THE TOP 100 GAMES OF ALL TIME

[Stella Brando]

100. Planescape: Torment​

Developer: Black Isle Studios
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Release: 1999
Where can I buy it: Steam, GOG
With its amnesiac hero waking up in a morgue with no clue who they are or what they're about, Planescape: Torment begins like a lot of video games do: filling in the gaps by teaching you and your hero about its world simultaneously. But it's the where Torment goes from there that matters. In this isometric RPG, finding the answers involves a little legwork through multiple dimensions. Turns out you're an immortal being called The Nameless One who's been resurrected with a new body and personality each time you die. But you aren't even the best part of Torment. It's a game revered for its characters, and the rest of its cast still hold sway even today, from Morte the floating skull to the bat-winged brothel matron Fall-From-Grace. It is getting on a bit, but the Enhanced Edition still makes this a brilliant outing even today.

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99. Celeste​

Developer: Extremely OK Games
Publisher: Extremely OK Games
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it: Steam, Humble
The phrase 'peak platforming' has never been more apt than with Celeste. You are a climber leaping and jumping up a mountain that's full of treacherous dashing and wall-jumping, offering players a steep challenge that always feels firm yet incredibly fair. It's one of those games that also feels intensely good under the thumbs, but isn't afraid to open itself up to those who less nimble fingers. Back in 2018, it set the standard for accessibility, offering up invincibility and infinite stamina options, and even went as far as letting you skip entire levels. None of these are unique to Celeste, of course, but developers Extremely OK Games have applied all this wisdom to create a platform game that's both tough as toffee in cold weather, and as forgiving as the grandad who gave you said toffee.

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98. Microsoft Flight Simulator​

Publisher: Xbox Games Studios
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam, Game Pass
As Microsoft's series of traditional aeroplane 'em ups approaches its 40th anniversary, the monumental achievement that is 2020's Microsoft Flight Simulator comes into ever greater focus. Not only are Asobo Studio constantly adding and improving this most seminal of flight sims, but it continues to be both a deep and slow-burning affair for off-duty pilots, as well as a gleeful cloud-skimming challenge for hobbyists. You can fly planes as small as a Cessna 152 or as large as an Airbus over a planet teeming with photorealistic cities, seas and mountains. It's a spectacular sight, made possible by capturing and rebuilding seemingly the entire world using (of all things) Bing maps. A true marvel if ever there was one.

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97. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat​

Developer: GSC Game World
Publisher: GSC Game World, Deep Silver
Release: 2010
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
S.T.A.L.K.E.R is the first-person post-apocalypse survival shooter that has everything you could possibly want from its respective genres. There's the open world full of mutants, bandits and other friendly fellow Stalkers, and its palette of browns and dark greens creates a world you can practically smell through your screen. Your mission is to find artifacts scattered throughout the "Zone" - an irradiated hellscape inspired by the Chernobyl exclusion zone (along with the Russian film that has an identical name). There are a larger objectives at play here as well, involving some downed helicopters, but like everything in this blasted radioactive heath, your actions are dictated by necessity.

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96. With Those We Love Alive​

Publisher: Porpentine
Release: 2014
Where can I buy it? It's free on the creator's website
It's amazing what white text on a crimson background can do. You are a member of an empress' court in this Twine text adventure, serving a creature described as both monarch and monster. Her city is a labyrinth of "dream distilleries" and "sporeflesh" gardens. And as the days pass, you'll draw symbols on your forearm in real life (no, really), totems of the time spent in this other world. You come away from this feeling scarred and changed. Razorlike pen marks or thick permanent marker strokes across your limb, completely different patterns and symbology to anyone else who plays. With Those We Love Alive is like falling asleep to a Grimm's fairytale at the tattooist and waking up with a dream printed on your skin.

