World of Warcraft has been around for more than 15 years at this point and many MMO fans have been playing the title since that first year. Although the game has never received a true numbered sequel, there have been many expansions over the years that slowly but surely kicked the tires, updated some framework, and helped keep the game running like a modern PC game. That said, obviously the system specs need to be updated from time to time, but for the most part WoW has not had very difficult specs to meet for the average PC gamer. That trend did break last week when the Shadowlands tech specs were revealed, but Blizzard is already changing their tune on that front.
Originally, the Shadowlands PC requirements caused quite a stir thanks to a change in the required drive section. The new specs specifically called out a solid state drive with 100GB available space, when the game so far has accepted either SSDs or the cheaper and more common hard disk drives (HDD). A small uproar ensued in the following days as fans debated how they would upgrade their machines to match the World of Warcraft Shadowlands specs, but now Blizzard is reversing that requirement, so it seems a change won't be necessary.
In response to a post on the World of Warcraft forums about the SSD vs HDD debate, an official blue post from Blizzard pointed out that the text of the system specifications for Shadowlands was just updated and now reflects that either SSDs or HDDs will both be fine (assuming there are 100GB available on them). The official post and link to the specs follow...
The text of the Systems Specifications for Shadowlands was updated a few minutes ago on our Support Site: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/256565 2
The minimum requirements section for Storage now reads:
Solid State Drive (SSD)
100GB available space
Or
Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
100GB available space (depending on the performance of the drive, player experience may be impacted on HDD)
Shadowlands is still two months away, but the big expansion's pre-patch is predicted to arrive in late September. This means that players are already busy wrapping up their final Battle for Azeroth to-do lists and getting ready to dive into the new storyline that will set the stage for Shadowlands. Although the game is likely to run better on SSDs and an upgrade is probably a good idea for those who have the option, it is reassuring to know that the HDD option is still being supported. This will save a lot of gamers some money, time, and work over the next two months before Shadowlands drops. Considering that the original requirement was limited to SSDs, it may be wise to start considering that Blizzard will eventually move the requirements in that direction in a future patch.
Be sure to check back in the coming weeks as more details about Shadowlands emerge. Until then, For the Horde!
World of Warcraft is available now for PC. At this point, World of Warcraft Shadowlands releases on October 26 or 27 (depending on time zone) for PC.
Source: Blizzard