Trying to find the best games on PC isnt easy. Hundreds of them show up every day on places like Steam and Itch.io. Its hard to keep up. But dont worry — weve got you. This list has the 20 best games on PC you can play right now.

PC games has become even more ubiquitous in the last decade. Not only do console games make their way over more frequently now, surprise hits like Among Us and Lethal Company feel like they can show up at any moment. Thats the beauty of playing games on a such an open platform: Its always thriving.

You dont even have to worry about backward compatibility for old games. A lot of them still work, or have been updated by fans. If you never want to leave the frigid mountains of Skyrim, you dont have to! Plenty of classic games still have a heartbeat and have grown up over the last few decades. Where else can you jump into a 20-year-old MMO like World of Warcraft?

The games below are of a variety of genres and art styles. They can be played for a handful of hours or hundreds of hours, on keyboard and mouse or controller. Handheld PC players should check out our list of the best games on Steam Deck, but several of our picks are certified to run on those too.

Our latest update added Elden Ring.

How we pick the best games on PC

The Polygon staff plays a lot of video games, and everything in this list comes personally recommended by at least one of us. We determined what should be on our list of the best PC games by looking at the quality of each title, but also with an eye for breadth and variety — so you should find something on the list youll enjoy, no matter what genres of game you like, how much time you have, or what vibe you are after.

Against the Storm

Against the Storm is a city builder where you start over constantly. Its a daring choice to kill a sacred cow of the city building genre, which typically has the player devote all their hours to one single, sprawling metropolis. Instead, Against the Storm wants you to focus on that first hour of city building: the early game, when you discover the resources youll be depending on, when you lay down the roads that will define its shape, and when you become intimately familiar with the needs of your citizens.What makes Against the Storm so ingenious is how it makes this an engaging challenge every single time through perfectly balanced roguelike mechanics. You never know exactly what citizens youll have, what quests youll need to complete or what resources youll find, so youll have to adapt. Your specialty buildings are awarded like cards from a deck, so youll have to think about assembling supply chains forwards and backwards. One settlement might be a utopia, where the larder is overflowing and every citizen is well cared for. Or you may struggle with an imperfect supply chain, scraping by just enough to make it through the stormy season.  It makes every settlement a tense and unique challenge, one youll want to play again and again and again. —Clayton Ashley

$30 at Steam

Age of Empires 4

Age of Empires 4 will likely never replace Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings in the hearts and minds of strategy gamers. However, AOE4 does bring some interesting wrinkles to the familiar setting and gameplay, allowing it to stand capably on its own, despite living in the shadow of a legend.Beyond the reimagined gameplay, creating a new game from whole cloth gave Relic the opportunity to imbue AOE4 with a distinct style of its own. Having the native languages of your civilization change as you advance through the ages or replacing the fog of war with a rudimentary map are just some of the stylistic choices that set AOE4 apart. While the base game only features 10 civilizations compared to AOE2s 45, each of the playable empires are much more distinct. Beyond unique units and civ bonuses, for instance, the Mongols can quickly pump out units if they have the necessary resources, while the Rus can use hunting to boost their late-game economy. —Alice Jovanée

$40 at Steam$40 at Xbox

Destiny 2

Destiny 2 combines a typical loot-based shooter with Bungies best-in-class gunplay, and the result is one of the greatest MMOs on the market.The Destiny franchise has had some rough patches, and was met with mixed reception at its initial launch. But in the eight years that its existed, Bungie has drastically improved the formula via multiple expansions and a complete sequel. Now, the studio has one of the most well-supported live-service games in 2025.Every few months, Destiny 2 gets a new season or expansion, adding missions, activities, and endgame content like raids. Each of these different activities then provides its own unique rewards, creating an endless loop of grinding new activities for new weapons, which youll then use to grind the next seasons content. What makes that fun and not tedious, however, is Bungies extremely smooth gameplay, which can remain fun thousands of hours and nearly a full decade later.In a world filled with hobby games that you can play for years without stopping — especially on PC — Destiny 2 is worth all the time youre willing to put into it. —Ryan Gilliam