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95. Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition​

Developer: Larian Studios
Publisher: Larian Studios
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
As Larian continue to toil away on Baldur's Gate 3, their most recent work, Divinity: Original Sin 2, remains a high point for RPG design. It's the kind of game where you can roleplay a stuck-up dragon prince and not get an intense amount of side-eye from real-life Dungeons & Dragoners, for starters, and its isometric, turn-based combat really encourages you to mess with the environment. Set oil slicks ablaze, electrocute soaking enemies, turn that corpse into a bloated bag of flesh and force it to fight for you. There is a central tale about the gods and the fickle games they play with this gang of potential chosen ones. But there are also enough off-beat sidequests and hidden storylines to inspire 82 episodes of a "good cop, bad cop" style Let's Play series. It's a huge, chunky RPG that will keep you enraptured for weeks, possibly months, and that's before you get into the open-ended co-op or the custom adventure creator that lets you design your own stories to take friends through as a benevolent (malevolent?) gamesmaster.

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94. Devil Daggers​

Publisher: Sorath
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Never stop shooting. Never stop moving. The first-person principles of warfare are taken to their logical conclusion in a hellish time trial of reflex and spatial awareness. Horned beasts, floating skulls, boney leviathans, dark squid. The flow of polygonal terrors is as constant as the daggers spewing from your fingertips. You can fire them as a stream, or in a single shotgun-like blast. Either way, you'll need your wits as well as a whip-like wrist to survive for 30 seconds. What more is there to do in Devil Daggers? Well, you try to survive for 31.

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93. Final Fantasy XIV​

Publisher: Square Enix
Release: 2013
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
What once began life in 2010 as an unremarkable online spin-off to Final Fantasy has since become one of the best MMORPGs of all time. Final Fantasy XIV has gone from strength to strength with every expansion it's received since 2010, and it's now been revamped and expanded to the point where many players dive into the land of Eorzea simply for the story quests. Make no mistake, this is still an MMO with plenty of rat-whacking. But it might be the best example of a genre that too often forgets to spin you a yarn as you level up. Here, colour is provided as much by players as by the developers. There are fashion contests, theatre troupes, even a full-blown housing crisis. And, of course, enough lore to fill a small library.

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92. Chicory: A Colorful Tale​

Publisher: Finji
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Chicory is a truly special game. Despite its big, chunky picture book veneer, this top-down adventure strikes hard at what it actually means to be a creative, celebrating its joyous and fulfilling highs while also tackling its (sometimes literally) monstrous lows. When all the colour in the world suddenly disappears one day, your character comes into possession of the Wielder's Brush, a magical tool you can drag and splodge across the screen to cover it in paint. As well as using it to bring some life back to this monochrome world, you'll also be solving puzzles with it, and finding out exactly what's causing mysterious black roots to appear around the map and why they're giving off such bad vibes. An ode to self-expression, Chicory's the kind of game that stays with you long after the end credits start to roll.

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91. Wildermyth​

Developer: Worldwalker Games
Publisher: Worldwalker Games, WhisperGames
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam
Play Wildermyth, you cowards. No joke, this game is a genuine marvel. On the surface, it's a tactical turn-based RPG about shepherding a bunch of wannabe adventurers around a fantastical world full of monsters. Its battles scratch all those lovely strategic itches you know and love - the flanking bonuses, the cover tiles, the adjacency-depending support skills - but it's also one of the best story generators of the last decade. Thanks to the dozens upon dozens of scripted micro-stories that play out over the course of its story - all based on your characters' personality traits, skills, background, relationships and your own decisions, I might add - Wildermyth's narrative ambitions put other RPGs to shame. You never play the same game twice in Wildermyth, and once you've experienced it, you'll never want to go back to the humdrum tomes of other Tolkien-esque fantasies ever again.

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90. Eliza​

Publisher: Zachtronics
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Eliza is one of those rare games that isn't afraid to ask big tech questions. A challenging yet uplifting visual novel, it puts you in the shoes of Evelyn, a former tech-ite who now works as a human proxy for the eponymous AI counselling programme that helps the world at large deal with its woes and worries. It's an AI that generates things for Evelyn to say to her 'clients', because it's the algorithm that knows best in these cases, not the human sitting across the desk from them. At first you must pick from the list of Eliza-written responses, but later Evelyn has the option to go off-script, with all the potential effects that implies. Eliza is not only beautiful to look at, but it's also compelling to play. Is something better than nothing? Is it worse? What, after all, do we owe to each other?

