What are some of the best PC-only or best-on-PC games from the last few years?

[Clay]

I'm building my first gaming PC in the next week or so.

It's kind of mid-range, I already bought a 6700 XT and am planning on getting a 12600K.

I also have a PS5 and a Switch.

There's a few games I'm really excited to play. Pentiment, Vampire Survivors, Flight Sim. There's also a few games I've tried that seem like they'd play much better with a keyboard and mouse. Slay the Spire and Civ 6 are two I'm excited to try, I played both a lot on Switch and PS4/5 but both seems like they'd be far easier to manage with mouse and keyboard.

I'm curious if there's any other games that should be on my radar.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Mount & Blade Bannerlord, Total War Warhammer 3, Darktide, Cruelty Squad, Dread Delusion, Expeditions Rome

Just some that came out this recently, any genre you are looking for specifically?

 

[Graven]

Sonic All Star Racing Transformed, as far as i know the PC version is the only version where you can play at 60 FPS, and it's excelent. For an arcade racing, the 60 FPS smootheness is a must.

 

[Milennia]

World of Warcraft amongst many other MMOs, league of legends, Valorant

All still great games

 

[Mukrab]

every strategy game

 

[Deleted member 8257]

What type of genre are you looking? I was going to recommend SOMA heartily. It's a fps with one of the best narrative/story out there. I recently finished it.

 

[Clay]

Mount & Blade Bannerlord, Total War Warhammer 3, Darktide, Cruelty Squad, Dread Delusion, Expeditions Rome

Just some that came out this recently, any genre you are looking for specifically?

Click to shrink...

Not really, just any good games that aren't available on console. I've been hearing great things about Vampire Survivor, but I haven't really been following PC games in general much at all.

I am interested in games like Tropico and Civ, and SimCity. I was also planning on getting Cities. I'm not sure if there's been a ton of recent games like those though.

Sonic All Star Racing Transformed, as far as i know the PC version is the only version where you can play at 60 FPS, and it's excelent. For an arcade racing, the 60 FPS smootheness is a must.

Click to shrink...

The Xbox Series X (and S too, I believe) run it at 60fps as well. But great game!

 

[Anno]

Any of the recent Paradox grand strategy games
Total War Three Kingdoms/Warhammer triology
Rimworld
Dwarf Fortress
Caves of Qud
XCOM 2
Anno 1800
Cities: Skylines
Planet Zoo
Planet Coaster
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Baldur's Gate 3 (or at least wishlist it for when it exits early access)
Hell Let Loose
Dyson Sphere Program
Satisfactory
Euro/American Truck Simulator
Valheim
Oxygen Not Included
Dorfromantik

That's just what pops to mind immediately. Any particular genre? As you might expect some genres are more relevant than others in this comparison.

 

[Modu5]

Modern warfare 2

 

[krakenking189]

Both Pillars of Eternity games are light years better on PC, both KOTORs as well for the PC, can never go wrong with Baldurs Gate as well

 

[jph139]

Yeah, strategy games are pretty much king on PC, even if a lot of them get console ports nowadays, so you'd want to dig in there. Crusader Kings, XCOM, Stellaris, Total War, Mount & Blade (though that's more action-y, I guess), so on and so forth.

Also: any game with a sizable modding community is worth investigating, even if you've played console versions before.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

I will never miss an opportunity to recommend X4 to everybody who is willing to listen

Age of Empires 4, Dread Dilusions, Ultrakill, Expeditions Rome, HROT, Doorkickers 2, Satisfactory, Black Mesa, Pathologic 2, Outward, They Are Billions, Hunt Showdown, Gloomwood

Some of those are probably on consoles but I'm not gonna check every one of them.

 

[Pellaidh]

If you're into strategy games, then Rimworld, Crusader Kings 3, Cities Skylines, Warhammer Total War, and Factorio. Some of these are technically on consoles, but they control better on PC, plus Rimworld and Cities Skylines in particular are much better games with mods. Slay the Spire on PC also has a ton of mods which I'd recommend checking out.

Starcraft 2 still holds up if you want to play a style of RTS that doesn't really exist anymore, and the free version gives you a full campaign to play through.

Trackmania is fun and has a free version. Coming to consoles at some point though.

MMOs are always a thing on PC. Lost Ark is popular and F2P but really grindy, Guildwars 2 has a generous free version, and World of Warcraft is always going to be popular. Elder Scrolls Online might also be a choice if you're a fan of the franchise and is frequently discounted.

