Top 40 pc games

But then it's a society simulator, isn't it? No matter what you do, you can't make everyone happy, and a portion of any society is going to be filled with people who simply won't use logic or listen to reason.

A relevant lesson! Evan: Is Arma a tedious and complicated sim, or a peerless sandbox-playground for unscripted military antics? Years into its lifespan, the franchise's contradiction is potent: onboarding someone into the game means handing them a list of mods they 'absolutely' need to get started and a longer list of unusual keybinds double tap left Alt to freely swivel your neck independently of your weapon, duh.

But at the end of that not-so-basic training awaits a serious and often silly game about riding in a helicopter with a dozen of your closest Discord friends, one of whom crashes that helicopter into a tree after failing to correctly engage the auto-hover. Nat: Remember the first time you took a sledgehammer to a house in Red Faction Guerrilla? Teardown is that, but pushed to its best extreme. A destruction sandbox where breakable buildings aren't just a backdrop to mediocre gunfights, but instead used to prop up an incredible set of heist puzzles.

But oh, that smashing! Teardown may be voxelated, but everything breaks as you'd expect. Wood buckles under pressure.

Plaster cracks to reveal underlying brickwork. Fire spreads as volumetric smoke billows through hallways, and a remarkably efficient approach to ray-tracing makes sure it all looks perfectly tactile.

In most levels, you're free to explore and destroy the map as you see fit. You'll have a set number of items to rob briefcases, safes, cars , and once you snag one, the timer starts. Carve an optimal route through the map, grab the goods, and make it out before the cops arrive. Simple, but nerve-wrackingly brilliant. Beyond that, though, Teardown's exploding mod scene has turned the voxel playground into a brand new Garry's Mod. There's a workshop packed to the brim with new maps to smash up, and a wealth of toys ranging from GMod-style physics guns to miniguns akimbo.

Teardown's puzzles are decent fun, but I'll be smashing my way through fan-made maps for a long time yet. A supernatural mystery, Unavowed throws you into an ancient society of magical problem solvers after a possession ruined your life. It's got big party-based RPG vibes, evoking BioWare games especially, complete with special origin stories and a branching plot that goes to some surprising places.

But this is still firmly a 2D point-and-click, where most of your time will be spent solving mysteries and puzzles. And what excellent mysteries and puzzles they are, forcing you to use both magic and your investigative chops to solve. What lingers, though, are the charming characters and Unavowed's vision of New York—a place simultaneously familiar and utterly alien.

Robin: Unavowed feels like a treatise on how the classic style of 2D adventure game can still feel relevant in the modern games industry. Dave: We finally made it, ma! As the finest long-term RPG on any platform, I'd argue it's a bit too far down the list, but there are still many who foolishly see it as some sort of glorified spreadsheet. Football is obviously central to the game, which does put people off. But FM is a mix of a sporting version of The Sims, marshalling and developing your little computer people to kick a ball about better than other little computer people, and a heart-wrenching RPG about success, failure, heroism, the fragility of youth, lost potential, and the inevitable decay of our own corporeal forms.

Fraser: Finally! I've been trying to get CoH2 in here for years. The RTS sequel is perhaps a controversial choice, and is certainly more divisive than its predecessor, but the first game has had its time in the sun and on this list. There are plenty of reasons to recommend the sequel, too, especially if you're tired of the Western Front. One of the main reasons I've been fighting for the swap is the fantastic Ardennes Assault expansion, which features a dynamic turn-based campaign—something Relic is taking even further in the upcoming Company of Heroes 3.

Dave: Still think the original is better, but that's probably because I got proper obsessed with the Commando units from the Opposing Fronts expandalone. Cars are cool and hot and Horizon 4 knows it. Play it as a racing simulation or turn on all the assists and play it like Lego Racer. Or just deck out a van with a Dragonball Z livery and drive it off cliff sides, capturing the poetic footage as it tumbles. Nat: Forza lets me tear down my own backyard in the big daft Halo jeep, which makes it the best racing game ever made as far as I'm concerned.

