
Arguably still trading on the advances made in Horizon 3, the latest game nonetheless offers an unrivaled open-world racing experience where cars handle the way you want them to, not the way they necessarily would, and where an improbable motorsports festival is always preparing the next Hollywood spectacle for you to send it through. Sim racing was born here, in an environment that knows a force feedback wheel when you plug one in.īut it’s 2021’s Forza Horizon 5, that console-est of racers, that forces its way onto the list.
BEST VIDEO GAMES 2014 2017 SERIES
The Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix series typifies it: stern, forensic simulation that tickles the anorak glands at the expense of accessibility. Racing has been a big part of the PC’s story, but it’s typically taken on a different aspect here than it has on consoles. If you prefer more direct action, check our list of the best sports games.
BEST VIDEO GAMES 2014 2017 PC
And for that, FM earns its place in the PC pantheon among stiff management game competition. It’s a rags to riches story that you write with every transfer, contract renewal and formation change, told with such vivid detail that you can’t help but regale people with your exploits even though you can tell they don’t care in the slightest how far you took Fiorentina into the Champions League. In three decades though, despite some monumental changes, the core experience has felt like a reassuring constant. “He must score! Van Nistelrooy… Goal kick.” During its lifespan it’s plumbed ever-increasing depths of the sport, simulating interpersonal locker room relationships and team talks, modeling the tactics du jour and even introducing 3D graphics in the mid-noughties to complement the match engine’s tantalizing words. With our methodology explained, we just need you to sign this waiver that absolves us from responsibility for any injuries incurred by falling CD-ROMs and any attempt from John Romero to make you his – well, you know, and we can now let you into the great hall.įootball Manager, née Championship Manager, has been a staple of PC gaming for as long as there have been spreadsheets and numbers between 1-20. The industry’s tendency to iterate on its most popular names and ideas means good games are often built on the foundations of great ones – so even though the real innovation might have happened nine years ago, we’re still inclined to put the best overall experience on a pedestal. Therefore, older games must be both playable and still genuinely enjoyable to make the cut, not simply ‘important’. But let’s be real: even if you did decide to go and play the original 1993 version of Syndicate after seeing it on this list, which you wouldn’t, getting it to run properly on modern hardware would be quite an undertaking. The first pertains to timeliness: PC gaming history spans several decades and many of its most revered titles were released during the 1990s, whose incredible tech breakthrough saw leaps forward in both fidelity and ideation. There’s lots to dig into.Īs custodians of this PC gaming corps d’elite, we must lay a few ground rules before allowing you into the great hall. Hades has made an entrance, and Half-Life: Alyx is fighting the corner for VR titles on PC.

We’ve also added Elden Ring because it’s the law and we don’t want to get fined. We’ve got PlayStation games on PC now and everything, forcing us to add the brilliant God of War to our ever-expanding list of great PC games. You’ve been gone a while and so much has happened in that time. We’ve tried clearing them out, but they grow back at an alarming rate.

BEST VIDEO GAMES 2014 2017 SERIAL
Look out for all the mouse balls and serial cables underfoot. You can hang your jacket on one of those vectors jutting out from Elite – one of the best space games ever made – over there, and we do ask that you leave all electronic devices inside this improbably large PC game box from 1997.

Got your ticket there for the best PC games to play in 2022? Ah, you do.