$0 at Steam$0 at PlayStation

Dwarf Fortress

If youre ever in the mood to play god, you can do a lot worse than playing Dwarf Fortress.As the title might suggest, this is a simulation/management game about building, optimizing, overseeing, and, accidentally or not, destroying a fortress full of dwarves. What the title doesnt tell you is that youll have to consider the regions soil type, elevation, and weather patterns. Youll also have to take the attributes of each of your seven starting dwarves into account — their skill sets, physical characteristics, and mental dispositions. After beginning the construction and management in each new randomly generated world, you set about growing your colony and observing, as any number of unforeseen factors can go well or very, very wrong.As explored in this excellent Eurogamer video by Chris Bratt (who went on to found People Make Games), Dwarf Fortress is so nuanced and complex that a colonys cats have been known to die en masse because they had walked through the puke of drunken dwarves, proceeded to lick their paws clean, and promptly died. The comments on this video are full of similar instances of emergent simulation (ranging from disturbing to hilarious) and they showcase how deep, absurd, and wonderful Dwarf Fortress has the potential to get during any given playthrough. Playing Dwarf Fortress may not turn you into the most benevolent god — the dwarves have free will, after all — but youll almost never get bored. —Mike Mahardy

$30 at Steam

Elden Ring

Nobody makes action RPGs like FromSoftware. Elden Ring is Dark Souls multiplied by 10, an eerie fantasy world filled with monsters both tragic and mighty. You are a lowly Tarnished, reanimated and sent to claim the throne. The journey across its open world is vast and perilous. Secrets and treasure are tucked into its folds and hidden in dungeons underneath the surface. Youll feel like an archeologist sifting through the layers of history that tell a story about a land sundered by a power-hungry family of gods and an unknowable force pulling the strings.Combat is a challenge, but so is understanding the arsenal of weapons, spells, and tools you can use to overcome it — and even trivialize it. Elden Ring is the first FromSoft game that doesnt shove you straight into a meat grinder. There are always alternate paths and solutions to the obstacles you face. You can summon a squad of spirit wolves or disorient your foes on horseback. Its all fair game.If youre convinced, dont skip the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. This over 40-hour expansion doesnt just complement Elden Rings strongest themes and expand on its tightly designed action, it completes them. Unfolding the gloomy counterpart to The Lands Between reveals the beating heart of the world and provides satisfying answers to some of its biggest mysteries. Elden Ring isnt Elden Ring without it. —Tyler Colp

$50 at Best Buy$60 at Amazon

Image: Frontier Developments Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous may be old, but shes got it where it counts, kid. The spacefaring MMO has everything you could possibly want in a game of its type — its just that some of the bits are a little better than others. The first-person shooting, for instance, is just OK. But Elite more than earns its spot on this list for the sense of exploration, discovery, and danger that comes with every flight. Thats because this circa-2014 game features a realistic re-creation of all 400 billion star systems in our galaxy, each one with dozens of bodies that you can visit, and even walk on, in first person. It remains one of the best reasons to buy a VR headset — or build a working cockpit inside your home office. —Charlie Hall

$5 at Steam

Final Fantasy 14

Im sure youve heard it all before. Final Fantasy 14 is a masterpiece. Theres so much to say about the brilliant story, soundtrack, and job system, but theres also so much to do if you dont want to only do story-focused stuff. You can go farm on an island, fish on a huge boat with your friends, head to the Gold Saucer for minigames, decorate a house… the possibilities are endless. Between saving the world from incoming apocalyptic doom, I personally really enjoyed taking a breather to cook some coffee biscuits.That said, the story is worth all the praise and acclaim. The amount of times I cried or really felt triumph playing this game over the span of more than five years is almost embarrassing (but not embarrassing enough for me to not mention). The critically acclaimed MMORPG is popular for a reason, and the free trial has no time limit and gets you up to level 70 (the Stormblood expansion), which is a lot of content. Its the perfect game to while away the hours, with plenty of variety to keep things interesting. —Julia Lee

$20 at PlayStation$20 at GameStop

Fortnite

Fortnite is the ultimate video game playground. Is it a battle royale? Is it a building game where you can make custom maps and games for friends? Is it still that weird zombie game that it was originally marketed as? The answer to all of those questions, inexplicably, is yes. Crucially, Fortnite is also the only game where you can swing around using an official Spider-Man web slinger while dressed as Goku before subsequently blowing away Commander Zavala from Destiny with a shotgun, chopping down a tree with the Staff of Ra from Indiana Jones, and then get sniped by Darth Vader as he rides by on a wolf. Its chaotic video game nonsense, and theres nothing else like it.Fortnite is the “it” game of the past five years partially because its the only thing out there that lets you dab as Kratos, but also because its an excellent shooter thats a ton of fun to play with pals. It takes the old “fun for the whole family” moniker and really follows through with it — theres truly something for everyone. Whether you want to compete for your Victory Royale or just make stupid machinima with Rick Sanchez and a Xenomorph, Fortnite can give it to you. —RG

