Here's the rig you'll need to play Killer Instinct on the PC

Killer Instinct

The third season of Killer Instinct has been unleashed, and the beat-'em-up is arriving on the PC for the first time, with the system requirements having just been revealed.

In case you weren't aware, the first thing you should know is that the fighting game is a Windows 10 affair, so you'll be able to download it free only from the Windows Store.

Like many games these days, it's free to play, but you can purchase characters (a host of new brawlers have been added for season three). If you don't spend any cash, you can only play one free character per month (with the usual rotation applying).

Okay, so back to those crucial system requirements.

The minimum required PC hardware includes an Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor, along with 4GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 480 or Radeon HD 5850 graphics card – plus, a broadband internet connection. As mentioned, you'll also need Windows 10 64-bit.

The recommended spec jacks up the CPU requirement to an Intel Core i5-4670K or AMD FX-4300, with 8GB of RAM needed and a GeForce GTX 670 or Radeon HD 7950 video card.

Rolling out...

The game begins rolling out at around 16:00 GMT (or 8:00 PDT, 11:00 EDT, 2:00 AEDT), although as the developer notes, the emphasis is on "rolling", meaning that you may have to be a little patient (an attribute the Killer Instinct community appears to lack, judging from the complaining about the lack of a midnight release, which is what has previously happened).

Killer Instinct will allow for cross-platform play between PC pugilists and Xbox One addicts, incidentally, so that should open up a whole new angle of competition (and any characters you buy will be purchased across both versions, too).

You also get a performance test with the Windows 10 game. Check out a video of that – i.e. flaming monster men beating the snot out of each other – just above.

Via PC Gamer

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).