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89. Invisible, Inc.​

Developer: Klei Entertainment
Publisher: Klei Entertainment
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
XCOM for stealthy hackers. As squad leader of a group of well-dressed anti-corporate saboteurs, your job is to infiltrate randomly generated buildings and steal everything that isn't nailed down. It's all on a tidy isometric grid that gradually reveals itself the further you go, peeping through doors and around corners to see the CCTV cameras, laser fences, and armoured security goons patrolling the place. Shh, they don't know you're there… yet. This is Invisible Inc's best feature, a little "alarm level" wheel in the corner that ticks up with every turn. Stay in the building too long without stuffing all your team members into the exit elevator, and more cameras and drones and enemies will start to appear. That's pure danger in a game where, once spotted, there is no fighting back. At some point, you've got to bug out. Even if that last room has precious loot calling out to you. It's a strategy game about pushing your luck to breaking point, and coming away from a mission thinking "that was close, I won't be so greedy next time." But next time the "loot" might be one of your friends.

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88. Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun​

Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Let the bodies hit the floor (and then pick them up and hide them in a bush). This here's your top-down stealth game set in Edo Japan, featuring the usual cast of seasoned killers. You've got your silent ninja, your honourable samurai, your Geisha assassin, your urchin with a bear trap and a whistle, your old man with... a sniper rifle and a trained Tanuki? It imitates the Commandos games of old, presenting the level like a diorama of possible deaths, and asking the player to come up with a perfect sequence of backstabs, shurikens and environmental "accidents" so they can get through town, eavesdrop on soldiers, or assassinate their leaders. It might take some quicksaving and quickloading, but when the plan comes together it feels like a lethal puzzle well-solved.

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87. Red Dead Redemption 2​

Developer: Rockstar Studios
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Wanna get dead drunk? How about Red Dead drunk? Ha ha ha. No, for real, if you get drunk in this game you'll trip on a railway line and get flattened by a steam train. Rockstar, the developers of this cowboy life simulator, did not hold back. It is not precisely a world of "realism". You will kill hundreds of people and swallow enemy bullets like they are delicate pastries. But there is something about the way plain-faced anti-hero Arthur Morgan walks, the way he rides his horse and holds his revolver. Everything is weighty, everything requires a bit of work. From opening up and scoffing down a jar of health-regenerating offal, to getting out your lasso to hogtie some do-gooder witness to your recent crimes. Red Dead Redemption 2 is video games as wild man power fantasy. But it is also your sit in a canoe and chill out fantasy. Go fishing in the wild west fantasy. Get eaten by a bear fantasy. Drink too much whiskey and wake up in a canyon fantasy. It's a big world out there, and a man can only spit so far.

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86. Half-Life: Alyx​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam
Still a masterclass in how to make a VR game, Half-Life: Alyx is clear, undeniable proof that Valve are still very much at the top of their game. Set in City 17 five years before the events of Half-Life 2, you play as a younger Alyx Vance on a mission to rescue her father from the shackles of the Combine. Shooting in VR remains as tense, taut and tactile as ever, and the screech of a head crab has never been more terrifying. After all, it's not your monitor screen they're leaping at any more, but your actual, literal face. But it's the little details that really make Alyx sing, from scribbling on window panes with in-game marker pens in real-time, to playing the piano and simply watching bottles of liquid slosh around in your hand thanks to their impeccable physics. And what hands they are, too. Clad in a nifty pair of gravity gloves, they not only let you reach out and grab whatever object the Combine have left lying around, but they also double up as your health and ammo meters, elegantly removing the need for a traditional HUD. Is it worth buying an entire headset for? Maybe not, unless you have very deep pockets, but if you do have one, this is about as essential as it gets.

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85. Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip​

Developer: Beautiful Glitch
Publisher: Those Awesome Guys
Release: 2022
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Monster Prom 3 is so new the paint's still wet, but I'm already calling it: this is the best Monster Prom game yet. A follow-up to the original 2018 multiplayer dating sim and its 2020 sequel, Monster Roadtrip delivers on the best of what we've come to expect, but refines the formula significantly. Monster Prom games were always charming, but the shift away from relatively-straightforward dating sim to survival strategy with-dating-elements makes playing this latest entry with pals feel more meaningful. You now have a choice of modes on a sliding scale from co-operative to competitive, and the visual novel sections are much punchier — but no less packed with laughs and lore. Basically every character from the first and second games makes a return, and there are some lovely moments as you see relationships you've been following for the past two games deepen. They've even added save states, so you no longer need to complete each run in a single session! Pure monster-romancin' bliss.

