The best Google Chrome games for 2019 These are the coolest games you can play on your Google Chrome browser right now By Gabe Gurwin February 20, 2019 2:22PM PST. How to Play Google Play Games on PC,Laptop,Windows. 1.Download and Install XePlayer Android Emulator.Click 'Download XePlayer' to download. 2.Run XePlayer Android Emulator and login Google Play Store. 3.Open Google Play Store and search Google Play Games and download, Or import the apk file from your PC Into XePlayer to install it. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.
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There are a LOT of games in the Play Store (clue's in the name), and finding the games that are worth your time can be difficult. But don't worry, we've done the hard job of playing through the most promising titles out there to compile this list of the best Android games. Whether you're a hardcore handheld gamer or just looking for something to pass the time on your commute, we've got games for you.
All the following games are fantastic, but we've used our gaming experience to organize the most impressive titles according to genre below. Whether you love solving tricky puzzle games, leading an army to battle in strategy games, or exploring new RPG worlds, just select a category below to find the cream of the crop.
Jump to a section:
No Wi-Fi? These are the best games to play offline
Sometimes you end up in a situation where you've got no data or Wi-Fi connection available, and in those situations, you're going to need a fun game that plays well offline. The suggestions below lean towards the casual gamer, but a number of others in this list (Thimbleweed Park and Planescape: Torment particularly) are also huge games with hours of content that work without a connection.
Crashlands
Crashlands is a fantastically well-designed game that plonks your protagonist on a dangerous planet with a mission to build a base, defeat your enemies, and eventually escape back to space.
The combat system is simple and fun and a streamlined inventory makes it easy to harvest resources and craft your base and items.
The story is light-hearted with plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor. For $6.99, Crashlands offers potentially infinite addictive gameplay—once you've beaten the game, you can simply make more content yourself with the level editor.
- Compatibility: Android 2.3 or higher
- Price: $6.99
Reigns: Her Majesty
In the game of thrones, you swipe or you die. And sometimes you still die, but it's always fun. A sequel to Reigns, which was an entertaining mix of kingdom-sim and Tinder-style swiping, Reigns: Her Majesty puts you in the queen's fancy shoes this time, but the basic premise is the same—using a selection of cards and quirky items (new to the sequel), you make decisions that attempt to balance various factions in your kingdom, such as the people, the army and the church. And of course, your own desires come into it too...don't they?
Reigns: Her Majesty works best played in roughly 15-minute sessions that give the impression of an episodic progression through a story of intrigue, tension, and unexpected twists. Although it's a game that makes you think if you want to work for a perfect ending, I never got too stressed with the decision making because of the clever writing which delivers even missteps and misfortunes with delightfully dark humor.
Reigns: Her Majesty- Compatibility: Android 4.3 and up
- Price: $2.99
Have fun figuring out these Android puzzle games
Need a brain scratcher to keep you entertained? These suggestions should have you covered, whether you like physics-based puzzlers or more exploratory games.
The Room: Old Sins
The Room: Old Sins is the latest in a beloved series of atmospheric puzzlers with a focus on manipulating contraptions in a limited space. On the trail of a precious artifact believed to be the key to a mysterious disappearance, the player must explore disturbing places, puzzle through obscure clues and operate bizarre devices to uncover the secrets of Waldegrave Manor.
Manipulating intricate puzzles boxes with touchscreen controls sounds like it might be awkward, but the controls of The Room: Old Sins are really well implemented. As you explore the devious dolls house of puzzles, you'll want to poke your nose and fingers into every nook and cranny, looking for levers, buttons and other hidden mechanisms with the help of a special eyeglass.
The level of graphical detail and sound quality immerse you into the creepy story, making the game feel tense and tactile even as you're free to take your time to figure out the latest brain teaser—when you get stuck, the game will offer you progressively more informative hints.
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Android 4.4 and up
- Price: $4.99
Homo Machina
This game from highbrow European media group ARTE has an intriguing concept. This game reimagines our squishy, leaky, throbbing flesh-vessels as mechanical contraptions. Basically, wheels, cogs, pipes conveyor belts and valves take the place of biological veins and organs.
The developers at Darjeeling cite as inspiration the work of Fritz Kahn, a doctor and scientist who described the workings of the human body using machines as metaphors. Playing through Homo Machina, it also reminded me of another famous figure: Rube Goldberg, the artist whose illustrations of complex mechanical contraptions are evoked in the game.
If the human body is a machine akin to a giant factory, the player is tasked with managing the staff: little people-within-a-person whose job it is to keep everything running smoothly. The game's story presents several situations to navigate as game puzzles, from as simple as eating a meal to more complex ones like a date. As with the real human body, everything is connected, so solving one problem requires you to make sure several puzzles in different parts of the body have been completed.
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Android 5.1 and up
- Price: $3
Love to 'point and click'? Try these great adventure games
Puzzle and story go hand in hand in the classic 'adventure' game format, which used to be synonymous with mouse and keyboard PC gaming back in the day. This style of gaming, where you take on the role of a character, navigate different levels, talk to NPCs and find items to advance to the next level of the story, are great for playing on your smartphone touchscreen.
Thimbleweed Park
The latest adventure game from legendary Monkey Island series designer Ron Gilbert, perfectly blends nostalgia with modern convenience:
You control a pair of idiosyncratic FBI agents investigating a murder mystery in an equally idiosyncratic town, and in the mode of classic adventure games, you need to explore different environments, talk to quirky characters, and collect and use items in the right way to solve puzzles to progress.
Being able to switch between different characters in different locations adds another layer of depth, but if the head-scratchers are too much, there's even an 'easy' mode if you'd rather just enjoy the story and retro-style graphics.
- Compatibility: Android 4.4 and up
- Price: $9.99
Get in on the Play Store
Life is Strange Mobile
Life is Strange broke a lot of hearts back when it released for PC and consoles in 2015, but in a good way. This graphically beautiful game combines a supernatural mystery with emotional and compelling human drama.
Life is Strange puts you in the shoes of Max Caulfield, a high-school girl with a passion for photography who just recently moved back to her hometown of Arcadia Bay. After she witnesses a girl getting shot in her school, Max discovers that she can rewind time, allowing her to change what happens in the past, hopefully for the better.
This is a story-focused game where your choices matter. You guide Max around the scenes, interact with objects and characters and make decisions that advance the story. The ‘rewind’ ability lets you play around with these decisions, and reverse your choices and check the consequences of different actions (at least in the short term...the far-reaching consequences will still come back surprise you).
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Android 6.0 and up
- Price: First episode free, $8.99 for the complete game
Hold the line against enemy waves
Tower defense is a huge genre with many Clash of Clans-style imitators. Often, however, these are blatant money-grabs or vehicles for ads. The ones below offer a better experience than that.
Plants vs Zombies 2
This is one free-to-play game that gets most things right. PvZ2 is characterized both by its detailed and colorful graphic style, as well as by the many tactical possibilities. There are also many varied worlds in which the player is given many different tasks, and the title also offers various mini-game variants in tower defense style.
Here you can place various plants, from energy-giving sunflowers, to balling pea cannons, to carnivorous plants in your 5 x 9 tile backyard. It's besieged by a zombie herd of transformed football players, newspaper-reading grandfathers, and crazy gardeners in waves that you'll have to now down (how fitting).
- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: Free, in-app purchases
Defense Zone 3 HD
Defense Zone 3 is a challenging tower defense title based on a more realistic look and futuristic weapons and vehicles war equipment than most other games in the genre. Instead of defending its base against cute animals or blobs, tanks and anti-aircraft guns are used.
Not only does it look really good, it also plays very well. The many tactical possibilities and attitudes might be a little overtaxing for beginners and beginners at the beginning, but connoisseurs of the material will find their way immediately and appreciate the playful variety.
- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: Free, in-app purchases
Fighter? Wizard? Rogue? Try these fantastic RPGs for Android
Just like with tower defense and sports games, there's a good chance you have your favorite RPG that you've already invested a lot of time (and possibly money) in already. The following are more in-depth RPGs for those prepared to spend hours diving into fantasy worlds.
Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
Planescape: Torment is rightly remembered by gamers of a certain age as a masterpiece, but the Dungeons and Dragons based RPG that wowed so many in the year 2000 hasn't aged so well alongside modern AAA titles.
Thankfully, Beamdog has given this classic title a modern facelift and tune-up that includes various convenience tweaks as well as beautification and a remastered soundtrack. Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition's rich and immersive storytelling remains as compelling as ever, and you can expect to sink 30-40 hours into completing it.
If you enjoy Planescape: Torment, then you might also want to check out Beamdog's similarly enhanced editions of classic RPGs such as Baldur's Gate.
- Compatibility: Android 3.0 or higher
- Price: $9.99
The Quest
Don't let the generic title put you off. The Quest from Redshift games is an old school first person open-world RPG with hand-drawn graphics and a great story, that brings to mind the classic Elder Scrolls titles such as Daggerfall.
There's a complex plot at the heart of The Quest, but the game doesn't hold your hand down a set path. You're free to explore a vast fantasy world and handle the different side-quests and missions at your own pace, in your own style, and your choices can lead to many different story outcomes.
To go on this quest, you'll have to pay eight bucks, but you'll get many hours of gameplay in return, with no annoying ads. And if that's not enough for you, there are five expansions with new quests and areas to add on. A tip: the main game goes on sale for half price quite often.
- Compatibility: Android 4.4 and up
- Price: $3.99
Ready? Go! Android endless runner games
Endless runners are always one of the most popular Android games categories, and our suggestions below should keep you entertained for a long, long time.
Alto's Odyssey
The long-awaited sequel to Alto's Adventure delivers all the great elements of the original-lush levels, entrancing music, smooth flowing gameplay-but more. More variety in levels, more movement tricks, more worlds to discover and secrets to find.
Its main appeal over other endless runner type games is atmosphere. The levels are truly beautiful. Desert dunes, ancient temples and rock canyons are painted with rich, evocative colors that give an impression of vastness beyond the 2-dimensional plane that you're racing down. A day-night cycle and weather effects not only add variety to the palette, but add a sense of life to the fantastic world. Music also plays a key part, with the relaxing yet driving rhythms absorbing you into the game.
Alto's Odyssey is free to play, but you'll get ads in between levels that can be removed for a couple of bucks. If you're impatient, you can also outright purchase the coins that you normally collect in the different levels, which can then be used unlock special items and bonuses, like a wingsuit or compass that provide powerups.
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: Free, ad-supported, in-app purchases
Run Sausage Run!
Run Sausage Run! Is an endless runner with a culinary twist. As a plucky sausage attempting to escape your fate on the dinner table, you've got to dash through the kitchen dodging deathtraps like knives, tenderizers, searing hot grills, and various whirling blades.
The bloody but cartoony visuals and tongue-firmly-in-cheek humor make Run Sausage Run! stand out from the many endless runners out there by force of personality. The fantastic soundtrack and variety of power-ups help keep the high-score chasing gameplay interesting over time and there are various outfits and skins to unlock to personalize your sausage.
Although free to play, the game is supported by ads, which, once you get engrossed in a particularly tricky section of traps, can feel quite frustrating. An in-app purchase exists to remove them.
Run Sausage Run!- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: In-app purchases
Android action games to get your adrenaline pumping
If you'd rather be handling weapons and slaying rivals than kickflipping your way to a high-score, these action games should keep you entertained.

Immortal Rogue
Immortal Rogue is a hack and slasher with a twist: you play an immortal vampire who wakes up every 100 years to feed, hunting down your pray across different timelines from prehistory to hi-tech sci-fi civilizations. Different timelines offer different enemies to defeat and unique items to discover. Your timeless protagonist can end up slaying enemies with a magic sword, dinosaur skull helmet, and robotic powerfist or any number of wacky combinations.
As a roguelike game, this game can be difficult, you'll die over and over again only to be revived in a new time, losing some resources but keeping others across all your lives, which makes you grow incrementally more powerful through play, even if you're on a losing streak.
The story's timeline is affected by who you choose to kill, and who you choose to turn over to your vampiric minions. These allies can give you persistent bonuses so it not only changes the story, but your character's abilities.
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Android 4.0 and up
- Price: $4.99
Grimvalor
Grimvalor isn't shy about its influences, being a 'Metroidvania' style side-scrolling action game with many mechanics borrowed from Fromsoftware's Souls series. Expect your fantasy hero to die a lot as you navigate the 2D platformer levels and slash, smash and dash through mobs of enemies and tricky bosses. Thanks to well-implemented touch controls, the action flows fast and rewards aggressive combos and timely dodging.
True to its inspirations, Grimvalor's environments contain many secrets that you can find to explore hidden areas, gaining new abilities and experiences to customize your hero is particularly satisfying, especially in the boss battles which provide the game's highlight, pushing you to use your abilities in novel ways. Leveling up your character allows you to build for more power, speed and so on, and different weapons and trinkets help keep the game fresh as you battle through its dark fantasy world.
Grimvalor offers the first chapter for free, with a one time $7 purchase for the whole game. It's well worth it, but the free version offers hours of play by itself, by which time you'll know whether you want to pay for the rest.
Get it on the Play Store
- Compatibility: Varies with device
- Price: Free ($6.99)
Start your engines! Racing games for speed freaks
Got that need for speed? Longing for the engine's roar? Then strap yourselves in, because here we go!
Asphalt 9: Legends
The latest in the popular series from Gameloft, Asphalt 9: Legends is one for fans of high-end graphics and realistic vehicles. As always, it is available for free download but in-app purchases are there to tempt you.
One of the main draws of Asphalt 9: Legends is the extensive roster of well-known cars (about 50) such as Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini. New circuits are present, as are new online features like the 7-player multiplayer. For the first time in the Asphalt series of games, you can also create your own online community of racers with the Club feature.
Gameloft has perfected racing with touch controls, and Asphalt 9 plays smoothly and responsively so that you can react in those split seconds crucial for winning in such a high-speed contest.
Riptide GP: Renegade
This racing game has been around for a few years but still receives regular updates and sees fierce competition on the leaderboards. You play a hyrojet racer, piloting a kind of hoverbike/hi-tech jetski through a futuristic landscape. The controls are smooth and responsive and the graphics are excellent, with impressive water physics that give a real sense of physicality to the racetracks as you zoom through future cityscapes, underground ruins and other locales.
The game has a career mode story campaign that has you follow the narrative of an illegal racer dodging the authorities, and of course the multiplayer element is important, in which you compete in 8 player matches with racers from around the world.
As you progress you can collect new vehicles and upgrade them, but this isn't a pay-to-win game. Real-world currency is only used for the initial purchase the game, everything else is earned through play.
- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: $2.99
Android fighting games: the way of the warrior
Sometimes all you really want to do to release frustration with the real world is bash the hell out of someone in a video game. For those moments, we recommend these Android fighting games.
Street Fighter Fighter IV: Champion Edition
When it comes to fighting games, you can't go wrong with Street Fighter. Capcom's classic fighting series puts up a good fight on mobile, although you'll notice a graphical downgrade if you've played SFIV on console (come on Capcom, even Street Fighter 2 on the Sega Genesis had animated stage backgrounds).

But Street Fighter IV: Champion Edition doesn't skimp on gameplay. Unlike many fighting games on mobile, there's no login for daily rewards, no grinding for in-game currencies to level up your fighters punches, no gambling-style random unlocks of characters or features.
Instead, you can try it out for free, playing Ryu against three classic characters, and one eminently in-app purchase of $5 unlocks all the other fighters. Then you can let rip with the full roster in a variety of game modes including online versus, with a full virtual gamepad (though you can add your own controller) to give Street Fighter veterans the deep gameplay they're used to.
For new players or those who find the touch controls awkward, there are various convenience features make special moves easier to pull off.
- Compatibility: Android 4.4 and up
- Price: Free version, $5 in-app purchase for full version
Shadow Fight 3
The classic beat 'em up, in which a pair of rock-hard warriors thrash each other within an inch of their lives, isn't one of the more popular types of mobile games but the Shadow Fight series has always stood out as one of the best examples of the genre on mobile devices.