Fraser: I drove around digital Edinburgh with a friend and pointed out all the places I'd thrown up when I was at university. Perfect game. Jacob: With a decent racing wheel, this game makes you feel like you're the world rally champion and F1 drivers champion all at the same time. James: A game that bends the rules of space also exists outside of time. Portal 2 is still one of the funniest games ever made. Even if the portal puzzles get easier to parse with every run, I'm always finding new routes and accidentally developing speedrun strats, buoyed by good humor, great performances, and excellent tunes throughout.

If you've yet to play the co-op campaign, do it now. Spec out incredibly complex solutions to simple problems, together. Harry: If you like jokes, games, and puzzles, Portal 2 is essential.

It's not a looker by today's standards, of course, but it doesn't need to be. Cleverness, invention, and laughs win over graphics any day. Plus, it'll probably run nicely on your Steam Deck.

It's outrageous that Portal 2 has puzzles that make you feel so smart while you're solving them and monologues so funny they make you cackle the whole time you're doing it. True galaxy brain stuff. Phil: Ubisoft's trade-focused city builder has grown into something remarkable.

Over a handful of DLC seasons it's doubled down on the satisfaction of seeing a territory grow by adding a handful of new regions with specific quirks to overcome.

In Africa, you'll create canal systems to irrigate the land. In the Arctic, you'll build airships to circumnavigate imposing glaciers. And back in Europe, you'll expand your docks into a global hub supporting your ever-expanding trade empire. The sheer joy of turning these disparate regions into a fully-autonomous machine of growth and profit is hard to beat, at least until you move to the next tier of technology, and balk at the exponential effort required to get it up and running.

A return to form for the series. Nat: Tony Hawk might've introduced me to skateboarding, but Session understands why I've come to love it.

There are no time limits and no high scores: just you, your board, and an urban sandbox to destroy. Session manages to make the simple act of rolling around on your skateboard feel incredible.

Controls can be tweaked to be as easy or tough as possible, and it's rare that a game can make the humble ollie feel satisfying. Challenges that'd be trivial in THPS become hour-long battles as you try to nail a nollie heelflip into a lipslide off the sidewalk. Admittedly, Session is still extremely work-in-progress. Character models are a bit jank, animations bug out, and the physics are often hilariously broken.

But each new update brings a new way to express your skating style, whether it's the introduction of freestyle primo and casper tricks, or a new city block featuring iconic skate spots. James: Normally, I'd hold back on recommending an early access game, but Session's impressive growth and momentum easily make up for the jank. We've already had a total physics overhaul and an animation overhaul is on the way.

New trick systems and levels show up every couple months, and with new publisher Nacon on board, we might see Session pick up even more speed on the way to 1. Harry: Don't be put off by Loop Hero's impenetrable-seeming aesthetic; It's one of the most accessible games I've played in Its nostalgic style belies an absorbing adventure that's wonderfully simple to start, but brutal to master.

You decide the difficulty of your nameless knight's journey by adding monster tiles for more gear and resources, or helpful boons, colouring in the blackness with often surprising results.

Take your resources or try for one more loop? For much of I've struggled to choose. Evan: As you said, it's steeped in nostalgia, starting with that CRT "curved screen" filter you can enable in the main menu.

And yet it's so different from many of the outwardly nostalgia-based games we see. Loop Hero isn't a recreation of an old style of game like Stardew Valley.

Instead it resurrects the spiritual aspects from the late '80s VGA era, the subtler sense of mystery found in some games from that era. It's most fun if you avoid Googling your way to victory with wikis. Instead, try engaging in the kinds of school lunchroom rumors with a friend who's also playing it, trading stories about how you can summon harpies into the map by building a mountain, or the ridiculous thing you have to do to get a secret boss to spawn.

Fraser: I started playing Loop Hero because I thought it would be a distillation of RPG adventures that took only a wee while to play through. Morgan: Paradise Killer takes the most classically compelling premise in literary history there's been a murder, you have to solve it and places it in one of the strangest, most interesting videogame worlds I've ever explored.

Piecing together timelines and motives while interrogating characters named Doctor Doom Jazz or Lydia Day Break never gets old. It's a visual novel for people that don't think they'd be into visual novels. A true sleeper hit. Andy K: What makes it really special for me is its openness.

This is a detective game where you can find evidence in any order and construct your case at your own pace. The order you find these clues in—and the conclusions you draw from them—can totally reshape your perception of the crime and who did it, including pinning the crime on an innocent person and having to live with your shoddy detective work.

