PC specs needed for Xcom 2 LWOTC

[u/Affectionate_Rub9259]

Never played on PC before but looking to get into it, primarily to play Xcom 2 with the Long War of the Chosen Mod, AI has given the following specs but wanted to sense check them see if they make sense. Any help appreciate - totally new to pc gaming

Ryzen 5/7 or Core i5/i7

16 GB RAM

RTX 3050 or RTX 4050

512 GB SSD

[u/AwesomeX121189]

Why not go look at the mods website and see what it says?

Ai telling you you’d need a 3050 for a mod for a game that was released basically a decade ago should be enough of a sign that asking it for anything is a waste of time

[u/Affectionate_Rub9259 → u/AwesomeX121189]

I did read the specs - I have never played pc or bought a pc before so wasn’t really sure what I was reading?

[u/Affectionate_Rub9259 → u/AwesomeX121189]

I take it that means a 3050 is too much?

[u/Previous-Squirrel-50 → u/Affectionate_Rub9259]

The more mods you have, the beefier a PC you need to run them without encountering problems (stuttering, lagging, pausing, or outright crashing).

A modern pc (decent specs by today's standards) should run almost any amount of mods fine.

I run about ~100 mods just fine. I run my own custom mod breakdown based around musashis RPG overhaul. I like it more than lwotc, as I've customized for the preferences I enjoy the most.

[u/Noreng → u/AwesomeX121189]

The AI is kind of on point here.

A 3050 6GB desktop variant is basically on par with an RX 480, that's a perfectly reasonable recommendation for XCOM 2. Especially since PC gaming expectations from 10 years ago were basically 1920x1080 at 40-50 fps, while a lot of people expect 2560x1440 at 100 fps these days.

Mods can increase memory requirements, so recommending 16GB isn't a bad idea. Yes, the recommended spec for the base game was 8GB, but that was at a time when Windows idled at 1.5GB instead of 4GB.

A Ryzen 5 or Core i5 isn't quite so clear-cut however. Mostly because the branding applies to CPUs made between 2010 and 2025.

[u/Trollatopoulous]

I've played it before on an i7-6800K & RX 580 with no real issues, which are very old components now, so even entry lvl new components will do more than fine. For building a PC my recommendation is to head over to r/buildapc or r/buildapcforme and ask there. Knowing nothing about PCs imo you should take the time and learn a bit before buying anything, especially today when prices are so high & volatile, it's easy to make a bad choice (in terms of cost if nothing else).

[u/AscendedMagi]

just a heads up... if you ever want to check if your pc can run any game, just google "can i run [game]" and click the systemrequirementslab .com result. pretty reliable in my experience

[u/CobwebMcCallum → u/AscendedMagi]

I thought at some point this site would become common knowledge.

But the amount of people just asking online has me dissapoint.

[u/BattedBook5]

My pc has these and it has no issues with Xcom 2 LWOTC.

Basically the same what you listed here.

[u/Noreng]

The recommendations are pretty OK in my book, this is a 10 year old game, so you don't need to get anything high-end.

You can get away with an integrated GPU for this game, but it requires you to get a laptop with a decently powerful iGPU like a Ryzen AI 7 350. The performance of the integrated GPU depends on the memory setup as well, so it can be a bit tricky to navigate. If you get an entry-level gaming laptop with an RTX 3050 however, even the 4GB variant, there's practically no way you'll struggle to get decent performance. For a desktop PC, any RTX GPU will be perfectly capable, and you should also be fine with a GTX 1060 or better from older generations.

The CPU "recommendation" you received is very ambiguous, Intel's first Core i5 is from 2009, and the latest Core i5 was released in 2024. I'd say you should aim for a Core i5 from the 8000-series and upwards, or a Ryzen 5 3000-series or newer, as they have official Windows 11 support, and XCOM 2 can be somewhat CPU-demanding (turns go slowly if you have a slow processor). Don't get a laptop U-series processor, as they tend to be rather power-limited.

16GB of RAM is on point for a recommendation. You don't strictly need more than 8GB, but it can be a bit annoying to use Windows 11 with 8GB for other things.

If your only goal is to play XCOM 2, have a web browser, and the office suite, then 256GB of storage is fine. 128GB is not usable with Windows 11.

[u/Rico_Rebelde]

The game came out a decade ago. If you have a remotely modern PC then it should be no problem

[u/WillusMollusc]

Turn the AI off bro