Although previous titles in the series featured battles between almost featureless black figures, Shadow Fight 3 brings all the action into the light, with great graphics and a variety of fighting styles, armor and weapons for your fighter to brutalize opponents with. 'Shadow' powers are still available as special moves, however.
You won't get far with button-mashing in this game either, beating Shadow Fight 3 requires proper form and timing to succeed, especially if you resist the in-app purchases.
Shadow Fight 3- App compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: Free, in-app purchases
Want to see the other challenges? Check out our list of the top fighting games for Android
Lock and load: the best Android FPS games
First person shooters have been a popular genre in the video game world ever since the days of Doom, and yes you can play Doom on Android. For our selection here, we've picked our favorite action-packed space shooter, as well as the best sniping game for those who like more careful, tactical action.
Shadowgun Legends
Shadowgun Legends is the latest offering from Madfinger Games, the same team behind the previously mentioned zombie shooter Dead Trigger 2. Shadowgun Legends is a more futuristic affair with lush graphics that will remind gamers of classic AAA PC/console titles such as Destiny and Halo.
You play a futuristic mercenary, or 'Shadowgun' that can be equipped which an impressive variety of weapons and armor for an edge in battle but also with an eye to cosmetics, as high-scoring hero will strut their stuff in front of other players and will be honored with public statues of their avatar in the game world.
The emphasis given to visuals fits in with the game's economic model, which offers in-app purchases for cosmetic items. But the actual gameplay is solid, and offers a lot for free: an extensive single-player campaign, as well as multiplayer, versus and co-op team challenges, still offers a lot of fun, intense FPS action without any need for spending.
- Compatibility: Android 6.0 and up
- Price: Free, in-app purchases
Hitman Sniper
There are plenty of fast-paced action shooters on the Play Store, but there's something to be said for the slow-paced satisfaction of picking the perfect shot and sniping your enemies from afar. For that experience, Hitman Sniper is king and a steal at less than a dollar.
The main challenge in the game is executing your targets in a discreet manner, leaving guards and bystanders none the wiser. The game contains over 150 missions, various sniper rifles to unlock, and leaderboards to check your rankings.
Hitman Sniper- Compatibility: Android 4.1 and up
- Price: $0.99, in-app purchases
Expand and conquer with the best Android strategy games
Want to plot the rise of an empire? Conquer new lands while developing technologies that catapult you through the ages? These Android strategy game suggestions have got you covered.
The Battle of Polytopia
The Battle of Polytopia is a wonderful mix of strategy and adventure that sees you exploring (and conquering new lands) and battling any AI tribes you come across on the way. It's also one of the better-looking options with cute, blocky graphics.
The tribe you choose for each game will dictate the type of adventurer you start with, but you can research new abilities along the way, so it really just dictates what you'll be doing at the start. Leveling up is easy enough to achieve to not be frustrating but the gameplay is tricky (and varied) enough to keep you coming back for more. This is also helped by the automatically generated maps and different tribes you can join.
It's very simple in comparison to many strategy games, meaning there aren't too many in-game options and items, not that it doesn't present a challenge. It's a pleasingly small download and there's really no need to pay for any in-game purchases in order to progress or fight off the newest challenge.
- App compatibility: Android 4. 0 and up
- Price: Free, in-app purchases
Uciana
Uciana is an indie space strategy game that came out of nowhere to impress us this year. The game delivers a fantastic amount of depth for just $0.99. There’s no IAP either. What you get is effectively a mobile game version of sci-fi Civilization descendants, such as Master of Orion 2.
There are several distinct spacefaring civilizations to play as, from humans to interstellar crabs. Through the graphics are basic, each comes with distinct bonuses and ship design to give them a different flavor.
The goal is galactic conquest, which is accomplished via exploration, expansion, economic growth, technological research, and of course, diplomacy and war once you start bumping into your rivals. Nonetheless, once you've spent time getting the hang of it, Uciana stands out as one of the best strategy games out there on mobile that isn't tarnished by pay-to-win monetization or predatory IAP.
Uciana- Compatibility: Android 4.2 and up
- Price: $0.99
All against all: welcome to battle royale
Despite the name, the now uber-popular battle royale format of shooting game doesn't just offer free-for-all battles, but various other game modes such as squad-based games are also possible. Nonetheless, the classic battle royale is still king: start with nothing, explore and scavenge on an island for the weapons and items you need to overcome your enemies and be the last left standing as the game area closes in on you.
Battle royale is a hot trend right now, with two big names currently in competition for world domination:
PUBG Mobile
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (popularly known as PUBG), is one of the most played video games on PC and Xbox, and enjoys great success as a free-to-play game on mobile, with over 20 million players active daily.
PUBG Mobile is fantastically faithful to the addictive gameplay that made the PC version so explosively popular in the first place. 100 players parachute onto an island, scavenge weapons and equipment and engage in a winner-takes-all fight for survival as encroaching death zones push them ever closer to the enemy.
- We died (and killed) to give you these great tips and tricks on how to survive and win on PUBG Mobile
We'll admit that several AndroidPIT editors gave their lives over and over again on launch day as we struggled to adjust to the touchscreen controls, but we quickly got the hang of it, and before long, we were winning that chicken dinner.
- Compatibility: Android 4.3 and up
- Price: Free
Fortnite Battle Royale
Global gaming sensation Fortnite has arrived on Android, but you won't find it in the Play Store. Nonetheless, we couldn't not feature it on this list. Want to get in on the action? Here's how to download it for free and try it for yourself.
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For an in-depth look at how Fortnite plays on Android, you can check out our full review. Fortnite's take on the battle royale format is quirkier, more cartoonish and generally more whimsical than PUBG's grim and gritty 'realistic' style. The environments and player avatars have eye-catching colors, bizarre outfits and a more absurd feel. Whether you prefer Fortnite's visuals and zany sensibilities to PUBG is a matter of taste but it's also free to try, with in-app purchases reserved for outfits and cosmetic enhancements.
Get your game on
There are hours of fun to be found in the games listed above, but in case the selection doesn't quite fit your style, we're always on the lookout for great new games, and you can check out our reviews of the latest and greatest in our monthly list of the best new games to land on the Play Store.
If you're interested in pushing immersion to the limit, then take a look at our selection of best VR games for Android, covering Cardboard, Daydream and Gear VR.
What does the future hold in store for Android games? As our smartphones become even more high tech, Android games are becoming more impressive all the time. We keep track of the most hotly anticipated titles right here:
What is your favorite Android game? Let us know in the comments!
On this list you'll find the best PC games we're playing right now—recent singleplayer hits, thriving esports, and a few modern classics that would improve any library. We'll continue to update this list as new games release, removing older favorites and replacing them with our latest obsessions. Rather than an ever-expanding list that reaches deep into the past, we're shooting for a practical answer to the question: 'What new PC game should I get?'
If you're looking for a more comprehensive list which includes our favorite games from the past few decades, check out our yearly Top 100 list or our list of the most important PC games. For an up-to-date look at the year's upcoming games, we've assembled the new games of 2019. For budget options, check out the best free games on Steam and best free browser games.
Need a new system to play these games on? Here's our advice on what kind of gaming PC you should get, or take a look at our best graphics cards roundup to upgrade your GPU.
What to play right now
Auto Chess-style games are the latest craze, with both Valve and Riot quickly releasing their own versions: Dota Underlords on Valve's end, and Teamfight Tactics in the League of Legends launcher. They're both interesting, as is the original Auto Chess mod (a standalone version of which is on the way). Here's a comparison of all three.
Looking for something a bit slower? Observation is a sci-fi thriller from the creators of Stories Untold, in which you play as a space station's AI, and we quite like it. And Telling Lies, which just released, does a great job of expanding on the format of Her Story.
Remnant: From the Ashes has been a surprise: a co-op shooter with some rough edges here and there that, with the right friends, can be a blast. There's a gun that shoots bees, if that helps convince you.
Amid Evil also scored high marks recently. If the idea of using planets as grenades and pinning demons to walls with spikes appeals to you, check it out.
More of our favorite recent (and ongoing) games can be found in the list above. Below, we dive a little deeper into the PC Gamer staff's current favorites.
