Can I Run Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor on My PC / Laptop?

The official minimum is a Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor, a GeForce GTX 460 or Radeon HD 5850 graphics card, and 3 GB of RAM, running DirectX 11. That's enough for 1080p on low settings.

For a smoother experience at 1080p on high settings, the recommended spec is a Core i7-3770 or AMD FX-8350, a GeForce GTX 660 or Radeon HD 7950, and 8 GB of RAM.

The official minimum is 3 GB and the recommended figure is 8 GB. In practice, run 8 GB or more if you're on a modern operating system, since Windows itself and background apps eat into that 3 GB minimum quickly, leaving little for the game.

Steam lists 44 GB for the minimum configuration and 57 GB for the recommended one. The extra space in the recommended figure is mostly headroom for the optional Ultra HD Texture Pack and any patches, not a bigger base install.

A hard drive works fine; there's no SSD requirement listed by the developer. An SSD isn't necessary for smooth gameplay in this game, but it does noticeably cut the loading time when you fast travel or move between the open-world regions.

DirectX 11, for both the minimum and recommended configurations. Any GPU released in roughly the last twelve years supports it, so this is never the limiting factor for anyone checking whether they can run the game.

It leans GPU and VRAM, not CPU. The Nemesis system's orc AI runs fine on modest processors, and the open world doesn't tax cores the way a modern engine does. Your graphics card, and specifically whether it has enough VRAM for the Ultra HD Texture Pack, is what actually decides how the game looks and feels.

The base game is comfortable on 2 GB of VRAM. The optional Ultra HD Texture Pack is the exception: Warner Bros. recommends 6 GB or more for that specific add-on. Skip the texture pack on cards with less VRAM and you won't notice any downside in normal play.

No. It was always a single-player game, but it briefly had two online-connected features, the Nemesis Forge and Vendetta missions, which let your captured orcs interact with Shadow of War and your friends' games. WB shut those servers down at the end of 2020. The core single-player campaign was never affected and still works exactly as before.

Yes. Outside of the Steam login itself, the campaign has no always-online requirement and never needed a persistent connection to play through the story.

The Game of the Year Edition bundles the base game with all of its story DLC, including the Bright Lord and Lord of the Hunt expansions. The PC system requirements are the same either way; the GOTY edition just has a larger download and install size because of the extra content.

No, these are two different games. Shadow of Mordor came out in 2014 and is the lighter of the two by a wide margin. Shadow of War followed in 2017 with a heavier engine and noticeably higher requirements. This page covers Shadow of Mordor specifically; don't use its requirements as a stand-in for Shadow of War.

As far as running it goes, yes, it's about as low-risk a purchase as a system requirement checker sees. Since it runs comfortably on hardware far below current mid-range, the only real question left is whether you enjoy the Nemesis system's orc rivalries and combat, not whether your PC can handle it.

The listed minimum is Windows 10 64-bit, and the recommended configuration lists both Windows 10 and 11 64-bit. In practice it runs fine on either, since it predates both operating systems and has no OS-specific features that would favor one over the other.

No trouble at all. The RTX 3050 meets or beats what Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor recommends, so 1080p high runs well and 1440p is realistic. Sits at the game's 100fps cap for 1080p and 1440p ultra, with enough VRAM on the 8 GB variant to run the Ultra HD Texture Pack without dropping texture quality.

The GTX 1650 is a strong fit for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. It lands at or above the recommended spec, so high 1080p is comfortable and 1440p works. Sits right around the game's built-in 100fps cap at 1080p high to ultra, so the card, not the setting, stops being the limit.

Yes, comfortably. The GTX 1060 6GB sits at or above Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so 1080p on high is smooth and 1440p is well within reach. Hits the 100fps cap at 1080p ultra and holds roughly 85 to 95 fps at 1440p. Its 6 GB of VRAM is exactly what the Ultra HD Texture Pack asks for.

Plenty of power here. The RX 580 is above Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended tier, so high 1080p is smooth and 1440p is a fair target. Hits the 100fps cap at 1080p ultra with room to spare, and handles 1440p high comfortably as well.

Plenty of power here. The RTX 4060 is above Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended tier, so high 1080p is smooth and 1440p is a fair target. Sits at the 100fps cap at every resolution up to 4K with the Ultra HD Texture Pack enabled. This card is well past what the game needs.

For sure. The RTX 3060 outpaces Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, leaving you high 1080p now and 1440p whenever you like. Hits the cap at 1080p and 1440p ultra, and its 12 GB of VRAM on the desktop card handles 4K with the Ultra HD Texture Pack without any texture quality compromise.

Yes. The RTX 2060 has headroom over Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so you can push 1080p high and move to 1440p when you want. Capped at 100 fps through 1440p ultra, and lands around 65 to 75 fps at 4K once the Ultra HD Texture Pack is in the mix.

Plenty of power here. The GTX 1660 is above Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended tier, so high 1080p is smooth and 1440p is a fair target. Comfortably capped at 100 fps through 1080p and 1440p ultra, with the Ultra HD Texture Pack posing no real issue at either resolution.

No trouble at all. The GTX 1660 Super meets or beats what Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor recommends, so 1080p high runs well and 1440p is realistic.