$0 at Epic

Hitman: World of Assassination

The final form of the immersive assassination simulator, Hitman: World of Assassination truly fulfills the fantasy of being the greatest assassin in the world. In addition to all of the content released for the first three games from the reimagined Hitman franchise, World of Assassination also includes the roguelike-inspired Freelancer mode, which forces you to eliminate targets with random equipment and mission modifiers. Each contract is a unique scenario that unfolds like a stage play. As you explore each scenario, learning more about each player and their respective parts, youll find out how to effectively reach your target and eliminate them using a combination of keen observation and stealth. Beyond being intricate clockwork with a lot of moving parts, the graphics for each level are remarkable from a technical standpoint, featuring immaculately rendered crowds and varied environments that immerse you fully in the locations of the game.While guns blazing is always an option, each target presents an opportunity to express your creativity as a contract killer, turning every mission into a cleverly designed puzzle with multiple solutions. Any fool can shoot someone, but pummeling your target with a brick of super cocaine takes an artist. —AJ

$70 at PlayStation$38 at GameStop

Honkai: Star Rail

Genshin Impacts developer, Hoyoverse, has done it again. Honkai: Star Rail is a beautiful turn-based RPG mobile game that can also be played on PC (and PlayStation 5, but this post is not about that) with an extremely satisfying combat system.The variety of strategies available is a big appeal of Star Rail. One team I have specializes in damage over time, and another focuses more on dealing damage in follow-up attacks. Of course, theres teams where you can just have a strong DPS character pummel enemies into the ground, too. I just love seeing all the different characters come together to create massive damage numbers. The strategy that comes with team building is just one of the many fun aspects in HSR.While the game does have RNG gacha lootbox elements, the game is still enjoyable and beatable with free-to-play characters only — and even just playing consistently will net you a lot of five-star characters without having to spend a cent. —JL

$0 at PlayStation$0 at Google Play$0 at Epic Games

League of Legends

League of Legends is one of the most important video games of the past decade, and it has helped set an example for what a continuous game should look like. Its an incredible live-service game with tons of new content added each year. Its a complex strategy game that never plays out the same way twice. Its one of the biggest esports in the world. And its completely free to play. While League wasnt the first game to claim any of those accolades, Riot learned lessons from Leagues predecessors (such as Starcraft and the original DOTA mod) to push the envelope of what a prestigious competitive game could look like, and has managed to keep it relevant for 13 years.In true MOBA form, 10 players matchmake into a game together and are split into two teams. Each player on each team is then assigned a role, and they can choose from over 160 different characters to support their allies. During the match, the goal is to reach the other side of the arena and destroy the enemy teams base. This results in a tense push and pull between both teams, gathering gold and empowering their heroes.Its extremely complex — almost like learning a new language — but that complexity is what keeps the game interesting and fun. After thousands of matches, theres still nothing quite like spending an entire Saturday playing League of Legends and getting a new experience almost every time. —RG

$0 at Riot

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is truly a modern marvel. It pulls more than two petabytes of Microsoft Bing map data into a high-quality, VR-compatible flight simulation. Then it feathers in live air traffic and real-world weather, just because it can. Float planes, ski planes, military jets, racing planes, even Halos Pelican — its all there, along with more once you access the in-game third-party storefront. And while MSFS is also compatible on Xbox consoles, it shines on PC, opening up a whole world of tinkering for dedicated fans. Just plan ahead and make sure your hardware has enough USB ports for the joystick, throttle, pedals, head-tracking peripherals, and multi-function displays. Ohh, I could get a ButtKicker and a cup holder and... —CH

$60 at Xbox$60 at Steam

Image: Lucas Pope/3909 Return of the Obra Dinn

Return of the Obra Dinn is that rare game I wish I could forget. Not because its heavy or overly traumatic, but because I want to experience it again with fresh eyes. Like Outer Wilds, its a game that relies heavily on discovery and the use of newfound knowledge. The less known before playing Return of the Obra Dinn the better, so just take our word for it and go play for yourself... Not convinced? Fine. Ill spoil that you get to play as an insurance investigator. If that doesnt get you to install, nothing will.Jokes aside, Return of the Obra Dinn puts you in the shoes of an insurance investigator (that part wasnt a joke) for the East India Company in 1807. Armed with a magic pocket watch, its your responsibility to discover what happened to the good ship Obra Dinn, a merchant ship lost at sea five years prior.Each area you investigate on the ship will treat you to a short vignette and some dialogue or music. You then use that information to fill out your ledger and determine the fate and name of each soul aboard.Its a difficult game to describe, but I havent stopped thinking about it since its launch in 2018. The music and visuals are intoxicating, and the game manages to surprise over and over again. Sadly, Ill never be able to play it as a newcomer again — as I already know the fates of those aboard — but I can enrich your life by sharing it with you. —RG