Kerbal Space Program was on PS4, but if you haven't played it yet it's absolutely essential if you're into space exploration, and is a better game on PC.

If you're already spending thousand+ USD on a beefy PC, VR might also be something worth looking into at some point. In which case Half Life Alyx is essential.

 

[radardi]

Starcraft 1 and 2, not sure if warcraft 3 reforged got "fixed".

Valorant, CSGO, and quake champions are all free.

Edit to add:
Half-life 1 and 2, Portal 1 and 2

 

[nolongerexists]

Endless Legend is still pretty cool for a different twist on 4X, rather than a straight Civ clone like Humankind.

Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 may be on consoles but you want to play those games on PC.

Same with Paradox's games, their entire catalog is worth a look. I adore Victoria 3 but it's a weird thing, basically a late 19th-early 20th century economic and political simulator. Probably needs a couple patches to truly sparkle but the bones of it are glorious to behold.

I'm pretty sure Gunpoint still rules and I don't think that ever made it to consoles, so you should play Gunpoint.

 

[nilbog]

Boomer shooters are alive and well.

Some of these are on console, but they feel better to me with a mouse/keyboard.

Prodeus is a personal favorite. So good.


View: https://youtu.be/kVNYObIFmYM

Also:

Hrot (early access)
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin (early access)
Graven (early access)
Amid Evil
Cultic
Dusk
Dread Templar (early access)
Nightmare Reaper
Forgive Me Father
Blood West (early access)
Into The Pit

 

[Jaded Alyx]

'best-on-pc'? Almost everything, for a variety of reasons, such as fidelity, performance, guaranteed forward compatibility, control options, mods, free online, cheaper price, etc etc etc.

I guess what I'm saying is, congrats on the build and enjoy!

 

[Nameless]

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1167630/Teardown/

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1388770/Cruelty_Squad/

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/

Too many awesome "Boomer Shooters" and such to name. I recommend perusing Civvie's channel .

Best Immersive Sim this year. CTRL ALT Ego:

Ctrl Alt Ego on Steam

Innovative immersive sim with emphasis on problem-solving and creativity. Prey 2017 meets Portal, but with its own systems and mechanics. One of the best games of 2022 according to various credible sources (see store page) and one of the top puzzle games on PC according to RPS. Try the demo!

store.steampowered.com

Super underrated Chinese RPG. Think Witcher 3 meets Final Fantasy steeped in Chinese Mythology. Gujian 3:

Gujian3(古剑奇谭三) on Steam

Gujian 3 is a mass 3D single-person RPG developed by Aurogon Info & Tech (Shanghai), a subsidiary of Wangyuan Shengtang. As the latest hit of the Gujian series, it boasts more free and smooth combat experience with its full real-time combat system. This generation expands the world of Gujian...

store.steampowered.com

One of last year's hidden gems. Sprawling exploration driven dark fantasy adventure with tons to discover. Northern Journey

Northern Journey on Steam

A norwegian happysad game set in a northern land! Adventure through a beautiful and very varied wilderness. Dive, fly, use ziplines and find different weapons to aid your journey to reach the cold mountains and below. Encounter over 50 unique bosses and enemy types!

store.steampowered.com

also some of the best games this year are PC mods

Entropy Zero 2(free on STEAM):

Entropy : Zero 2 - Release Date Announcement Trailer

BAD COP RETURNS AUGUST 20Wishlist now to be notified when it releases:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1583720/Entropy__Zero_2/Join us on Discord: https://...

www.youtube.com

STALKER Gamma

G.A.M.M.A. Official Trailer

STALKER Grok's Automated Modular Modpack for Anomaly (G.A.M.M.A) is a complete overhaul for Stalker Anomaly. Like Anomaly, it is completely free to play and ...

www.youtube.com

 

[GJ]

Neon White. One of the best games of the year (the best if not for Elden Ring) and only available on Switch and PC.

It's practically unplayable with Joy-con because of the short sticks (Pro Controller plays like a dream, though) and it looks ugly as sin in handheld mode. PC is definitely the way to go if you own one.

 

[CubeApple76]

Any Total War game, most recently Total War Warhammer 3. Age of Empires 4, Civilization 6, and basically any other strategy game. CRPGs are also PC territory, Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 being my recent favorites

 

[Spark]

Legend of Grimrock and Underail. X4 if you want a space Sim.

RTS games like starship troopers terran command.

