, mention that a Solid State Drive (SSD) with at least 100GB of free space. Previous expansions, including World of Warcraft most recent Battle for Azeroth expansion, didn’t mention an SSD as a system requirement. For reference, Battle for Azeroth requires an HDD (7200RPM) with at least 70GB of free space.
| MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS | RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATIONS | |
|---|---|---|
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Windows® 7 64-bit | Windows® 10 64-bit |
| PROCESSOR | Intel® Core™ i5-3450 AMD FX™ 8300 |
Intel® Core™ i7-6700K AMD Ryzen™ 7 2700X |
| VIDEO | NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 AMD Radeon™ RX 560 Intel® UHD 630 (45W)DirectX® 11 compatible GPU with 2GB VRAM |
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64DirectX® 12 compatible GPU with 8GB VRAM |
| MEMORY | 4GB RAM (8GB if using supported integrated graphics) | 8GB RAM |
| STORAGE | Solid State Drive (SSD) 100GB available space |
Solid State Drive (SSD) 100GB available space |
| INTERNET |
Broadband internet connection |
|
| INPUT | Keyboard and mouse required. Other input devices are not supported. | Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel |
| RESOLUTION |
1024 x 768 minimum display resolution |
|
As with all system requirements, Blizzard does note that system requirements might change over time due to potential changes being made to World of Warcraft.
Interestingly, while Blizzard specifically says that an SSD is required to at least be able to play Shadowlands, World of Warcraft players are reporting that the beta of Shadowlands runs fine without an Solid State Drive. From the looks of it, Blizzard is solely mentioning the use of an SSD for faster loading times. As such, players using older setups without an SSD drive will, of course, still be able to play the upcoming Shadowlands expansion.
In other Shadowlands-related news – now that Blizzard has finally revealed the release date of the expansion this October, we might also know when the Shadowlands pre-patch will drop. As estimated by Icy Veins, based on released info from Blizzard and previous pre-patches, the Shadowlands pre-patch 9.0.1 is expected to release on either September 22 or September 29 with the first one being the most likely.
World of Warcraft Shadowlands is releasing globally on October 27. Are you excited for the upcoming expansion? Will you start playing World of Warcraft once again once the pre-patch hits? Hit the comments down below.
Products mentioned in this post
GTX 1080
USD 629.99
RX Vega 64
USD 769
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