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84. Resident Evil Village​

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam
Resident Evil Village is a blend of slow, creeping horror that lurches out from the shadows to scare you when you least expect it, and riveting action that packs your pockets with ammo before unleashing hordes of ravenous werewolves. That might sound like an identity crisis, but it excels at both halves so triumphantly that it’s hard not to come away impressed. From stumbling through a ghoul-filled cellar flooded with deep ruby wine to blasting iron soldats in the face with a grenade launcher, Resident Evil Village forces you to face your fears and then helps you conquer them with an explosive blast. In other words, it’s nice horror. Horror that guides you through the feeling of shitting your pants and back to the sensible werewolf-slaying champ that you are, rather than leaving you huddled in the corner in a panicked sweat. I appreciate that a lot.

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83. Subnautica​

Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Survival games often place you in a harsh environment, usually populated by monsters, zombies or other threats. Subnautica puts you in a world that is only harsh because you don't belong there. There are no monsters here, only animals you haven't seen before. There is so much life in this first-person survivathon, and you'll need to dive among the reefs and sci-fi shipwrecks to find the materials you need to stay alive. Quench your thirst with some Bladderfish, eat a salted Peeper, take refuge in the big underwater cylinder of titanium you will call home. Other survival games would be content to leave it at this - a loop of crafting and getting by. But here, the radio crackles. A beacon! Somebody else might still be alive! This is how the subtle storytelling begins. Off you go on one of the many exploratory dives through this massive, handmade seascape. As a survival game, Subnautica is the best, with perhaps one blocky exception. As a journey of discovery, it is incomparable.

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82. XCOM 2​

Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a landmark moment in the world of tactical strategy games, busting open and rejuvenating a genre that had long since lain dormant. But then Firaxis went and did it again with XCOM 2, remoulding and improving on the original in just about every way possible. In the last game, you were tasked with fending off an alien invasion, but things did not go well, judging by the set up for the story here. Instead, you're now playing as the resistance, turning fights into powerful ambushes rather than messy run-ins with enemies you couldn't see. There's no relying on a constant stream of overwatch cones anymore. Instead, XCOM 2 takes everything that its predecessor already did incredibly well, and shakes it until it is somehow better. There is a base-building overworld to think about. Resources to manage. Troopers to keep healthy. Psychic supersoldiers to train. This is one of the most moreish, plenteous, and - dare I say it - replayable games on this list.

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81. Into The Breach​

Developer: Subset Games
Publisher: Subset Games
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Into The Breach is about as close to the perfection of chess as a strategy game about giant robots is likely to get. While not exactly "minimalist", this dollop of turn-based tactics from the makers of FTL still gets a lot done in a tight space. You command a trio of mechs fighting off swarms of giganto-insects on a 8 x 8 board of tiles. The megabugs are out to topple any buildings on the board, and if too many buildings crumble (or all your pilots are killed) it's game over. What results is a cavalcade of punching, hopping, vapourising, smoke-bombing, and mech-sacrificing that turns a straightforward game of abstract repositioning into a brainy battle for supremacy betwixt humanity and beast.

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80. Before Your Eyes​

Developer: GoodbyeWorld Games
Publisher: Skybound Games
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, Epic Games Store
Before Your Eyes is a first-person story-driven game that takes advantage of your webcam, so when you blink in real life you skip time forwards in-game. Not only is it a beautifully realised world composed of brief vignettes, it's one that's masterfully arranged, steering you through memories of a life's mundane joys and deepest sorrows with an impeccable flow. Above all, the game links you so strongly to the main protagonist through your blinks, it's like you're both physically attached to them and having an out-of-body experience. With a pair of headphones on and a spare 90-minutes, you'll be in your room blinking back tears for a life that's entirely yours until the credits roll. There's nothing quite like it.

