Tomb Raider System Requirements Announced, Steamworks Confirmed

Today Square Enix shed some light on the PC version of Tomb Raider. Windows XP users may be happy to hear that Lara's new adventure will be playable on their aging OS.

The PC edition of Tomb Raider utilizes Steamworks for matchmaking, cloud saves and Achievements. While the game's playable with a mouse and keyboard, it also supports Steam Big Picture mode and gamepad controls.

If you've got a high-end PC, you can expect better quality textures than seen in the console versions. The game supports AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround if you've got a multi-monitor setup. Computers that are a bit behind the curve will be able to run the game as well, as you can see from the minimum requirements below. Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes tried to make the game scalable. That explains why the game even runs on Windows XP.

"We felt it was important for all the Tomb Raider fans to be able to play the game, so we tried to keep our OS support as wide as possible," the company said on the official Tomb Raider blog. "So unlike some other recent games we do still run on Windows XP as well as on Windows Vista, Windows 7, as well as Windows 8. We are not Windows 8 Certified, which is a Microsoft label they use on their store. However, we do test extensively on Windows 8 and are making sure Windows 8 users get a great game experience."

Minimum system requirements for PC

• Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista,7,8 (32bit/64bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics card with 512Mb Video RAM: AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT, nVidia 8600
• Dual core CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 2.1 Ghz (4050+), Intel Core2 Duo 1.86 Ghz (E6300)
• 1GB Memory (2GB on Vista)

Recommended system requirements for PC

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM: AMD Radeon HD 4870, nVidia GTX 480
• Quad core CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 565, Intel Core i5-750
• 4GB Memory

Square Enix will host a Q&A session about the PC on the official Tomb Raider forums on February 25th at 10AM PST. They'll be releasing screenshots from the PC version around that time as well.