Competitive online games
Apex Legends
Released: 2019 | Developer: Respawn | Origin|Our review
Apex Legends is the best battle royale game available now. The map is fantastic, the 'ping' communication system is something every FPS should have from here on, the guns and movement are great fun (no wallrunning, but sliding down hills feels great), and it's free-to-play with nothing to pay for except cosmetics. It isn't the game we expected from Respawn, but we're glad it's here. Check James' review for more.
Rainbow Six Siege
Released: 2015 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Counter-Strike's sexier cousin. Siege might lack the sharp hit detection and purity of CS:GO, but it's a more accessible and modern FPS that rewards clever timing and coordinated teamwork as much as aim. Siege's learning curve is a result of all the stuff (characters, gadgets, elaborate maps, and guns) that's been added since December 2015, but eventually you find yourself picking operators, map spots, and roles that you're comfortable with. Ubisoft continues to support Siege, dropping four major updates per year along with regular fixes.
Overwatch
Released: 2016| Developer: Blizzard | Battle.net | Our review
With Overwatch's colorful characters and bright, inclusive world, Blizzard brought the world of team-based hero shooters to an entirely new market. Teams of six take the roles of tank, DPS, and healer to battle over objectives, not just who can get the most kills. It's a game that rewards—if not requires—teamwork. And with a growing cast of now 27 heroes to choose from, there's a character to fit just about any play style.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Released: 2017 | Developer: Epic | Official site | Free-to-play | Our review
What started as a sterile PUBG imitation has evolved into the Minecraft generation’s arena shooter. Fortnite’s building system rewards good aim and an eye for architecture equally, extending battle royale shootouts from green pastures to impromptu skyscrapers slapped together in a minute. With ridiculously frequent updates from Epic Games that introduce new weapons, traps, tools, and skins, Fortnite is easily worth the price of admission, and even then, worth the time it takes to master such an obtuse, irregular building system.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Released: 2017 | Developer: PUBG Corp. | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
100 murderous hopefuls skydive onto an abandoned island, grab whatever weapons and ammo they can find, and fight to the death. Rinse and repeat. Though the concept wasn't new (PlayerUnknown himself is responsible for multiple battle royale modes and mods), PUBG made the battle royale genre into the phenomenon that it is today. As a third- or first-person shooter, PUBG is more realistic and less arcadey than Fortnite. The joy of it is how it forces players to move and take risks as an ever-shrinking forcefield funnels surviving players toward each other until a winner climbs out of the wreckage. Every instant of every game is a flood of important decisions to make, and any one of them—even a minor one—could lead to your doom.
Rocket League
Released: 2015 | Developer: Psyonix | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
The best and only synthesis of hockey and soccer than you can play with rocket-powered battle cars. Where most esports rely on gunplay or clicky top-down wizardry, Rocket League is all physics and speed. Simply put, you're trying to smash a giant soccer ball into a goal with a car. But the cars can jump, and flip, and fly into the air once you get the hang of it (which will take a while). Even after three years, Rocket League players are still inventing new moves and tricks—if there's a skill ceiling, no one's bumped it yet. It's intimidating and your first matches will probably be rough as you learn to steer and backflip and ride the walls, but since there are so many other new players at any given time, as well as training modes and bot matches, you can still get up to speed even if you're entering the arena late. Note that while you can play Rocket League with a mouse and keyboard, and some good players do, most prefer a controller.
Hearthstone
Released: 2014 | Developer: Blizzard | Official site
Despite the departure of game director Ben Brode, he of the flannel shirt and megaton laughter, Hearthstone remains in relatively rude health. The game's last two expansions—The Boomsday Project (August 2018) and Rastakhan's Rumble (Devember 2018)—have rightly been criticised for failing to freshen the meta sufficiently, but nonethless it's possible to build a deck with any class and pilot it successfully on the ladder. Those looking to try-hard on a budget should consider Spell Hunter, which is relatively cheap to build, whilst those looking to make instant enemies may prefer the ultra aggressive Odd Paladin, which remains obnoxious despite a recent nerf. For those of you with ladder anxiety, Hearthstone also now includes a rich suite of single-player content in the Solo Adventures section. There you'll find Rumble Run, Puzzle Lab, Monster Hunt and Dungeon Run—plenty of fun, without the pressure of a turn timer.
League of Legends
Released: 2009 | Developer: Riot Games | Official site
MOBAs are hard, rewarding competitive games because they demand teamwork, quick reaction times, and knowledge of beginning, middle, and endgame phases that vary with the role you play. And if you're going to play one, LoL is the best place to start. League of Legends has had remarkable staying power as one of the most popular games in esports for a couple simple reasons. One, it strikes just the right balance of depth and approachability for a MOBA. A gargantuan roster of heroes means you could spend years learning the ins-and-outs of the game, but mechanically it's less demanding than Dota 2, and more involved than Heroes of the Storm. Two, Riot Games hasn't been afraid to make significant changes to the map, characters, and other systems over the years, so there's always something new to learn.
If you can, play with a team of friends—it's far more fun (and effective) to coordinate on a headset than deal with randoms over text chat. If you bounce off of LoL, Dota 2 is of course extremely popular as well, and both are free-to-play, so give it a shot.
More competitive games
Dota 2
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Mordhau
Dead by Daylight
Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5
Released: 2016/2018 | Developer: DICE
While Battlefield 1 diehards insist that it's the superior game, we recommend both BF1 and BF5. On BF5's side, EA has done away with paid seasons passes, and is releasing all new maps free, plus there's a battle royale mode now.
Meanwhile, though, Battlefield 1 is included with Origin Access (both Basic and Premium) and is pretty cheap otherwise, so if the World War 1 setting appeals to you, it's a low-cost entry into the series.
Here's our Battlefield 1 review, and our Battlefield 5 review.
Singleplayer and co-op shooters
Doom (2016)
Released: 2016 | Developer: id | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
The original Doom—back in 1993—is the most influential shooter of all time. With a pedigree like that, 2016's Doom reboot could have coasted by on the family name, had some fun, and called it a day. Instead, Doom surprised us all by being a spectacular shooter in its own right. More than that, Doom abandoned a lot of the storytelling conventions and cutscenes we've come to associate with modern games: about 30 seconds into the first level, the main character physically throws the plot across the room and shoots a demon in the face. Doom has a singular purpose, and if you're not a gun or a demon's face, it doesn't care to know you.
The remarkable thing about Doom is how eagerly it embraces ridiculous ideas as long as they're fun. Punch a demon until extra ammo pours out? Yes. Infinite stream of high-explosive rockets? Absolutely. The entire game is a crescendo, a heavy metal guitar solo that just gets louder and louder. Speaking of heavy metal, that soundtrack? Phwoar. What a game.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Released: 2018 | Developer: Fatshark | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Like Vermintide 1, Vermintide 2 takes on the format of Valve's classic co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead. Each hero is generally capable but vulnerable on their own. Among the swarms of rats are elite enemies that specialize in ambushing individual players, leaving them helpless until a comrade rescues them. The mutual need for protection makes Vermintide unusually dependent on good teamwork, and sharp spatial awareness and generous instincts are better for survival than perfect aim.
There are five heroes to play, and each has three subclasses and a long list of possible weapons and specialty skills. Every successful mission rewards players with random weapons and loot, and a surprisingly deep crafting system helps players customize their heroes. Random matchmaking to find groups is fine, but Vermintide 2 is a real joy when played with friends, like a corporate team-building exercise with swords and axes.
More shooters
Titanfall 2
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Prey
Killing Floor 2
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
See our full list of the best FPS games.
Dusk
Released: 2018 | Developer:David Szymanski | Humble Store, Steam
If you have any nostalgia for DOS-era shooters like Doom and Quake, Dusk has got it all: finding color-coded keys and secret chambers, a metal soundtrack, and high-speed strafing with dual-wielded shotguns while blasting the faces off of demons. An ideal way to spend an afternoon. Check out our Dusk review for more.
Resident Evil 2 (Remake)
Released: 2019 | Developer: Capcom | Steam | Our review
A superb remake of the survival horror classic, with a mix of nostalgia and newness that Andy called 'tense, challenging, and beautiful' in his review.