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79. North​

Developer: Gabriel Helfenstein
Publisher: Gabriel Helfenstein
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, Itch
I've fought demons and dragons in medieval villages, explored the cities of long-dead aliens, and even driven a car, but no game has made me feel as lost and out of place as first-person explore-o-puzzler North. Applying for asylum in North after fleeing South, you have to integrate into a society you don't understand, following rules which seem arbitrary, feigning beliefs by copying their trappings, and trying to do a job which seems impossibly cruel. What does this society value? What's good and what's bad? How much do I need? How can this be better than the situation we escaped? The answer involves a lot of curiosity, trial and error, and discovering strange and terrible things. How wonderful to feel this lost, confused, unease, threatened, and desperately unhappy.

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78. Tomb Raider II​

Developer: Core Design
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Release: 1997
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Released only 13 months after the original game, Tomb Raider II nevertheless showed off a number of improvements, mainly on the graphical side. Lara Croft now resembled a human being, and could even be taken for the woman on the box if you squinted. The sky overhead was no longer a depthless abyss even in the outdoor sections. Rounded edges were not unheard of. Affectionate ribbing aside: 25 years on, Tomb Raider II still features some of the finest set pieces in the franchise. This one game gave us Venice Violins, one of the most iconic musical compositions in gaming; an underwater level where your sole goal is to outswim a shark; snowmobile navigation sections with a surprising degree of replay value; and, to top it all off, an extended peek at Lara's home Croft Manor in the epilogue. 1998's Tomb Raider III deserves an honourable mention as well, but for the title that really set the standard for action-adventure gaming, it has to be TRII.

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77. The Beginner's Guide​

Developer: Everything Unlimited Ltd
Publisher: Everything Unlimited Ltd
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam
The Beginner's Guide is, at its core, an examination of those who create and how other people interpret those creations. It’s a game about games. About relationships. About friendships. Narrated by Davey Wredon, the co-creator of the Stanley Parable, you are guided through a series of unfinished Source Engine games created by Wreden’s online friend. To say any more would be a spoiler, but know this: The Beginner’s Guide is a masterclass in storytelling that results in a vicious gut punch that is completely unforgettable.

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76. Garry’s Mod​

Developer: Facepunch Studios
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2006
Where can I buy it? Steam
PC gaming "culture", for lack of a better word, can be insular and overly serious. It can also be a wide-open, endlessly creative laugh riot, and few games embody that like Garry’s Mod. Whether it’s acting as the scaffolding for an homemade games-within-a-game or serving as a stop motion animation tool, you can be sure that even today, and probably right now, someone is sat down using Garry’s Mod to make something interesting. Of course, you don’t have to be a modder or aspiring game dev to get your seven quid’s worth. The server browser in Garry’s Mod is unique in its, uh, breadth: besides big-name GMod creations like Prop Hunt and Trouble in Terrorist Town, there are base building games, zombie survival games, obstacle course games, racing games, and uncountable roleplay servers. Or you could just load up a sandbox map and pose an Eli Vance ragdoll giving the Team Fortress 2 Heavy a piggyback. Up to you.

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[Stella Brando]

75. Dyson Sphere Program​

Developer: Youthcat Studio
Publisher: Gamera Games
Release: 2021 (early access)
Where can I buy it? Steam
Dyson Sphere Program was such an ambitious idea for a game, I immediately scoffed upon hearing it. A factory building game like Factorio, set on an actual spherical planet? Oh excuse me - not just one planet, but dozens of planets across multiple star systems, all entirely traversable? And the aim is to create a Dyson Sphere out of hundreds or thousands of parts, capable of harnessing the power of a star to run an entire civilization living inside a virtual reality simulation? Bah! Preposterous! Turns out, they completely and utterly nailed it. From the first moments trundling about the surface of a planet mining ores with your fuel-powered mech, I was sold. The game ran smoothly, the scope and soundtrack were inspiring, and the lure of steadily automating mega-factories spanning whole solar systems, and creating massive interplanetary transport and logistics networks, was utterly captivating. It's a truly special game.

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74. Destiny 2​

Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activision, Bungie
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam
Destiny 2 is the FPS for the following people: parents whose children just got put to bed; retail workers too tired after a shift to go out on Friday; teens with buds; teens with no buds; teens who will make buds and join a clan in Destiny 2. It's good, clean, alien-shootin' fun is what I'm saying. You can smash the ground with your fist every once in a while, and wipe out a whole squad of robots, or take out a big, blunt sword and batter an insectoid miniboss to death. Everything is laid out for you on a platter - objective, reward, bonuses. As multiplayer games go, this is one of the cleanest and most approachable. Until it's time to do a raid, that is. A raid is this sci-fi world's tough dungeon dive and it requires solid teamwork amongst a bunch of geared-up pals. It's a commitment, but one that Destopals often call a rewarding struggle. People often talk about Bungie's 30 seconds of fun philosophy, but Destiny 2 is more like a full 15 minutes. Or an hour. Maybe two hours...