Fraser: Chivalry 2 lets you chop off someone's limbs, pick them up, and then use them to beat someone else to death—all while you're screaming, they're screaming, everyone just won't stop screaming. They're really screams of joy, though, because this multiplayer medieval combat romp is just so damn fun.

Tyler: It's great. I love the balance of serious sword combat and silliness, where swing selection and mouse technique are being carefully considered just a few feet away from players who are smashing the 'yell' key repeatedly and chucking objects into the fray like Philadelphia sports fans. In places, Chiv 2 really delivers on the full medieval warfare experience it promises.

Climbing up a ladder and over the edge of a rampart is always thrilling. I can't wait for the horse update. Evan: It's the closest thing to a toxicity-proof competitive game I've played. The slapstick dark comedy of severed limbs and fish-as-weapons is part of it—that stuff makes Chivalry 2 feel lighthearted—but I also think that, unlike the serious, methodical, 5v5 formats in games like CS:GO, you sort of accept that a fray of dozens of people swinging their variously-long metal dicks around is going to be a messy affair.

Balance isn't the point. It's the calamity and fun of facing down three knights in an "unfair" fight and somehow walking away, and then laughing it off when a ballista pegs your body against the castle wall. More competitive multiplayer games could learn from that.

Wes: GTA Online's heists are still some of the most intricate co-op gaming you can do today. Rockstar's online infrastructure is terrible, though.

Unfortunately, so will all the hackers and griefers that tried to ruin our fun. Phil: GTA Online tends to get all the attention these days, but there's a quality campaign here too—huge in scope, albeit saddled with some of Rockstar's most cynical writing to-date. The mod scene is wild , too. Steven: It's still wild to me that Genshin Impact basically came out of nowhere and rocked the gaming world.

Player housing, new territories, and a bunch of new characters—it's crazy how good this free game is. Morgan: Technically free, yea. Its gacha money making tactics were overbearing enough to turn me off, and I'm the lucky type that's not compelled to keep spending money. Steven: I mean, it doesn't gate your progress in any way.

You only have to spend the money if you want to, and there's no banners or pop-ups pestering you either. Mollie: I get you Morgan, gacha games can be off-putting with their monetisation. But I view Genshin Impact like a monthly MMO subscription—a little bit of money each month for some currency or extra goodies is no more than what I'd pay to play Final Fantasy I hadn't actually played Genshin for a few months when we made this list, but I recently got back into it with the release of 2.

Just like Steven said, I can't believe this is a game that you can technically play free of charge. Teyvat is a gorgeous world, with each region bringing its own unique flavour and culture. Combat is seriously satisfying, too—combining the different elemental abilities of characters and firing off all manner of reactions never stops being fun.

Sure it's a little grindy sometimes, but what live service game isn't these days? James: I bounced off Prey a couple of times, but once I accepted that you're always on the back foot it clicked. This is Resident Evil in space, but you choose what kind of key you want to unlock the next door with: hacking, secret vent pathways, or turning into a banana and sliding through a tiny hole in the wall.

Jody: Prey's space station being a contiguous space, one you explore inside and out so thoroughly it's ridiculous, makes it the System Shock 3 of my dreams.

You can hop into space, jetting around in zero-gravity to find alternate routes. There's so much detail, so much to learn. You can shoot a NERF crossbow through a window to hit a computer screen to read an email in a locked room. Why isn't this higher? Phil: It's no Dishonored 2, but I really have to praise the craft Arkane put into creating Prey's space station—a seamlessly connected environment full of secrets to unlock.

It's just a shame the combat outstays its welcome. For years it's been evolving and spitting out experiments, beckoning me back time and time again to slaughter hordes of monsters and obsess over loot and builds. The main progression system is the pinnacle of ARPG character building, and one that's kept me tinkering away for the better part of a decade.

I suspect only the in-development sequel will be able to tear me away. Wes: I don't want to start a debate about game difficulty, but overcoming Sekiro's challenge was a thrill I haven't gotten from an action game since God Hand. It demands you play on its terms. The moment you parry a boss's final hit and counter with a deathblow you'll realize you've felt dead inside for years. Morgan: Come on James, Chivalry 2 is right over there. Sekiro is hands-down my favorite From game yet.

