EverQuest Next to be playable on '4 or 5 year old' PCs

"Our goal is to be able to allow people with 4 or 5 year old machines to be able to play," Georgeson said.

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EverQuest Next uses a modified version of ForgeLight--the same engine that powers Planetside 2. Yet, in spite of its massive online worlds and voxel-based destruction, Sony Online Entertainment somehow plans on making the game far more accessible than their MMOFPS.

Saying the game is "absolutely more scalable than Planetside," EverQuest franchise director Dave Georgeson told Shacknews that the team is "shooting for much lower system specs."

PlanetSide 2 can be one of the more demanding games out there. But EverQuest reaches a far more casual audience than a shooter, necessitating easier access to the game. According to Georgeson, it's not hardware that's the most constraining aspect of the game. In fact, "the thing that's the highest spec right now is bandwidth," something the team is currently working on optimizing.

"Our goal is to be able to allow people with 4 or 5 year old machines to be able to play," Georgeson said. When quizzed if computers with integrated graphics cards would also be able to say, Georgeson wasn't able to give a concrete answer, simply saying that optimization is something they're going to continue working on.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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