$20 at Steam$20 at Nintendo$20 at PlayStation

Image: Coffee Stain Studios Satisfactory

Management and automation games are old staples of PC gaming, and Satisfactory is one of the modern best.In Satisfactory, you play an employee of a space corporation who is dropped onto a hostile and unfamiliar planet. Your job is to use the planets resources to build up an incredible factory for your overlords, producing more and more technologically advanced items that youll eventually send back to the mothership via a giant space elevator.The catch with Satisfactory is that its all in first person, and youre just one small employee in what can turn out to be a giant factory. Not only do you have to visualize how to lay out your factory floor without a gods-eye view, youll need to gather resources from miles and miles away — areas that are difficult to reach on foot — and make difficult decisions. Do you want to run a thousand-meter pipe filled with oil to your factory? Or do you want to mine that oil, package it into barrels, and build a train that will deliver to your factory on a set schedule? And how are you going to handle the power situation when you accidentally blow a fuse and your oil production halts all your other machines?There are near countless formulae for new factory setups, and each problem you come across becomes increasingly more difficult to solve. But these puzzles are also extremely rewarding, ensuring that every area of your factory — the refineries, the power plants, etc. — all come with their own memories and triumphs. —RG

$32 at Steam

Stellaris

Stellaris is real-time strategy on a truly massive scale. Each procedurally generated map of Paradoxs extrasolar grand strategy game is inhabited by a variety of different alien species, each with their own governments, ideals, and ambitions that can greatly influence how an individual game plays out.Every game of Stellaris begins with your empire exploring their own tiny corner of the galaxy, but the scope quickly expands to adjacent star systems, shaking hands with the neighbors, and engaging with just about every awesome sci-fi trope in existence. In Stellaris, you can terraform planets, discover space whales, build planet-sized superweapons, and broker peace between rival factions in just your first 100 years on the galactic stage.   While the vast array of interconnected mechanics can be quite daunting, especially to players unfamiliar with the grand strategy genre, Stellaris comes equipped with comprehensive guided tutorials that pop up whenever youre introduced to a new mechanic or interface for the first time. Since its launch in 2016, Stellaris has accrued over 20 pieces of individual DLC that add new alien races, planet types, and game mechanics that have kept the aging title feeling fresh. Thanks to its robust modding community and how much content is present in the base game, youre more likely to experience the heat death of the universe before you see the end of what Stellaris has to offer. —AJ

$40 at Steam

Total War: Warhammer 3

Sometimes, video games just cant help themselves. They grow vertically, with so much systemic complexity that they destroy any chances at balance or elegance. They grow horizontally, with bigger maps, more characters, or new magical spells, until theyre bloated beyond repair. Eventually, they collapse beneath the massive weight of their own making.Total War: Warhammer 3 is not one of those games.What began as the first fantasy installment in a history-oriented franchise has become a trilogy-capping grand strategy game in which armored mammoths, sex-crazed demons, bipedal machine-gunner rats, dragon-mounted high elves, and four-headed hydras clash in massive battles. Like the first two installments in the trilogy, Warhammer 3 is half empire-building, half real-time strategy. You expand your territory, improve your cities, build your armies, and march them off to war. When they encounter an opponents army or attack an enemy city (maybe it has valuable resources? Maybe its a strategic chokepoint? Maybe it just looks fucking cool?) the camera zooms in to real-time strategy battles on scales that arent comparable in any other game. Unlike its predecessors, however, Warhammer 3 is an exercise in excessive scale. It combines the campaign maps and every single faction from all three games into one massive mode called Immortal Empires, in which youre just as likely to see a world war play out between ogres, dwarves, vampires, and undead Egyptian pharaohs. Immortal Empires all but redefines sandbox video games, and it has all the makings of a desert island title. —MM

