Fortunately, nearly all of them are free, so you can try them out without spending a dime! The fourth entry in the Counter-Strike franchise first came out in , but it still boasts a very active community of competitive players. Other great options include hero shooters like Overwatch and hybrid titles like Valorant. Both of these also have or are developing vibrant competitive scenes and full esports leagues.
For strategic multiplayer games, the options are much more limited. StarCraft 2 is still the best of the bunch, even more than a decade after release. It boasts an active pro scene and ladder community, plus an engaging storyline that everyone should play through at least once.
Still the most popular game in the world in , LoL puts you in control of one of more than champions in a 5v5 battle in a large battle arena. Both games are free-to-play, but DOTA 2 is a bit more friendly to pure f2p players with all characters unlocked from the get-go. Finally we get to a category that truly shines on PC. Strategy games, whether turn-based or otherwise, have a long history on the platform. The Total War franchise has been around for more than two decades now, and TW games have always been among the best PC games you can buy.
Based on the hit tabletop game, it features dragons and other huge beasts as well as magic and more. Are you the type of person who loves optimizing and managing complex systems? If so, Factorio is a great choice. The whole game takes place inside a factory, where you mine resources, research new tech, lay down infrastructure, and fight off attacking enemies.
The game rises in complexity exponentially as your factory grows, and now that the stable game is released it can support some truly enormous layouts. Battletech is a strategy game in the same universe as the MechWarrior series, but instead of hopping in the cockpit it features turn-based battles with squads of giant mechs, tanks, and other war machines. The game has an extensive campaign where you can customize mech loadouts and pilot skills, as well as online multiplayer play.
Since the game came out in , developer Harebrained Schemes has released three separate DLC packs. Each one adds new mechs, weapons, maps, and missions to the base game. This category might be confusing, since pretty much every gaming experience is some kind of simulation.
A farming sim at its core, Stardew Valley has you planting and taking care of crops, catching legendary fish , battling monsters in the mines, and participating in social events to find a suitable spouse. It perfects the Harvest Moon formula, and the one-man developer ConcernedApe has kept the game fresh with frequent updates, all of which are included in a one-time purchase of the base game.
Aside from an exhilarating campaign mode, the game also features a timeless multiplayer mode that gamers to this day still love.
Halo: Combat Evolved has five core game modes: Slayer, a mode where players must kill as many opposing players as possible; Oddball, where rounds are won by holding the ball for a set time without being killed; good ole Capture The Flag; King of the Hill where players hold a control point for a set amount of time, and Race.
The variety, complexity, and endless approach to the battlefield reward Halo the highest rating a multiplayer game has ever achieved. The greatest RPG of all time is surprisingly not a fantasy or medieval one. Rather, it's set in space, some years into the future.
Mass Effect 2 is the middle title in the Mass Effect trilogy. Like Mass Effect 1 and 3, it tailors the gameplay experience for each player, making the adventure feel more personal.
The decisions and dialogues players choose has a different effect on the story, and the gameplay is impressively varied as well. There are six classes to choose from; adept, soldier, engineer, vanguard, infiltrator, and sentinel. Each of these classes has two subclasses to specialize in. Everything can be customized, and anything players do in this game will have an effect.
Skateboarding games are a sandbox for fun tricks and thrashing mayhem. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is the king of this genre. Players are free to make an entire abandoned warehouse their playground. Cool tricks can be performed, huge jumps, and sweet grinds. There are also ramps where players can do impressive flips. Players can chain together tricks for massive points, earning new unlocks such as skaters and tricks. The fun gameplay of Pro Skater 2 perfectly captures skateboarding culture, encouraging players to just "go for it.
Whether you're building a sprawling metropolis in Cities: Skylines pictured , joysticking it to the man in Microsoft Flight Simulator or raising a family in The Sims, simulation games are undoubtedly most at home on PC. We admit there's certainly some potential on mobile platforms too.
We're including both real-time and turn-based because, quite frankly, they're all better on PC. Civilization VI is a case in point — it's only truly available on PC, as Mac OS can only support the single player campaign and consoles cannot handle it all. Most strategy games have to be pared down for console consumption as their internal architecture means the processing power is balanced heavily on graphical output rather than raw number crunching.
That's why football manager sims always feel like demos on consoles. The Total War series, the newest of which is Warhammer 2, release date pending, has never ventured out to our console brethren — consoles just can't handle the real-time battles and system requirements. That's not to say that it's impossible and foolhardy to make a playable and enjoyable strategy game on a console, as Halo Wars on the Xbox and Advance Wars on the humble GBA proved.
Certain concessions have to be made — the lack of keyboard and mouse means that not all the options are available all the time as they are on PC, and selecting units can be finicky without a mouse. So it's a strategic move to stick with a PC.
Yeah Halo, yeah, yeah, Call Of Duty, blah blah blah, whatever! There is no way of nailing a satisfying headshot without a mouse. With the pointer you can even pick which eyeball you want to pop out first. They were all so successful as mods that they were made into games in their own right, many sprouting sequels. Modification is at the heart of PC gaming and the FPS genre is where most of the innovation takes place. Halo: Combat Evolved is a massive multiplayer game, featuring tons of different weapons and vehicles to decimate opponents with.
Aside from an exhilarating campaign mode, the game also features a timeless multiplayer mode that gamers to this day still love. Halo: Combat Evolved has five core game modes: Slayer, a mode where players must kill as many opposing players as possible; Oddball, where rounds are won by holding the ball for a set time without being killed; good ole Capture The Flag; King of the Hill where players hold a control point for a set amount of time, and Race.
The variety, complexity, and endless approach to the battlefield reward Halo the highest rating a multiplayer game has ever achieved. The greatest RPG of all time is surprisingly not a fantasy or medieval one.
Rather, it's set in space, some years into the future. Mass Effect 2 is the middle title in the Mass Effect trilogy. Like Mass Effect 1 and 3, it tailors the gameplay experience for each player, making the adventure feel more personal. The decisions and dialogues players choose has a different effect on the story, and the gameplay is impressively varied as well.
There are six classes to choose from; adept, soldier, engineer, vanguard, infiltrator, and sentinel. Each of these classes has two subclasses to specialize in. Everything can be customized, and anything players do in this game will have an effect. Skateboarding games are a sandbox for fun tricks and thrashing mayhem.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is the king of this genre. Players are free to make an entire abandoned warehouse their playground. Cool tricks can be performed, huge jumps, and sweet grinds.
There are also ramps where players can do impressive flips. Players can chain together tricks for massive points, earning new unlocks such as skaters and tricks. The fun gameplay of Pro Skater 2 perfectly captures skateboarding culture, encouraging players to just "go for it.
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