Action games
Grand Theft Auto 5
Released: 2015 | Developer: Rockstar North | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
GTA 5 runs beautifully on PC, and its open world is still the best of any game, a gorgeous sprawl that replicates everything we associate with Los Angeles: the flat heat, the atmosphere, the fact that the city is so damn big. The campaign is the series' best ever, punctuated by ambitious heist missions involving all three protagonists. It's a lot of fun to spend time in this world.
If you want to take things further, GTA Online is waiting for you with an absolute ton of stuff to do. Not all of it is amazing, but with a few friends, it's great fun to knock through the Online mode's bespoke heists, and owning a business feels pretty cool too. There are plenty of ways to play this game forever, including all of these great mods.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Released: 2018 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal | Steam | Our review
Ubisoft nailed the latest in the Assassin's Creed series, fully embracing the roleplaying genre and retooling its typical open world to-do list into an adventure full of quests worth doing—all set in its grandest world to date.
Dishonored 2
Released: 2016 | Developer: Arkane Studios | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
The best immersive sim around, with sprawling, complicated levels that are wonderful to unpack, as well as a couple of high-concept missions that you'll never forget. It's like Arkane made a sequel based on how much everyone loved Lady Boyle's Last Party in Dishonored—most of the levels here are just as good. The option to play as two characters, with their own version of the story and sets of powers, offers even more replay value.
Crucially, too, Dishonored 2 offers more non-lethal ways to play if you're not a perfect stealth player. Being able to block enemy sword attacks, get them into a chokehold, shove them over then boot them in the face, knocking them out, is the best fun. Likewise, using Emily's domino ability to knock out multiple enemies at once feels incredibly empowering. And that's just one of many ways you can play.
More action games
Far Cry 5
The Evil Within 2
Bayonetta
Ruiner
Check out our list of the best open world games, too.
Hitman 2
Released: 2018| Developer: IO Interactive| Steam | Our review
Agent 47 has been taking contracts and knocking off targets in games for almost 20 years, but the latest in the series is his best work yet. What's extra great about Hitman 2 is that if you didn't play the previous Hitman reboot (also great), you can purchase upgraded versions of all of its levels. And if you do own 2016's Hitman, you can have those for free. For more on why we love Hitman's latest incarnations, head to our 2018 award for Best Stealth Game.
Action and turn-based RPGs
Nier: Automata
Released: 2017 | Developer: Square Enix | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
This offbeat action RPG focuses on extremely stylish androids who've been sent to Earth to make it safe for humans again by wiping out the dangerous machines that dominate the landscape. But the story isn't as straightforward as that—and not all of the machines you face are brainless automatons. Some of them have hopes, dreams and orgies (!). The story in Automata is surprisingly fantastic, with multiple endings that change your perspective on your characters, and well-written sidequests.
This is one of those games that overreaches slightly, but is better for having done so. As an action game, it's not quite Platinum's best—that mantle still belongs to Bayonetta—but it's still satisfying to batter robots with a big sword in washed out open world environments. A deserved cult hit, even if the game still hasn't been properly patched on PC (there's a fan mod that smooths out a few performance issues).
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Released: 2015 | Developer: CD Projekt RED | GOG| Our review
The Witcher 3 follows Geralt, the world's grumpiest monster-slaying bounty hunter, as he fights and magics his way across a medieval fantasy world. It tells a well-written, clever story, but more importantly, The Witcher 3 is the best open-world RPG you can explore right now (and quite possibly the best there's ever been).
The Witcher 3 is great mostly because it's so full of things to do. It's a huge world chockablock with ghouls, vampires, and wraiths—and the people can be pretty nasty, too. The size and depth of the world gives every quest context, an anchor that feels like it stretches back into history. Investigating a haunted farmhouse, for example, turns up clues about the type of spectre involved. Choosing the right weapon and brewing up a special potion feel like steps in a centuries-old ceremony. The Witcher 3 is a triumph of worldbuilding.
Besides the world, Geralt himself is the star of the show. He's frequently dour and funny and jaded, and he's an appealing character to spend time with. Some of the storylines will mean more to long-time fans of the Witcher books and games, but even without playing the earlier games in the Witcher series, The Witcher 3 is worth several hundred hours of your time.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Released: 2017 | Developer: Larian Studios | GOG, Steam | Our review
A classic-style isometric RPG that feels completely modern, with four-player co-op, great characters, and super-challenging turn-based combat that makes heavy use of physical interactions: cast a rain spell to put out fires, for instance, or splash oil around to spread them. With big open areas, interlocking quests that can be completed in any order, disguises, status effects, and the freedom to whack any NPC you feel like, it's worth putting up with a little wonkiness (which has been improved with the Definitive Edition update) to experience such a creative, freeform campaign. The writing and roleplaying are also top-notch, giving you a real emotional investment for a campaign that can easily stretch to the 100 hour mark.
OS2 also includes built-in game master tools for running your own adventures, and separate, free mod tools that give you full access to the engine's capabilities and all of the included assets.
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
Released: 2018 | Developer: Level-5 | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
One of the prettiest and most ambitious JRPGs on PC, Ni No Kuni 2 follows Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a young half-cat king who sets out to build a peaceful new kingdom—and a new circle of friends—after his rightful crown is stolen from him. Ni No Kuni 2 channels Suikoden and Studio Ghibli, pairing an expansive open world with exciting realtime third-person combat, and grounding them in a satisfying kingdom building sim. Scout new citizens by visiting fantastical far-off kingdoms, earn better gear by tackling secret dungeons and minibosses, then bring everything back home to improve your own kingdom. The kingdom sim is enjoyable in its own right, and every other part of the game benefits from it, from exploration to combat. Ni No Kuni 2 is a cute fairytale wrapped in complex systems that connect in meaningful, interesting ways, and there's not an ounce of fat on it.
More RPGs
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Final Fantasy 15
Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition
Battle Brothers
West of Loathing
See our full list of the best RPGs
Dark Souls 3
Released: 2016 | Developer: FromSoftware | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
What Dark Souls 3 lacks in originality—like the Souls games before it, it's an action-RPG that takes you through a baroque, dying world filled with monsters and opaque storytelling—it makes up for in polish. It's by far the smoothest of the series, gorgeous and stable on PC, and that translates to faster, more vicious enemies that will murder you without mercy. But you're also a bit more nimble this time around, keeping the notorious Souls challenge intact but rarely feeling unfair. And like all the Souls games, there's so much here if you plunge into the RPG depths: classes and magic systems, shortcuts and speedrun options, gear upgrading and NPC storylines to follow if you can make the right choices. Conquering Dark Souls 3 once will easily keep you busy for 50 hours, but if it gets its hooks in you, you could keep playing it for years.
Exploration, survival, and building games
Stardew Valley
Released: 2016 | Developer: ConcernedApe | GOG, Humble Store, Steam| Our review
The Harvest Moon farm-life sims used to be console-only. Then indie designer Eric Barone came along and made this tribute so we too can enjoy the pastoral fantasy of chicken ownership and mayonnaise profiteering. In Stardew Valley, you inherit a farm in the countryside and split your days between growing crops and befriending the locals, a colorful cast of eccentrics, some of whom can be romanced. You either get super serious about maximizing your income, creating the perfect grid of profitable crops for each season, or just potter about, taking the occasional fishing trip or delving into the monster mines as the mood takes you. An entire subgenre of farming/crafting sims with obligatory fishing minigames has sprung up in its wake, but Stardew Valley remains the best.
Kerbal Space Program
Released: 2015 | Developer: Squad | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review
You build a spacecraft, and fly it into space. Simple, right? Usually it's not. A lot of things can go wrong as you're constructing a vessel from Kerbal Space Program's vast library of parts, almost always explosively so. But as you trial-and-error your way to a stable orbit, you start to unlock the full breadth of what Kerbal offers. You can build many different types of ship, and use them to edge further and further out into the solar system, enjoying your achievement as you contemplate the vast solitude of space. Kerbal Space Program is equal parts slapstick comedy and majestic exploration—incredibly silly, but evocative where it counts.