By reining in its combat options and focusing on a single weapon, they ended up with combat so good that Star Wars copied it. Fraser: Yes, it's more Assassin's Creed, with a vast open world filled with stuff to climb, people to murder and crap to collect. While much is unchanged, I still found myself spending something like hours playing.

As a Scot I hate to say it, but England is a pretty nice place to explore. It's a stunning open world, and one jam-packed with some of the series' most charismatic denizens, not least of which is Eivor, a terse but charming protagonist whose growls and sighs speak volumes. She's my favourite assassin, even over the superb Kassandra.

Sarah: I absolutely adored Eivor, and her horse who I named Horace. We both spent far too much time exploring England to compare places I've visited with their in-game counterparts. Steven: I'm such a big fan of this new direction Assassin's Creed has taken—even if it sometimes still feels a little too big for its own good.

Shifting to become an RPG with a branching narrative is just such a fun way to intimately explore a romanticized version of different historical periods, and Valhalla makes some really strong improvements in the narrative department, especially in the complex relationship between Eivor and her brother. Phil: Gonna be honest: I'm still too burned out from completing Odyssey—which, to be clear, I loved—to even consider starting this yet.

Nat: For a long time, Black Mesa was a joke. An over-ambitious attempt to completely remake Half-Life from the ground up as a standalone mod. But lo and behold, it's finally finished—and bloody hell, if it isn't a stunning thing.

Black Mesa deftly reimagines Valve's debut, trimming the more tedious parts of Half-Life while remaking Xen Half-Life's notoriously flawed final chapters from the ground up. I wouldn't say it replaces the seminal shooter outright, but it's a damn fine way to experience it from a brand new angle. Wes: A factory building game so perfectly named I defy anyone to talk about it without using the word "satisfying.

My first 'factory' was a messy series of conveyor belts on a forest floor that was ugly and inefficient, so I tore it down and rebuilt. And again. My multiplayer crew is now building towering skyscraper factories linked by automated sky trains. Some people lose a year building castles in Minecraft; I lost one building iron rods in Satisfactory, and I don't regret a second of it.

Phil: Build rockets and send them into space. Or, just as likely, fail to send them into space because of a disastrous flaw with your design.

Kerbal Space Program takes all of the complicated maths needed to successfully hurl functional machines out of a planet's atmosphere and presents them in a way that celebrates creativity, expression and fun. There's still nothing quite like Kerbal. Dave: The rescue missions Kerbal's 'career mode' spits up are some of the greatest space-based experiences you can have on a PC. Forget Elite: Dangerous, forget Homeworld, forget the Outer Wilds, when you've got Kerbward Woodward stranded, orbiting a distant planet with vast amounts of precious 'science' accumulated from a daring mission to Duna you've just got to figure out a way to get him home safe.

Especially because it's your fault for him being stuck way out there because you forgot to add a few solar extra solar cells back in the lab. From creating the rescue craft, intercepting the stranded craft, and finally getting everyone home safe… there are few more satisfying feelings in PC gaming.

Evan: Depth, literally and figuratively. Creator Derek Yu calls it "spiky", a label that describes many of the things you can impale yourself upon as well as the emotional highs and lows that its teeming, subterranean lunar universe produces in players. A great spectator game, Spelunky 2's streaming and YouTube community is another dimension of experimentation and unbelievable feats.

Family gatherings, drunken parties, or lunchtime in the office—it does it all. Morgan: Party Pack 7 is a particular banger, too. Champ'd up did the impossible task of surpassing the best ever Jackbox game before it: Tee KO. Jackbox is a great way to get the party started or serve as a fun, accessible time when you're not quite ready for the night to end.

I can't even begin to count how many in-jokes between me and my pals have been born as a result of Jackbox. Rich: A triumphant reimagining of Capcom's already-excellent series that looks gorgeous and delivers some of the best co-op times you'll ever have. Incredible combat with huge depth, spectacular monsters and environments, and there's so much of it. You never want this game to end, and it feels like it never does. Wes: expansion Iceborne adds an endgame zone you can spend months in and a vastly streamlined gathering hub for multiplayer.

