PSO2: New Genesis Stream Provides Look At What Players Can Expect, Including PC Requirements

If you were awake early enough on Saturday morning (or just happened to be in the right time zone), then you might have caught the Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis presentation on the PSO2 - Global YouTube channel -- the same one they do the ARKS Hour on. If you did miss it, that's okay. The whole thing is still available to watch as a vod. Considering it's just a little over an hour and forty-five minutes long, you may want to sit aside a good chunk of time for it all.

So, what exactly did come out of the stream? Well, once you get past the general fluff, the hosts cover a good bit of ground without heading too far into spoiler territory. This means that they avoid talking about the game's story too much, other than to tell players it's set 1,000 years after PSO2 and a very long war has been taking place between the Halphanians and an enemy force known simply as DOLLS.

Aside from the story content, the stream addressed technical content, such as the new graphics engine, the open world element, and the character creation system. Of course, we already knew a new graphics engine was incoming -- not just for NG but for the original PSO2, and that new engine means a whole new set of system specs for the game. The new specs are detailed on the official PSO2: NG website, and while they are in Japanese, it's fairly easy to figure out what's going on. For minimum requirements, players are looking at needing Windows 10 64bit, an Intel Core i5-9400, 8GB RAM, 100GB HD space (to support both games, if I'm reading that part right) and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 or AMD Radeon R9 285. Of course, those are the minimum specs, so if you want the game to run as intended, you're gonna have to go higher, and it's likely things will change a bit over time.

As for the new character creation system, not only will players be able to make prettier characters using morphing sliders and a variety of color options, but they'll also have access to three new classes: Fighter, Techter, and Gunner. Each class was shown off during the stream along with their individual weapons. Sub-classes also got a look, and it's important to note that players will be able to use both sub and main-class weapon skills from the same hot bar without having to do any palette swapping.

If you're worried about how to get around in the open world, the stream addresses that as well. Players won't just be stuck running everywhere, as the devs have implemented a teleportation system using special devices. For those players that rather like the instanced feel of PSO2, that's not going away entirely. Rather, players will be able to take part in instanced quests via Cocoons found in the open world. These can be activated alone or with a group. Emergency quests will also spawn in the world like they do in the current game.

If you'd like to watch the stream in full, you can do so below. Keep in mind the closed captioning is YouTube's automated system, so some things may be a bit wonky.