Subnautica
Released: 2018 | Developer: Unknown Worlds | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Depending how you feel about diving, Subnautica can be either a wonderful opportunity to explore an alien aquarium or a straight-up horrorshow. Even with the survival stuff turned off so you don't have to regularly grab fish and eat them as you swim past, its depths contain claustrophobic tunnels and beasts big enough to swallow you whole. The thing is, Subnautica works as both a tense survival game about making it day by day in a hostile alien ocean and a way to drift around meeting strange sea creatures (and eating them).
More building and survival games
Factorio
Surviving Mars
Rust
See our full list of the best survival games
Proteus
Released: 2013 | Developer: Ed Key and David Kanaga | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Proteus takes nature and simplifies it into evocative shapes and sounds. Curved hills, solid tree trunks, frogs that burble and bounce. Wandering over its island of pastel plants and animals triggers a variety of pleasant noises, a symphony that builds as you chase birds or stand still among the fireflies. It's what every chillout room aspires to be.
Strategy games
Into The Breach
Released: 2018 | Developer: Subset Games | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Try to save the human race from an alien invasion, five turns at a time, in the brilliant bite-sized roguelike strategy game from the makers of FTL. Into the Breach feels almost like a puzzle game, because it presents you with clear information on what the enemy is doing every turn, and it's so well-balanced, there's almost always a solution that will get you out of a mission alive. There are multiple teams of mechs to unlock and choose from, and their abilities play off one another incredibly well. In the Rusting Hulks squad, for example, the nimble Jet Mech can drop a bomb that deals damage and envelops enemies with a smoke cloud, while the passive ability on the Rocket Mech causes smoke clouds to deal damage to enemy units. Each squad has its own playstyle, and you can freely mix and match mechs to create your own team-ups. Ending a mission after preventing all damage to the fragile civilian buildings scattered around the map never stops feeling like a triumph.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
Released: 2017 | Developer: Firaxis | XCOM 2 on Humble | War of the Chosen on Humble | Our review
This brutal strategy game puts you in charge of a resistance force during an alien occupation. The XCOM format blends base building, squad construction and strategic command with tense turn-based tactical battles. As you pilot your enormous home base between territories, you gather materials and research the enemy to unlock cooler space lasers and rad-as-hell armour for your crew.
Vanila XCOM 2 was a tough, lean survival game that held you to account with a doomsday countdown. War of the Chosen gives you even more problems in the form of three minibosses who stalk you throughout your campaign. Fortunately, you can befriend three resistance factions—each with their own suite of gadgets for you to research—and use their leads to track down your nemeses. The result is a layered, engrossing tactical game with a lot of dramatic intrigue. We developed a strong love/hate relationship with the Chosen. Hate to see them messing up our plans; love to blow them up with massive space guns in revenge.
Total War: Warhammer 2
Released: 2017| Developer: Creative Assembly | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Warhammer is a dark fantasy setting shared by multiple games, popular because of its grim maximalism (it has two Mordors and about three Draculas). The Total War games are a venerable series of historical strategy games with unit-shuffling battles and large-scale nation management. The combination of Total War and Warhammer is a perfect match. Warhammer's factions are strong mixes of trad fantasy archetypes and oddballs like the beloved ratmen called skaven, who are easily set against each other on a big map. Meanwhile, the abstract scale of Total War seems less odd when removed from recognizable historical events. It's the best of both worlds. There's a campaign where each faction races to control a magical vortex by conducting a string of rituals, each providing a significant boost when performed, but if you want to slow the pace you can spring for both this and the previous game, then combine their maps together into a gigantic life-consuming war for domination called Mortal Empires.
Slay the Spire
Released: 2019 | Developer: Harebrained Schemes | Steam|Our review
A brilliant singleplayer deck builder, Slay the Spire hooked the PC Gamer team back when it was in Early Access, and now it has even more to offer, including daily challenges and custom runs. The joy of it, as Evan explains in his review, is how much power you can accrue through smart deckbuilding. Because it's a singleplayer card game, the monsters don't have to have fun, and your deck doesn't have to be balanced with any other—which means absurd combos are possible. But it's also possible to create terrible decks as you ascend the spire, picking new cards along the way and finding relics that encourage certain builds. There's so much strategy to learn that it can take tens of hours to reach the endgame, but starting a new run always feels exciting.
More strategy games
Civilization 6: Rise and Fall
FTL: Faster Than Light (the precursor to Into the Breach)
Stellaris: Utopia
Crusader Kings 2
See our full list of the best strategy games
BattleTech
Released: 2018 | Developer: Harebrained Schemes | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Lead a scrappy mercenary company across a half-scripted, half-procedurally generated singleplayer campaign as you complete escort, assassination, base capture, and other missions for cash, salvage, and faction reputation. In the style of XCOM, BattleTech is about sending roster of mechs (and to a lesser extent pilots) into planetary combat, then managing the monetary and mortal aftermath of that spent armor, broken mech legs, dead pilots, and plundered parts of your enemies in the comfort of your spaceship base.
Unlike XCOM, the turn-based combat is a wonderfully granular game of angles and details: mechs have 11 different armor segments, and weapons and ammo are housed in these individually destructible locations. The orientation, heat level, speed, and stability of your mechs matters, and fights between the durable walking tanks play out like heavyweight boxing matches.
On the next page: Puzzle games, great stories, simulations and city-builders...
Puzzle games
Return of the Obra Dinn
Released: 2018 | Developer: Valve | Steam, itch.io
Our favorite puzzle game of 2018, Return of the Obra Dinn is a detective game set upon a ship once lost at sea. You, an insurance investigator, must determine what happened to the crew. We're sure you've never played anything quite like it (unless you've played it).
Portal 1 + 2
Released: 2007/2011 | Developer: Lucas Pope | Steam
Portal would be great if it only had inventive puzzles. It would be great if it only had clever writing. Somehow Valve managed to pack both into an unmissable, unforgettable experience that messes with your head in more ways than one. Its titular mechanic teaches you to think differently by letting you instantaneously create paths to almost everywhere, and its underlying story, at once grim and gut-bustingly funny, is constantly egging you on.
Portal 2, meanwhile, delivers more of everything that made Portal great, and a peerless co-op mode besides. Portal 2's world is bigger and its puzzles are more complex, and it doesn't sacrifice any of the series' sinister, sassy humor to pull them off. But the sequel's true triumph is that it invites you to play with a friend—not through some tacked-on bonus levels, but through a handcrafted co-op campaign so good it makes the stellar singleplayer feel like a prelude.
Opus Magnum
Released: 2017 | Developer: Zachtronics | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
The challenge of Opus Magnum isn't just to figure out how to solve each puzzle, but how to solve it the best way. With programmable robot arms you'll build alchemy machines that are more or less efficient at the transmutation task put before you, and there's an amazing number of ways to succeed—simple parts and simple instructions can produce some not-so-simple machines. If it grabs you, Opus Magnum doesn't let you go easily.
More puzzle games
SpaceChem
Infinifactory
Stephen's Sausage Roll (This one'll infuriate you)
Yankai's Triangle and Yankai's Peak (Nice and relaxing)
See our full list of the best puzzle games
Gorogoa
Released: 2018 | Developer: Buried Signal | GOG, Steam | Our review
The gorgeous, hand-drawn Gorogoa is one of our favorite recent puzzle games. The premise is simple: arrange illustrated tiles 'in imaginative ways' to solve puzzles. The complexity, and the feat of its creation, is in how those tiles interlock with impeccable elegance. As Pip said in our review: 'Chunks of interiors and exteriors match perfectly without seeming out of place in either of their respective scenes, an image in a thought bubble lines up with a balcony scene, a star in the sky is positioned perfectly so that it peeps through the gap in an overlaid tile and becomes the light from a lamp.' It's best to see it in motion, so check out the trailer here.
Lumines Remastered
Released: 2018 | Developer: Resonair | Steam | Our review
The classic musical puzzle game, which was first released on the PSP, returns in top shape and is still great after 15 years. The new version is far superior to the original PC port, and the remastered music is fabulous. Lumines doesn't translate perfectly to PC—it's one of those games that feels like it was meant for handheld devices—but if you missed it the first time around, take any opportunity to play it.
