Final Fantasy 14 devs say increased system requirements have an extra benefit: you'll be able to play other games, too

Final Fantasy 14 is getting a major graphics update, but the improved visuals will come at the cost of increased system requirements. The devs note that there's an extra benefit to upgrading your machine here: you'll be able to play other games, too.

The new minimum and recommended system requirements were confirmed at the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival earlier today, and there's quite a jump in hardware expectations. The old minimum requirements would let you get away with an i5 processor paired with a severely aging GPU like the GTX 750 or R7 260X. Now you'll need an i7-6700 and a GTX 970 or RX 480 at minimum, which effectively means that the old recommended requirements are the new minimum.

You can see all the new specs in full in the image above, with the caveat that these specs are subject to change pending final balancing. The new recommended requirements look just about like any other modern game, right down to the 140GB of hard drive space. Those high resolution textures need their space, after all. The new system requirements will hit alongside the first part of the graphics update next summer, alongside the launch of the new expansion Dawntrail.

"We don't want to force everyone to get a super high-spec PC," producer and director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida said as part of this announcement, "but we do think if you upgrade to this level it will also help you in playing other games, as well. So those of you who need to, if you could consider upgrading your system by next summer that would be fantastic."

If it sounds weird for the lead dev on one of the biggest online games in the world to recommend you play other titles, well, that's just Yoshi-P's way. You might recall the dev stream earlier this year where he showed up playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - elsewhere in that same broadcast, he noted that some of the raid requirements in a recent patch had been designed to give people more time to play other games.

Yoshi-P's dedication to letting FF14 fans be well-rounded gamers goes back some time, too. Back at Gamescom many years ago, he said this to a burnt-out FF14 fan: "It's alright not to play it everyday. Since it's just a game, you can stop forcing yourself if it's hard on you to keep that up. Rather, it'll just pile up unnecessary stress if you limit yourself to playing just that one game since there are so many other games out there. So, do come back and play it to your heart's content when the major patch kicks in, then stop it to play other games before you get burnt out, and then come back for another major patch. This will actually make me happier, and in the end, I think this is the best solution I can answer for keeping your motivation up for the game."

There's been a ton of news on FF14 today, including teases for two new DPS jobs, an even bigger free trial, and confirmation that the MMO is finally coming to Xbox.