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73. Tunic​

Developer: Andrew Shouldice
Publisher: Finji
Release: 2022
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Game Pass
At first glance, Tunic appears to be little more than an homage to Nintendo's The Legend Of Zelda. Its little fox protagonist wears a green tunic, he rocks up unconscious on a beach a la Link's Awakening, and he must fight the world's monsters with little more than a sword and shield. But Tunic does so much more than merely paying lip service to what came before. This is a rare game that doesn't just understand what made those Zelda games tick, but it iterates on them and moves the conversation forward - and it's all thanks to its ingenious in-game instruction manual, a tool which you assemble page by page, and gradually decode symbol by symbol as you move through the world and uncover its secrets. It's a game that bottles and preserves the purest form of childlike discovery, while also being rock hard at the same time. Don't be fooled by its cute looks. Tunic is a wily, cunning game that absolutely lives up to its vulpine namesake.

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72. Grand Theft Auto 5​

Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release: 2013
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
The online murder-frollicking by itself makes this third-person crime caper worth the price of admission. Rockstar's expensive, blockbuster open worlds are often touted for their long stories and South Park-adjacent sense of humour. But we all know what matters in a GTA game is chaos. And chaos works best when you have a van full of friends to cause it with. The online world might see you performing heists with your buds, getting matching tattoos, buying more property than you can rightly afford, or dressing up as green aliens and getting into a gangland turf war with some purple aliens. Like all good online games, it is a simply solid place to hang out with your pals. Even if that sometimes gets interrupted by a harrier jet.

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71. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt​

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
The Witcher 3 has fallen quite a way from last year's list, but this gruff-voiced fantasy role-playing game set in a kingdom beset by war and big griffins is still a firm favourite in the RPS Treehouse. Your hero, Geralt of Rivia, is a sort of white-haired Wolverine of a parallel medieval era. He slurps potions and solves crimes. His occupation is "monster slayer" but he does a bit of world-saving on the side. Really, it is all an excuse to track down and find his adoptive daughter Ciri, and you spend a lot of the game ambling from town to town doing odd jobs and quests for friends (fairweather and otherwise) in an effort to discover more on her current whereabouts. Once upon a time, if you had asked us for the best fantasy RPG that sends its player on a cross-country adventure where their choices matter and new companions live or die on the back of your actions, you would have simply been handed whatever Dragon Age came to mind and told to "romance Alistair". The Witcher 3 has long butchered and barbequed that sacred cow, becoming the fanciest third-person choose-your-own-adventure on PC.

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70. Half-Life: Opposing Force​

Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: Sierra Studios, Valve
Release: 1999
Where can I buy it? Steam
Ooh, Half-Life isn’t on the list but Opposing Force is. This standalone expansion was developed by Gearbox as Valve were working on other things at the time, and the end result is a game that's more or less the next best thing to Half-Life 2, a full five years before Valve returned to the series. The game dumps capable scientist Gordon Freeman to put you in the boots and body armour of U.S. Marine Adrian Shepherd instead, and really takes the meaning of expansion literally. It embraces the Half-Life formula of eschewing cutscenes in favour of scripted sequences, but gives you Marine pals, new aliens and their weapons – such as the shock roach, spore launcher, and barnacle grapple – and a fresh perspective on the perils of Black Mesa. While I love the original Half-Life dearly, I’d cheat on it with the edgier Opposing Force any day of the week. Sorry, Gords.

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69. Gears 5​

Developer: The Coalition
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, Game Pass
Gears 5 is peak third-person bombast, with beefy lads and lasses that fire beefy guns and get a bit emotional over a dozen or so hours. It might not share in the same survival-horror themes of the early Gears games, but it makes up for it with explosions and violence to wrest back control of a future-Earth swarming with muscular aliens. The game marries heft and movement beautifully, with your squad of beefcakes bashing into cover with delightful slaps and smooth transitions. There's fabulous weight behind gibs, as you blast enemies into literal chunks or pop their heads with a squelch. Unabashed, epic violence with the gang – you just don't get that anymore.