Baba is You
Released: 2019 | Developer: Hempuli Oy | Steam, itch.io | Our review
A wonderful puzzle game in which you rearrange words to create new rules for the world. 'It’s part logic puzzle, part existential quandary, part love letter to how much potential is contained in the tiny building blocks of language,' said Philippa in her Baba is You review.
Great stories
What Remains of Edith Finch
Released: 2017 | Developer: Giant Sparrow | GOG, Steam | Our review
Explore the curious home of a doomed family in this surprising and varied narrative game, which at first feels like a familiar walking simulator but then transforms into something else. Each member of the Finch family has a story to tell about what became of them, and each tale is presented in almost a minigame-like way—some of these chapters are thrilling, most of them are quietly devastating, and you should play this game without having a single one spoiled. You deserve to discover the secrets of this mysterious house for yourself if you haven't already. More than deserving of our GOTY award for Best Story in 2017.
Life is Strange
Released: 2015 | Developer: Dontnod | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
You could argue most videogame stories are Young Adult fiction, but Life is Strange is actually like the kind of story in the YA section of your local bookstore. It's about teenagers, small towns with secrets, and coming to terms with adult responsibilities through the metaphor of being able to rewind time. It's Twin Peaks for teens.
Life is Strange benefited from being released episodically, able to adapt to what players enjoyed about the early chapters and then focus on those elements later. That means you have to give it an episode and a half to get going, and the finale's divisive too, but in the middle it's as affecting an emotional rollercoaster as anything that's about to be turned into a movie and make someone very rich.
More great stories
The Pillars of the Earth
80 Days
Reigns: Her Majesty
Butterfly Soup
See our list of our favorite videogame stories
Tacoma
Released: 2017 | Developer: Fullbright | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Calling a game a 'walking simulator' was probably meant to be pejorative, but I can't think of a better description of what games like Tacoma and Gone Home—and developer Fullbright—do better than any other game: build a world I want to walk around in, explore, and learn to love. In Tacoma, the player walks into an abandoned space station and a mystery. Exploring this detailed setting feels like spending time in a real place, and hours spent there make the departed crew intimately familiar. I saw dozens of tiny stories, comedies and dramas, unfold as I watched the crew through VR recordings and dug into their discarded belongings. If you want to see the future of storytelling, to experience characters and plot in a way that can't be duplicated in a book or a movie, go for walk in Tacoma.
Simulations, sports games, and city builders
Forza Horizon 4
Released: 2018 | Developer: Playground Games | Microsoft Store | Our review
Unless you're looking for a hardcore sim, Forza Horizon is still the best racing series around.
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Released: 2013 | Developer: SCS Software | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
A lot of players have the same story about Euro Truck Simulator 2. Lured in by curiosity, we try this ridiculous-looking game about driving trucks back and forth across a low-budget Europe. Then, hours later, we're flicking headlights up and down while driving through the night. It starts to rain somewhere outside Berlin, the sound adding percussion to whatever's playing on the central European radio station. We're hooked and don't even know why. Even on a different continent in American Truck Simulator it can have the same effect, proving that ordinary inspirations modeled well enough can make for extraordinary games.
Elite Dangerous
Released: 2014 | Developer: Frontier Developments | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Space, to borrow a phrase, is big. Really, really big. In Elite: Dangerous, players can become deep-space explorers spanning the entire Milky Way galaxy, or they can be asteroid miners whose entire world consists of two space rocks and the vacuum between them. Both are equally worthy ways to use your flight time in Elite, an open-world (open-galaxy?) space flight sim that masterfully gives players total freedom. At the high end, you can spend your time being everything from a space trucker to a bounty hunter, but newbies shouldn't overlook the simple joy of being a pilot, of the tactile way that flight skills grow and deepen over time. Anyone into sci-fi or flight sims owes it to themselves to spend time in an Elite cockpit—especially if they can do it in VR.
Football Manager 2019
Released: 2018 | Developer: Sports Interactive | Steam | Our review
The best game yet in the best football management series.
More sims and builders
Cities: Skylines
Planet Coaster
Project Cars 2
X-Plane 11
Frostpunk
Released: 2018 | Developer: 11 Bit Studios | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Part city-builder, part survival game, Frostpunk is about making difficult choices and dealing with the consequences. Trying to keep a handful of citizens alive in a perpetually frozen world isn't just about managing resources but managing hope, and to keep people working toward their future means convincing them there is one, often through brutal means.
Unlike most city-building games, Frostpunk isn't an open-ended experience: it takes place over a 45 day period, with narrative events occurring periodically that can throw a wrench in the gears of your city and society. It's a tense and grim experience where you can wind up regretting your finest moments or defending the harshest choices you made. What are you prepared to do to save lives, and what will the ultimate cost be?
Super Mega Baseball 2
Released: 2018 | Developer: Metalhead Software | Steam | Our review
With so few great sports games on PC, Super Mega Baseball 2 gets squished into our sims category for now—though with Madden finally coming back to PC this year, we may need to add a proper sports category. Super Mega Baseball 2 may look cartooney, but look beyond that, because as we said in our review, it's the 'best on-field baseball sim on PC.'
On the next page: MMOs, local multiplayer games, and platformers...
MMOs and online RPGs
World of Warcraft
Released: 2004 | Developer: Blizzard Entertainment | Official site | Our review
World of Warcraft might have a few grey hairs here and there, but it's still the undisputed king of MMOs. Set in the high-fantasy setting of the famous Warcraft real-time strategy games, World of Warcraft is the story of you, a hero who rises from lowly pawn to god-slaying badass as you strive to save your world from all manner of fiendish enemies. With 12 classes and 13 races to play as (and an ever-growing list of subraces), who and what your character will become is entirely up to you. And whether you want to play for two hours a month or two hours a night, there are a nearly unlimited number of places to explore, quests to complete, raids and dungeons to conquer, and items to craft. It's less of a videogame and more of a part-time hobby.
World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth, is a bit of a low-point for the series according to its most hardcore fans. That doesn't mean it's bad—the austere mountains of Kul Tiras and lush jungles of Zandalar are evocative and fun to explore—but it is disappointing because World of Warcraft's usually stellar endgame of dungeons and raids are hamstrung somewhat by its wonky gear system. There's exciting news on that front, though: the next update is going to be huge.
World of Warcraft is the jack-of-all-trades MMO that can satisfy nearly any kind of player. Whether you want competitive PvP battles, white-knuckle raids, or just a fun, colorful story to follow along with while you collect mounts, World of Warcraft delivers.
Warframe
Released: 2013| Developer: Digital Extremes | Steam | Our review
Set in a bizarre science-fiction universe full of esoteric secrets, Warframe sells itself on one amazing concept: You are a space ninja. And yes, it's as fun as it sounds. This free-to-play third-person shooter gleefully taps into the fantasy of being a gun-toting, sword-wielding killing machine through its versatile movement system. You'll air dash, wall run, and slide through levels with up to three teammates as you eviscerate hordes of android enemies in exchange for oodles of crafting resources.
But Warframe's true strength is just how complex it is. Each Warframe (a kind of suit of armor that you wear) plays like its own character class, complete with unique abilities that define its combat style. You might charge into packs headfirst as Rhino or silently assassinate your targets as Ivara. Hell, there's even a Warframe that lets you compose your own music using an in-game sequencer to inflict debuffs on enemies. Learning how to craft and equip these Warframes is a daunting task for new players, but those who endure will find a rich action RPG that can easily devour thousands of hours. What's more, Digital Extremes is constantly taking Warframe in bold new directions, like adding open world zones to explore with friends. It might not be an MMO in the traditional sense, but Warframe is every bit as massive.
Path of Exile
Released: 2013 | Developer: Grinding Gear Games | Steam | Our review
A free-to-play spiritual successor to the beloved Diablo 2, Path of Exile is a dauntingly complex action RPG that will make even the most zealous theorycrafter weep tears of joy. Behind that familiar loop of dungeon diving and looting are several dozen features that each feel like the Marianas trench of progression systems—they're that deep. Skill gems can be chained together to create practically limitless spell combos, while the passive skill tree has hundreds of nodes to choose from that each shape your character in their own small way. And then, of course, comes the gear, which is a whole separate school of learning that can take months to fully understand. Path of Exile is certainly daunting and it won't appeal to everyone.