That is more than enough. The RX 6600 clears Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended requirement, so aim for high at 1080p or step up to 1440p. Comfortably hits the cap at 1080p and 1440p ultra, and manages roughly 75 to 85 fps at 4K ultra.

Yes. On the GTX 1660 Ti, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs at high settings in 1080p and scales up to 1440p without much fuss.

Yes. The RTX 3060 Ti has headroom over Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so you can push 1080p high and move to 1440p when you want.

Yes, comfortably. The RTX 4050 sits at or above Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so 1080p on high is smooth and 1440p is well within reach.

You are well set. The GTX 1050 Ti exceeds Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so 1080p high is easy and 1440p is realistic. Around 65 to 80 fps at 1080p high, well clear of the game's 100fps cap and comfortably above the official recommended card.

Yes. The RTX 4070 has headroom over Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's recommended card, so you can push 1080p high and move to 1440p when you want.

Monolith never made a Mac build, so an M-series MacBook has nothing native to run here. A cloud streaming service that carries your library, or Windows through virtualization software, are the practical routes if you're on a Mac.

Older integrated chips, like Intel's UHD 620 or 630 found in many budget and business laptops, sit close to the minimum GTX 460 and will manage low settings at 1080p with some stuttering in busy scenes. Newer integrated GPUs such as Intel's Iris Xe, AMD's Radeon 780M or 760M, or Vega 8 clear that bar comfortably and can hold medium to high settings at 1080p, since this is a light engine by current standards.

Chromebook hardware wasn't built to execute a Windows PC game like this one directly. A cloud gaming service is your workaround, since the actual rendering happens on a remote server rather than the Chromebook itself.

Yes. The game carries a Steam Deck Verified rating and runs smoothly with the default or lightly tuned settings, typically landing in the 40 to 60 fps range at the Deck's native resolution before you cap it for battery life. ROG Ally and Legion Go have more graphics power than the Deck, so they run it at least as well, generally with higher settings or a steadier frame rate at the same power draw.

Yes. The game is light on the CPU, so a budget quad-core like an i3 or Ryzen 3 from the last several years is plenty. Your graphics card, not the processor, is what will end up limiting your settings on a genuinely low-end machine.

It isn't on GeForce NOW. You can still stream it through bring-your-own-game services like Boosteroid, or through a general-purpose cloud PC provider, both of which require you to already own the game on Steam.

Leave the Ultra HD Texture Pack uninstalled, since the Deck's 16 GB of shared memory is better spent elsewhere and the visual gain is minor. Set graphics to High, cap the frame rate at 40 with the Deck's own limiter rather than chasing the game's default 100fps cap, and enable half-rate shading if your build supports it. That combination holds a steady frame rate without draining the battery quickly.

Expect somewhere around 2 to 3 hours on the LCD Deck at the settings above, closer to 3 to 4 on the OLED model, which is more efficient at the same settings. Capping the frame rate to 30 or 40 instead of letting it run higher is the single biggest thing you can do to stretch that further.

Both, yes. The PS4 release is the original, and PS5 plays that same build through Sony's backward compatibility, adding a dynamic 4K resolution option alongside the original 1080p performance mode. Every PlayStation version stays locked around 30 fps though; there's no 60fps patch anywhere in the lineup.

It runs on all three, in a sense: Xbox One got the original release, and Series X/S play that same version through Microsoft's backward compatibility program. Shadow of Mordor never received the FPS Boost treatment, so performance matches what it did on the original Xbox One hardware rather than gaining an unlocked frame rate.

It is. The game released on Xbox 360 and Xbox One at launch, and it still plays on Xbox Series X/S through backward compatibility. The confusion usually comes from mixing it up with Shadow of War, which had its own separate platform and online service history.

No. It never released for Switch and there's no indication that's changing. PC, PlayStation, and Xbox are the only platforms.

Yes. Feral Interactive published a native Linux port, separate from Proton, though it initially supported Nvidia drivers only before AMD and Intel support followed. It still requires Steam DRM to run.

Yes on PC, at whatever resolution your monitor and graphics card support, and the Ultra HD Texture Pack is worth pairing with 4K if your card has the VRAM for it. On PS5, 4K is available as a dynamic resolution option in the resolution mode, at the cost of staying at 30 fps rather than 60.

On PC, yes, well past 60; the game defaults to a 100fps cap that most modern hardware reaches easily, and that cap can be removed with a config file edit if you want more (with the caveat covered above about a mission bug). On console, all versions including PS5 and Xbox Series X/S stay locked around 30 fps, since neither platform has patched in a 60fps mode.

No. Unlike some contemporaries, it doesn't include an in-game benchmark mode for testing your hardware. The checker above and the fps table on this page are the closest substitute.

No. It uses standard Steam DRM rather than Denuvo, which is one reason it has aged well technically and rarely runs into the performance overhead some Denuvo-protected games are criticized for.

Almost certainly not. If this is the only game motivating an upgrade, save the money; the requirements are low enough that most PCs from the last decade already clear them. Only the Ultra HD Texture Pack's 6 GB VRAM figure is worth checking against your card before you install it.

Yes, without any extra setup. The game shipped with full gamepad support back in 2014, so the default Steam Input mapping on any of these handhelds matches the intended controls and there's nothing to configure beyond your usual stick sensitivity preferences.