Once upon a time, the Borderlands series was a safe space. The developers at Gearbox built a series of games that had a distinct visual identity, looked great, and ran oncomputers that aren’t far from the potatoespeople like to runDOOMon.
Now, our ownJay Kugot to play Borderlands 4 andchat with the developerslast month during a preview event, and asserted that the previous games “could not hold a candle to what Borderlands 4 is going to give us at launch.”
Hands-On Preview: Borderlands 4 Exploration Has “Less Borders, More Lands”
This is the most ambitious Borderlands to date. Gearbox isn’t playing around this time.
It’s only natural that an enhanced experience released half a decade later would need higher specs, but nobody was expecting theinsane Borderlands 4 hardware requirements. We’re talking about a bare minimum of 8GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and an octacore i7 or a Ryzen 7 series CPU.
The Borderlands debacle is the latest in a series of AAA games running on Unreal Engine 5, such as Ukrainian powerhouseSTALKER 2. While a lot of players are quick to attack the engine itself, there are also plenty of games that show you can get UE5 to look smooth and pretty when you do your homework optimizing it.
The newest AAA game to accept this challenge isMUDANG: Two Hearts, a tactical espionage thriller being developed and published by South Korea’s EVR Studio.
Officially announced in the 2025 Xbox Showcase, the game is going for an unusual fusion of narratives. Half of the game puts you in the shoes of North Koreanspecial forces soldierJi Jeongtae. In contrast, the other half is experienced through Gavi, the lead singer of Korea’s top girl group after a Korean reunification plan is sabotaged.
The materials presented so far make MUDANG: Two Hearts feel likeGhost Reconmixed with the slower, claustrophobic pace inherent toResident Evil 4.
MUDANG: Two Hearts Hardware Requirements
Despite being built on Unreal Engine 5, the MUDANG: Two Hearts system requirements made a great impression in the game’s debut on theSteam store. Here is what EVR Studio says you need to play the game once it’s out next year:
Requirement
Recommended
GTX 1650 or Radeon RX5500XT
RTX 3060 or Radeon RX5700
i3 8100 or Ryzen 3 1300X
i5 8600 or Ryzen 5 3600
150GB on an SSD
Operational System
Windows 10/11 64-bit
If Gearbox’s assessment is accurate,the recommended settings for MUDANG: Two Hearts are just barely enough to play Borderlands 4 on the lowest graphics settings. That’s despite the RTX 3060 being the most popular graphics card model among gamers according toSteam’s May hardware survey.
Meanwhile, the graphics card and processor pairings in the MUDANG: Two Hearts minimum requirements would be right at home in a 2019 mid-range build.
The game isnot expected to have an open world, which helps developers manage the load, but it aims for photorealistic visuals and highly dynamic AI that shows up in numbers. You can see an untextured demo of the outdoor combat dynamics here.
MUDANG: Two Hearts is slated to come out in 2026 for PC and Xbox Series X|S, but a PlayStation 5 port post-launch has not been ruled out yet. Here is hoping that, by the time it comes out, the hardware specs have not changed to the point where they lock most players out.