It's everything I didn't know I needed in the base game. Mollie: Monster Hunter: World has been winding down for a while, with the final content update releasing in October last year and the release of Rise on the Nintendo Switch not too long ago.

I'm basically waiting for that to hit PC now, but Monster Hunter: World will still remain an excellent game. It really nailed the balance between the series' traditionally tough gameplay while being super friendly to newcomers. Also, the hunting horn absolutely whips. Doot bro for life. Chris: One of the few blockbuster games built from the ground up for VR, and certainly the best and most beautiful. Whatever Valve did under the hood with the game's locomotion, it's easily the most comfortable VR game, one that I could play for hours at a time without feeling the nausea or headaches VR usually gives me after about 40 minutes.

Plus, it cleverly rewrote some Half-Life lore that's been in the books for a decade, priming us for whatever comes next.

Dave: Easily the best VR game ever made. It's also one of the finest Half-Life games too, and damn, is it ever creepy. Stalking through broken down infested zones of City 17 to avoid the zombies, or bursting out into the streets for a firefight with the Combine, Alyx is an absolute must for Half-Life fans. And, oh my god, those liquid physics.

I could spend hours just shaking vodka bottles. Rachel: First released back in February , Devotion was available on Steam for only six days before it was hit with its infamous review-bombing controversy. Determined to re-release the game, Red Candle put it back up for sale this year, letting players finally experience its superb suburban horror. Sharing many similarities to Konami's claustrophobic house in PT, Devotion is a story about a family living in a small s apartment in Taiwan, each member having their own personal demons dragged out into the house's stark fluorescent lighting.

Everything kicks off after the daughter contracts a mysterious illness, which causes the desperate father to tumble into a spiral of paranoia and misplaced spiritualism.

What's great about Devotion is that there are no literal monsters, the game is more interested in how the troubled headspaces of a family can seep into the physical space of a home.

It's not often we get to see the exploration of a person's religious faith and seeing how Red Candle has used that to create an insidious story of family tragedy is like no other horror game I've played. It's a horror tale that actually cares about its characters, and together with artful sequences and spine-chilling moments, it's truly one of the best horror stories of all time.

A game that was well worth the wait. James: Resident Evil Village is so much more than the tall vampire woman. I mean, Lady Dimitrescu certainly makes a lasting impression, but she's just one chapter of this excellent cosmic horror anthology. This is Resident Evil doing its best A24 horror impression, moving from a frozen village overrun with lycans, through a classic game of cat and mouse in a lavish castle, and later arriving at color-drained industrial body horror—something like Hellraiser meets Saw.

Village goes from goofy action to the scariest setpieces in the series' history, embracing everything I identify with Resident Evil: locked doors, ridiculous keys, and goofy characters.

This is Resident Evil at its most self aware, at its scariest, and its most surprising. Alan: The latest Resident Evil has some great stand-out moments, with a giddy number of villains and game genres checked off as you explore its chilling environs. The highlight for me was hiding beneath a bed bereft of weapons while an oversized nightmare wailed horribly while searching for our hero.

It's got to be one of its most chilling moments it has to offer—I don't think I've completed a level so quickly in my life. Jacob: Resident Evil Village isn't afraid to hand you a big gun and lots of ammo.

Sure, there are moments that make you want to throw your mouse in the bin and never come back to your PC, but most of the time it's an extremely well-paced and entertaining gore flick. Mollie: I have a lot of love for The Sims 4. It had a rocky launch and issues that still persist years later, but it's the first game I boot up whenever I get that creative itch.

The build mode is genuinely fantastic, and I feel like Maxis is finally getting the hang of making consistently excellent expansion packs. The gameplay is still a little vapid compared to earlier entries, but it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be. The biggest bummer, and the reason for its steep drop this year, is how high the financial barrier to entry has become. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an awe-inspiring journey where the fantasy world is your plaything.

What its main story quest lacks in nuance it more than makes up for with its invitation to go anywhere and do anything. Set out in any direction to explore a vast kingdom filled with people going about their daily lives, warring factions, and dangerous wildlife that ranges from wild dogs to imposing giants and full-fledged dragons.

And of course, with this being the PC version, you have access to a nearly unrivaled collection of transformative mods at your fingertips.