$60 at Steam

Valorant

Valorant is Riot Games take on tactical shooters. But since it comes from the creators of League of Legends, it infuses its harsh, hyper-accurate gunplay with unique heroes in a vibrant, colorful environment. The result is one of the best and tightest shooters out there, with loads more personality than its dreary, militaristic peers.In Valorant, youll play on a variety of maps as both offense and defense. The offense will need to plant a bomb at one of several key areas on the map, and the defense will need to defuse that bomb. If the bomb goes off or the defenders are all killed, the offense wins. If the bomb is defused or the offense is all killed, the defenders win. The rules are simple enough, but the characters add an extra layer of complexity.Each round, players can buy weapons and abilities — the latter being unique to the Agent they selected at the start of the match. Some characters can place cameras to spy on opposing players, while others can resurrect themselves after death. Some characters can shoot arrows, while others can create massive clouds of poison to block off areas. These characters all work differently with one another, allowing coordinated teams to create devastating combos with their abilities. Unlike League, the UI is relatively clear and easy to understand. But the skill ceiling is just as high as Riots other competitive games, and you can be easily outmatched by better players. This makes Valorant daunting, but also exciting. Its a game where you can really feel your skill level increase over time, which helps losses feel like learning experiences and wins feel absolutely incredible. —RG

$0 at Riot

Image: Digital Extremes Warframe

What began in 2012 as a game of ninja combat in narrow spaceship corridors has, over the last decade, become one of the strangest, funniest, most breathtaking science fiction worlds in video games. Its also free.Warframe is a game about collecting the titular cyborg space assassins and mowing through tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of enemies on planets, moons, and star bases across the solar system. It has dozens of different crafting systems, customizable dojos and landing crafts, three open worlds, daily and weekly events, and even a dedicated convention every year in London, Ontario.Warframe can be a grind, sure — unless you spend real money in its marketplace — but the combat, which plays like a mashup of third-person shooters and Musou melee encounters, is satisfying enough to last you the several hours until your next new character, weapon, or upgrade. Whether that new addition to your arsenal be Frost, the defensive ice warrior; the Secura Lecta, a vicious whip that increases your credit yield; or Corrosive Projection, a mod that decreases the armor of enemies in your vicinity, theres something new around every corner. Its a collectors dream, and its replete with gratuitous sci-fi violence. —MM

$0 at Steam$0 at PlayStation$0 at Nintendo

World of Warcraft: The War Within Base Edition

World of Warcraft is still the household MMO name, with Final Fantasy 14 only catching up in recent years. But unlike Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft has remained exclusive to the PC with mouse-and-keyboard controls. Its also over 20 years old and still going strong.As you might expect from a game thats old enough to vote, World of Warcraft hasnt always been one of the best PC games out there. Its had moments of brilliance and eras of serious disappointment. But even as the quality of WoWs content has ebbed and flowed, its always offered an incredible world to adventure in, peacefully by yourself or in a boisterous group of buddies. Its become a staple in the lives of millions of fans over nearly 20 years, and its always there for players who want to run a quick quest or upgrade a piece of gear. —RG

$50 at Blizzard

Firaxis Games/2K Games XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is one of the best video game turnaround stories since Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. What started as a buggy and sometimes frustrating follow-up to Firaxis beloved XCOM reboot was rejuvenated with the War of the Chosen expansion, and is now one of the best strategy games in recent memory.Like the first game, XCOM 2 is all about fending off aliens from another world with your army of soldiers. Its a turn-based tactical game, so youll move each of your characters individually before ending your turn, causing the computer to move in response to your actions. Its like a chess match where you upgrade and bond with your pieces between matches, and then have to say goodbye if the enemy ever takes them. (You can turn the permadeath setting off, but I highly recommend keeping it on).War of the Chosen, on the other hand, added new enemy types and allied factions, which eventually offer entirely new soldier types for you to control. That bonus content is great, but its the way that content flows into the base campaign that solved the issue of vanilla XCOM 2s frustrating and breakneck pace. With the expansion, players have so many more challenges to overcome and avenues to explore that it feels like an entirely new experience — where youre constantly doing something new. There are challenging new bosses to hunt, a wider variety of mission types, and undead enemies that have the ability to disrupt your play style.Its a brutal game, and lives up to the endless memes of high-percentage shots that inevitably miss at the worst possible moments. But each encounter — be it an individual firefight between two opposing soldiers or an entire mission — tells a story. Not one written by Firaxis, but one crafted by you and your decisions.If you love base/resource management, strategy games, or both, youll find a game that you can play over and over again with XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. —RG

$4 at Steam$40 at Xbox