 

[inner-G]

Lots of games you might think of as "console games" are way better on PC and will play on your rig at far higher FPS/settings than you may (or may not) have played them at before:

Red Dead Redemption 2
Cyberpunk 2077
Forza Horizon 5
Dragon Quest XI S

(I played all those with an Xbox controller though, not mouse + kb)

 

[northnorth]

Both Pillars of Eternity games are light years better on PC, both KOTORs as well for the PC, can never go wrong with Baldurs Gate as well

Click to shrink...

Is KOTOR 1 and 2 up to par with the switch ports? I was under the impression that only those have the widescreen, updated UI, controller support etc. Or do mods cover all that stuff? Owned them on Steam for years, just remember there being issues and 4:3 and all that

 

[Shadow]

Sonic All Star Racing Transformed, as far as i know the PC version is the only version where you can play at 60 FPS, and it's excelent. For an arcade racing, the 60 FPS smootheness is a must.

Click to shrink...

I disagree. I have it on the Xbox One X and it plays at 60FPS on there and is smooth. Downside the in-game res 720p I believe, while the UI itself is much higher.

So I got it on PC to play it at 1440p/60+FPS. Sounds good right? The problem is it cannot go above or below 30FPS or 60FPS or else the game engine stutters bad. I tried a bunch of different fixes but none of them work. So you just turn on V-Sync right? Wrong. The built in v-sync causes massive input delay. I tried 3rd party framerate limiters and Nvidia's forced Vsync, but they don't help any. There's also other problems like getting stuck at 56FPS at certain settings, I forget the details.

Also a case of the game crashing on newer version of Windows. At least there's a fix for it though. Used the PC gaming wiki to figure a lot of it out.

It's a very messy port tbh. I hope they will remaster it so we can have high framerates, having a working v-sync and not having to download 3rd party stuff just to prevent crashing.

 

[brokenswiftie]

Kerbal Space Program


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/Kerbal_Space_Program/

 

[BetterGraphics]

Been back into PC gaming with the Steam Deck and I've been loving Euro and American Truck Simulator on it.

 

[Siri]

BallisticNG, Lisa: The Painful, Noita, Space Funeral (although it's quite old, perfectly playable), FAITH, Helltaker, Pony Island, ZeroRanger, Betrayal at Club Low, Underrail and Project Zomboid all spring to mind.

I still need to check out Kenshi, and... well, a bunch of other games because the PC scene is seriously vast.

 

[writhingcorpse897]

There's a few Steam local co op games that are unfortunately not available anywhere else.

I personally enjoy playing Heave Ho, Diner Bros and Pico Park with the family just to name a few.

Aside that, I hope you enjoy your time with PC gaming. Just hope you don't run into many games with shader compilation stutter issues which affects all systems equally when not patched.

 

[PJsprojects]

Elite Dangerous Odyssey.

Game had a massive update yesterday with full scale war breaking out.

 

[Siri]

Piss, I forgot about the most recent PC exclusive I've been enjoying, that I didn't see a lot of people talking about on this forum - Flat Eye. It's a very tidy management sim in the vein of Theme Hospital, but it's a service station that eventually evolves into a Black Mirror styled dystopian hellscape of convenience, body organ vending machines included. It's neat.

In terms of games that are better on PC, and out of the left field of the hundreds of Skyrim dong mods out there - Fire Pro Wrestling World's community. The series always had a scene that was shared with save files over the internet, but now there's swathes of custom characters, rings, and moves all shared seamlessly through Steam Workshop.

 

[Fall Damage]

Cultic- Retro shooter (apparently coming to consoles this year).

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty- Amazing RTS gameplay and AAA production. Probably the best free game you will find.

Half-life: Alyx- The most coveted PC exclusive if you're into VR.

 

[toadkarter]

Half-life: Alyx- The most coveted PC exclusive if you're into VR.

Click to shrink...

This was my game of the generation, an absolutely magical experience from start to finish. Should be top priority if OP is also investing in a VR setup

 

[JustTeaThankYou]

This is sort of a non answer, but one of the best things about pc gaming is that the barrier of entry is minuscule, and our memories are long.

Games can just be an executable, and sometimes not even that. There is an infinite supply of weird experimental indie games on itch.io, or just generally scattered around the internet. Your favourite deeply obscure indie game developer might just release a random demo for you to play with.

The modding scenes are obviously way better, with even stuff like the original doom (1993) still getting lots of mods today.

And you can play games right back to the eighties. This madman is still going I see, now up to the early nineties. Now you could be that madman!

 

[snausages]

It's actually on consoles as well, but the console version is rubbish, but Pathologic 2 is a top 5 contender the past few years.

 

[Rolento]

Hyper Demon/Devil Daggers