No need to rewrite the game, just choose a new art style and completely re-author all materials in the game. Maybe use fewer PBR maps for all the unimportant stuff too. Shouldn’t take more than a couple days.

Yes.

Not to mention game development takes years. Its not like you can just reduce system requirements at the end of development because of an unpredictable hardware shortage.

Recommended settings are for the average user to plug it in and get that performance. Have windows doing stuff in the background, a couple chrome tabs open and you need more than 16GB. 18-30GB are not valid ram configs on intel desktop or AM4/5 so 32GB is the closest.

I've played games with some of my system's stats at minimum requirements or slightly above before. Usually not fun.

You should probably stop downloading trojan horse crypto miners.

Excel really does need 32gb.... at minimum.

MS says you need 6GB for windows to stay in ram

Wtf, what is there that needs so much ram?

According to Steam hardware survey, ~55.7% of systems have less than 32GB.

Xbox S, Xbox X, and Ps5 have 16GB.

So safe to safe majority of gamers do not have 32GB and aren't getting more any time soon.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265034/proportion-of-used-computers-on-the-online-gaming-platform-steam-by-system-ram/

System random-access memory (RAM) share among Steam users as of June 2025

That being said, I don't know if one could say that a machine that has run Steam is necessarily "modern" or a "gaming machine". But I don't know what better statistic you'd get.

I mean, just add it to the list and get it a couple years down the line.

Dare I say it, but if you are really that excited, consider GeForce Now? It’s cheap, as long as you drop the subscription like a rock when you’re done.

For me it was hearing Lenny Kravitz try to be a voice actor that made me knew I'd be passing.