Skyrim 10th Anniversary Edition was released in November. This latest version includes all previously released content as well as some new features, including a fishing mechanic. But here, a distinctive approach to city building in which major structures like specialized districts and Wonders are placed on their own tiles gives it a distinctive flavor, and the newly added climate change mechanics add new long-term environmental considerations throughout and hazards that manifest in the late game.

Think of Diablo 3 not for its infamous launch, but for the incredible action-RPG it evolved into in the years afterward. While its early existence was plagued by plenty of problems including a real-money auction house that was ultimately entirely removed and burned to the ground , Blizzard managed to reshape this revival of a classic series into an excellent and infinitely replayable co-op, demon-slaying party.

Diablo 3 is still lovely to look at, full of interesting choices and class synergies, and specially designed to keep you interested far, far past when the credits roll.

The series' next mainline entry, Diablo 4, will likely be released in or later. Its sprawling caves open up and offer multiple paths to you at any given time, but no matter which way you go there are exciting bosses to fight and significant power-ups to make you stronger.

And even though it was already a massive game, Hollow Knight has only gotten bigger since its launch in early Developer Team Cherry released multiple free updates with new areas and bosses, each harder than the last. But whether you just want to get to the credits, find the true ending, or push even farther than that, Hallownest is a world worth exploring.

With its distinctive Old West-tinged approach to the post-nuclear wasteland, game-changing decisions, and flexible ways to complete its quests, Fallout: New Vegas carved out a spot as not just the best game of the Fallout series, but one of the best RPGs ever made. And the fact that you, a nameless nobody courier, get to rise up from nothing and become the person who decides the fate of the region, gives you a real sense of control and power.

Just a few years ago, the Doom series was, for all intents and purposes, dead. A legend in a grave. Twelve years passed between Doom 3 — which would prove to be the final Doom from the original id Software team — and the Doom reboot in But against the odds, the new generation of id developers did it: they reimagined Doom as a fast-action modern-day demon-slaying experience while still respecting the satisfying feel of the classic originals.

Glory kills, aggressive monster mobs, big weapon and ability upgrades, and speed, speed, speed define the new Doom. Play this game first and then run straight for Doom Eternal , which evolves the formula in very smart, very fun ways you won't soon forget. Into the Breach is a puzzle game masquerading in turn-based tactics clothing.

Each mission presents you with overwhelming odds and limited options — a seemingly impossible task. Each turn becomes a puzzle for you to solve, using your limited actions for maximum effect. Into the Breach made our updated list of the 10 best roguelikes. Few games will make you fear for your life upon encountering the most mundane of inanimate objects the way Prey does — and fewer still will then give you the power to become those objects yourself.

Developer Arkane Austin is now working on Redfall , an open-world, co-op vampire shooter. No game simulates the feeling of being in command of a starship flying by the seat of your pants like FTL: Faster Than Light. It's a game you shouldn't expect to survive — more likely, you'll be blasted out of the sky by a vastly superior enemy ship or boarded by a death squad of giant killer insects who massacre your crew. Instead, careful preparation, planning, and, yes, lots of dying lead to success here.

Get it now: Epic Games Store. Things can be a lot, which is where fairly simple but relaxing games like the Gunk come in. Get it now: Game Pass. Despite what the title suggests, this narrative adventure is loosely based on the classic film only. Players missing Telltale-style adventures that are all about decision-making will feel right at home here — even the visual style developer Pendulo Studios settled on feels somewhat familiar.

Get it now: Steam GOG. Take a look and see what grabs your attention. Check Out This Game. Team Rocket Leader Giovanni is on the lookout for a successor, and the competition is down to you and your sibling, two novice Team Rocket members.

Just register and play in your browser. The trainers are more aggressive, and their teams are stronger. Prepare to face some extra-treacherous routes, and beware of increased ambushes by Team Magma and Team Aqua. One of the most significant improvements introduced with Gen II was letting you choose your gender at the start of the game.

Jigglypuff, Pikachu, and Vulpix also replace the original starters, and the game features the newer Dark, Steel, and Fairy types. And I still look back on it fondly. And to clarify, this is the gen I ROM hack, not to be confused with the official game of the same name. Many story events are waiting for you all around the region, which will remind you of different anime episodes, complete with the same characters and locales.