The best PC games right now
Looking for a great new PC game? Here’s what we’re playing in 2024.
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Thousands of new PC games release every year, and a lot of them are great. A lot of them are also bad. Some of them arereallybad. And some of them arereallygood, but hardly anyone knows about them. It’s hard to keep up!
Lists like ourannual Top 100(the latest edition of which was published October 2024) focus on the whole history of PC gaming, which inevitably means that a lot of great recent releases don’t make the cut. That’s why we made this list, which exists to answer one simple question: “What PC game should I play right now?”
On this list, you’ll find our favorite recent releases mixed in with great games from the past few years, classics we think now is a good time to revisit, and some hidden gems. It’s a reflection of what the PC Gamer team is playing right now, not a list of the all-time best games ever, although there’s overlap.
For a more comprehensive list of great PC games past and present, check out ourTop 100list. We also have some fresh picks for thebest Steam Deck gamesif you have one of Valve’s handhelds. We also stay on top of the year’s calendar with our guide to thenew games of 2024, organized by month.
Need something to play these on? We have a guide to putting together anentry-level gaming PCfor around $750, and we have somerecommendations for pre-built PCs, too.
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What we’re playing right now
Ourtop review score for October 2024isFactorio: Space Age (92%):“Blowing out Factorio’s scale and reinventing its factory systems multiple times over, Space Age is an immediate contender for the best expansion ever made.”
More recent hits
Satisfactory (90%)🙋♀️🙋♀️Satisfcatory saw a big bump in player count after it left early access, which was well-deserved: It’s one of the best automation games around.
Hunt: Showdown 1896🙋♀️🙋♀️Hunt has quietly been one of the best multiplayer games you can play for a few years now, and it just got a huge new map and engine upgrade. (Though not withouta little controversy.)
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (95%)🙋♀️🙋♀️🎮Elden Ring’s expansion has earned one of our highest review scores ever—even higher than Elden Ring itself. In his review, Tyler said that Erdtree “not only complements the base game but expands its thematic and systemic scope even further.”
Destiny 2: The Final Shape (92%)🙋♀️🙋♀️The Final Shape concludes Destiny’s decade-long story arc and is also its best expansion yet: “a satisfying conclusion to the series' first saga, and a compelling shooter packed full of stuff to do,” Phil said in his review.
Animal Well (90%)💻🙋♀️🎮When you get to the end of this retro metroidvania, that’s when the mysteryreallybegins. “The most engrossing exploration platformer I’ve played in years,” Shaun said inhis review.
Abiotic Factor💻🙋♀️🙋♀️It hasn’t blown up like some other recent early access survival games, but a couple of us at PC Gamer are really enjoying this six-player co-op survival-crafting adventure where you’re scientists stuck in a Black Mesa-like paranormal science facility.
Manor Lords🙋♀️We haven’t reviewed this early access medieval town builder—we’ll do that when it hits 1.0—but we quite like it so far, and itruns well for an early access game. The dev has someexciting ideas for its future, too.
Helldivers 2 (86%)🙋♀️🙋♀️Helldivers 2 is a phenomenally fun Starship Troopers-inspired co-op shooter with some of the best physical comedy in a recent game—it’s also become an ongoing, unpredictable soap opera that feels like the future of live videogame storytelling.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 (89%)🙋♀️A “glorious, thrilling, accidentally hilarious, frustrating, maddening” RPG, as Fraser called it in his review. It’s got its share of jank—and you can ignore the silly microtransactions—but more than makes up for it with its phenomenal combat system, goofy NPC companions, and slapstick goblin fights.
Tekken 8 (89%)🙋♀️🙋♀️🎮It doesn’t quite crack 90% in our review, but Mollie’s enthusiasm for Tekken 8 is barely held back by its netcode problems and limited character customizaton: “Tekken is freakin' back, baby, and I couldn’t be happier,” she wrote.
Against The Storm (91%)🙋♀💻This roguelike city builder was one of our favorite games of 2023. Be careful, it’s the sort of game that can suspend perception of time—you might put several dozen hours in before you know it.
Alan Wake 2 (88%)🙋♀"In the first playable moments of Alan Wake 2, you control a naked, balding, middle-aged man stumbling in confusion around a forest." Never stop being Remedy, Remedy.
Jusant (89%)🙋♀"An incredible rock climbing game", as we put it in our review, with “a compelling narrative that gently weaves its way through your journey.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 (97%)🙋♀️🙋♀️Our highest review score in 16 years went to “an unrivalled RPG that will swallow your life whole.” It’s true: Few of us at PC Gamerhaven’tbeen swept up by Baldur’s Gate 3’s D&D sandbox.Starfield’s good too, but it has struggled to pull us away from our tadpole friends.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (87%)🙋♀️Not only do we really like Cyberpunk’s first and only expansion, we’re very pleased withthe 2.0 update, which is free for all owners, and improves the whole game with changes to skill progression, AI, and other fundamental aspects of the RPG. Now is definitely the time to play Cyberpunk 2077, if you haven’t.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon (87%)🙋♀Another FromSoftware banger. AC6 departs from the Souls formula the studio has become most associated with over the past decade to revive its action series where you’re a “a one mech army instead of some nasty little guy,” as Wes put it in his review.
Diablo 4 (85%)🙋♀️🙋♀️We liked Diablo 4 when it released last year, even if we weren’t in love with the live-servicey aspects, and it improved a lot in the months that followed. After the latest update,we called ita “phenomenal action RPG.”
PC Gamer’s Top 10
These are the top 10 games from the latest edition ofPC Gamer’s yearly Top 100 list, which was published in October 2024. Baldur’s Gate 3 has usurped Disco Elysium’s throne.
More great PC games
These games aren’t all piping hot out of the oven, but some things get better with age. They’re the cream of the crop on PC, either scoring 80%+ in a review, winning one of our GOTY awards. If you just want a damn fine PC game from the past several years, close your eyes and point at this list—you’ll land on something worth playing.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
The best PC games by genre
Find our selection of the best PC games just a bit too broad? Perhaps you know you’re after a gripping story, or an intense racer, or the kind of sim you can spend a whole weekend playing like a second job. Our genre lists have curated recommendations for RPGs, racing, strategy, and more. Check ‘em out:
Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the ’80s and ’90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call “boomer shooters” now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that’s right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he’s focused on the site’s news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
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