It's good news then that it's also fun as hell. There's 10 acts to explore, each one touring you through desecrated temples or corrupted jungles full of the walking dead. It's a grim place to be, but the kinetic combat and enticing rewards make the journey worth it. Every few months, Grinding Gear Games rolls out a new temporary challenge league that introduces entirely new progression systems, cosmetics, and enemies but requires starting a new character. Normally that'd sound like a chore, but Path of Exile is so robust that starting fresh is just a chance to learn something new.
EVE Online
Released: 2003 | Developer: CCP Games | Official site | Our review
Brutal, uncompromising, and intimidating—there's a good chance that EVE Online's reputation precedes it. While its players will say that it's mostly hyperbole, there's no denying that EVE Online isn't an MMO for the faint of heart. But in return for a considerable investment of your time and energy, EVE Online achieves something remarkable: It feels alive.
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The galaxy of New Eden is an ever-evolving virtual world full of merchants and pirates, mercenaries and warlords, and, yeah, the occasional spy. It's a thriving ecosystem grounded by a player-driven economy where players are encouraged to group together to achieve long term objectives like conquering territory or just becoming filthy, stinking rich. To participate, you'll need to contend with a hopelessly unintuitive user interface and familiarize yourself with a daunting number of systems. But it's worth it. The focus on player-driven experiences creates stories that just don't happen in any other kind of game, and being apart of those narratives is thrilling. It's an experience that is so absorbing, there's a good reason why EVE players joke that quitting for good is 'winning at EVE Online.'
More MMOs
Black Desert Online
Guild Wars 2
The Elder Scrolls Online
See our full list of the best MMOs.
Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn
Released: 2014 | Developer: Square Enix | Steam | Our review
Final Fantasy 14 is a dream come true for Final Fantasy fans who don't mind the rigamarole that comes standard with MMOs. Set in the high fantasy world of Eorzea, you play as one of the series' iconic classes, like a black mage, and set out to help the locals defend themselves from constant invasions by the evil Garlean Empire. It's as generic a Final Fantasy story as they come, but FF14 lives up to the series legacy by populating the world with an endearing ensemble of characters that grow significantly over the course of its two expansions. If you like story-driven MMOs, Final Fantasy 14's sweeping epic is undoubtedly the best.
Square Enix doesn't try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to being an MMO, though. Final Fantasy 14 is formulaic in its progression and the equipment system is pretty bland. It is by no means boring, however. The story reaches some surprising highs and Final Fantasy fans will be pleased to hear that FF14 has a nearly endless supply of memorable boss fights to work through. It might not be as expansive as other MMOs, but Final Fantasy 14 is beautiful and charming.
Local multiplayer games
Nidhogg 2
Released: 2017 | Developer: Messhof | Humble Store, Steam | Our review
Some say Nidhogg 2's clay-monstrosity art style and added weapons marred the elegance of the first game, but they're both great in their own ways. Whichever one you choose, the basic format is the same: two players duel across a single screen, attempting to push their opponent left or right into the next screen, all the way to the end of the map. That's a big part of the brilliance of the series: get pushed all the way to your corner, and it's still possible to make a comeback and finesse your opponent all the way back across the map for a clutch win. Pure thrill.
The fighting itself is great, too, like an ultra-lo-fi Bushido Blade. Kills come in one hit as you thrust and parry and throw your swords with simple controls that result in complex dances of stance and aggression. It's exciting, hilarious, and tests the hell out of your reaction time and ability to predict your opponent's moves. There's nothing quite like either Nidhogg.
TowerFall Ascension
Released: 2014 | Developer: Matt Thorson | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review
As cool as bows and arrows are in games like Tomb Raider, TowerFall does them best. Whether played by four people against each other, or two in co-op against waves of monsters, TowerFall makes leaping from a ledge and skewering somebody with a perfect shot easy to do. It also makes shooting at someone above you, missing, and then impaling yourself as the arrow falls back down easy to do. It's as chaotic as it sounds, but the clean pixel art and expressive animation makes it simple to follow, and every triumph and screw-up is visible to all.
More local multiplayer games
Castle Crashers
Enter the Gungeon
Gang Beasts
See our full list of the best local multiplayer games.
Overcooked 1 and Overcooked 2
Released: 2018| Developer: Ghost Town Games | Steam | Our review
We hate Overcooked. Wait, no: We hate anyone who gets in the way in Overcooked, or doesn't bring us our damn tomatoes when we need them, pre-chopped. This four-player kitchen catastrophe simulator sets up some brilliantly simple basics—working together to prepare ingredients, cook basic dishes, and turn them in on a tight timetable—and then mercilessly complicates them with devious kitchen hazards. In one level, on the deck of a pirate ship, some of your counters slide back and forth, forcing you to switch up tasks on the fly. In another cramped kitchen, there isn't enough space for two characters to squeeze past one another, forcing you to coordinate all your movements or get into shouting matches about which direction to go.
There's a lot of shouting in Overcooked, but barking orders, properly divvying up jobs, and setting a new high score feels so good. The controls are intuitive enough that infrequent gamers can get onboard. Just beware of playing with anyone with a truly explosive temper. While both are great, if you haven't played either we'd recommend Overcooked 2, which adds online play.
2D platformers
Spelunky
Released: 2013 | Developer: Mossmouth | GOG, Steam | Our review
Spelunky deserves much of the credit (or blame) for the boom of roguelikes in the 2010s, but none have bettered the rich interactions of this game, which sees you adventuring through mines, the jungle, caverns, and even Hell in search of riches and escape. You'll die many, many times along the way—sometimes suddenly, sometimes hilariously, and often because of your own stupidity. But that arms you with knowledge of what not to do and how to exploit the game. Can you trick two NPCs into fighting each other? Can you use a damsel you should be rescuing to instead safely set off a trap for you? What's the deal with the Ankh, anyway?
These are all things you'll discover as you play more Spelunky. Half the game is 2D platformer; the other half is a rich simulation packed with secrets and interlocking pieces that make the entire game feel like a living organism designed with the express purpose of killing you. That's what makes pulling those pieces apart and using them to your advantage so endlessly satisfying.
Celeste
Released: 2018| Developer: Matt Makes Games | Steam | Our review
In this age of quick saves and infinite lives, action-oriented platformers need to be difficult. And this difficulty almost always becomes the talking point, even for games that seem to hide something more profound beneath their mounds of countless dead (see: The End is Nigh). But no one talks about how hard Celeste is—or at least, that’s not why we talk about it. Even if you roll your eyes at the masochistic appeal of Super Meat Boy or N++, you might find yourself seeing Celeste through to the end. Sharing the vibrant, chunky pixel-art of Matt Makes Games Inc’s TowerFall, Celeste charts its protagonist Madeline’s efforts to scale a gigantic mountain. She’s not going up there to save the world, she’s going up there to save herself. It’s hardly a visual novel, but the light narrative dabs make progress more meaningful than “simply wanting to do it”, and its set-piece moments are really spectacular. It feels great too: Madeline can grab onto walls and quick-dash through the air, and there’s never a lack of new environmental challenges to ward off monotony.
More platformers and Metroidvanias
N++
Ori and the Blind Forest
Super Meat Boy
The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human
Hollow Knight
Released: 2017| Developer: Team Cherry| Humble Store, Steam | Our review
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Hollow Knight is still slightly too new to be regarded as highly as Nintendo's genre-defining Super Metroid, but it might actually be the better game (gasp!). It's at least the best game to follow in Metroid's footsteps in a decade (if you want more games in this vein, make sure to play Cave Story). You play as a small explorer venturing through the remnants of Hallownest, an underground bug civilization, with remarkably little hand-holding showing you where to go. Subtle environmental clues and smartly doled-out powerups will help you find your path through the world, and from the first moments the 2D essentials of jumping and attacking have a perfectly tuned weight and snappiness to them. That's what will keep you playing Hollow Knight long enough to be pulled into its world, and then there's no turning back.
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