Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.
TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust.
Winners & losers: For the first time in nearly two decades, Mojang has announced a significant change in Minecraft's hardware requirements, a rare move for one of the biggest gaming products in history. The Microsoft-owned studio wants to future-proof Minecraft: Java Edition, but players running older hardware won't be cheering this time around.
Minecraft: Java Edition now officially recommends 16GB of RAM, and that's just the starting point. Mojang recently explained that the wildly popular sandbox game is getting a more modern baseline for its system requirements, acknowledging that some players with aging systems will be disappointed as the company works to keep improving its blocky experience for everyone else.
The update arrives after 17 years without a change to Java Edition's requirements, a long stretch by any video game's standards. After nearly two decades, Minecraft has essentially grown out of its shoes: players will need stronger PCs to run future builds – no matter the impossibly expensive costs of crucial silicon components such as memory chips and GPUs.