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68. Dog Of Dracula 2​

Developer: Team Batsu
Publisher: Team Batsu
Release: 2013
Where can I buy it? It's free on GameJolt
"This story is dedicated to all those otakus who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives," begins Dog Of Dracula 2, lampooning the opening of Snatcher, a game written by Hideo Kojima while on a real Blade Runner trip. That's how it goes in this cyberpunk visual novel: layers of pastiche, ripped assets, and jokes bent towards the absurd. Playing as a worn-out animal groomer with a serious sauce problem (not slang for a cool drug; literal sauce), we're slammed through a world of anime, movies, snacks, corporate gamer culture, kewl hackers, and trash cyberpunk as we live in the shadow of the megacorps and contemplate sticking it to The Man. As a fan of trash cyberpunk, it's such a joy, and just about every screen has a joke which makes me laugh.

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67. Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers​

Developer: Sierra On-Line
Publisher: Sierra On-Line, Activision
Release: 1993
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
A quintessential example from the golden age of point and click adventure gaming, Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers is deservedly remembered for being one of those rare games that is truly outstanding across the board. The writing, voice acting, music, and puzzles are all top-notch; and even if the graphics betray the game's origins in the early '90s, who could deny the retro beauty of that pixel art? Never mind the fact that it spawned two sequels and a remake that received a more divisive reception; you'll rarely find anyone with a bad word to say about the original. For many children of the era, this was one of our first really grown-up video games, featuring characters who felt like real people facing situations that were unflinchingly menacing and deeply gruesome. And, thankfully, GK1 is one of those rare titles that remains just as accessible now as it was 30 years ago.

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66. Unavowed​

Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
It's true that the phrase "2D point and click adventure game" will be enough to bring some people out in a rash alone, but even they would have to add the qualifier "Unavowed is really good though, in fairness". Wadjet Eye became known for their supernatural mysteries in gorgeous pixel art, and Unavowed really pours gasoline on that flame (this is a good metaphor because one of the characters is a fire mage). As the newest member of a squad of supernatural investigators, you go around fixing problems around the city relating to general otherworldly tomfoolery. You can take any two of the NPCs with you at a time, meaning levels can play out very differently if you take, for example, the ex-cop with a gun rather than the medium who can see ghosts. This effective layering of puzzles is wrapped up in an equally effective story, tying in the past and present of many of your new compatriots, as well as yourself. You start to genuinely care about these silly, lovable goons, and the conclusion is both satisfying and poignant. It's an example of everything in adventure games done right.

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65. What Remains of Edith Finch​

Developer: Giant Sparrow
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble Store, Epic Games Store
What Remains of Edith Finch is a powerhouse of storytelling, and I can guarantee snippets of its story will stay with you long after you’ve closed the game. This first-person adventure tells an anthology of strange tales about the deceased Finch family, and as the household’s last living member, Edith has returned to the Finch household to uncover the family’s hidden histories and how each of her relatives met their end. That sounds pretty morbid, but that’s because it is! But What Remains of Edith Finch is also full of moments of wonder, surprise and profound happiness masterfully told through careful art direction. As Edith discovers the past of each family member, you’re transported directly into that person’s headspace at a particular moment in their lives, putting you at the centre of each of their tales. If you’re a fan of games that experiment with new ways of storytelling and can take the occasional emotional gut-punch, you've gotta play this game.

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64. Zero Escape: The Nonary Games​

Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam
Technically two games in one, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games sees the excellent visual novels 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward come together in a grisly, murderous double-pack. With their fiendish puzzles and mind-bending plots, the Zero Escape games are hands down one of the best visual series you can play on PC right now. To say too much about the story would only spoil its many surprises, but each game's respective melting pot of fraught personalities, bitter betrayal and tentative alliances is thrilling, gripping stuff. What's truly brilliant about Zero Escape, however, is the way it turns that classic visual novel trope of multiple playthroughs on its head, as the idea of jumping back in time and making different decisions based on what you've just experienced is built straight into the game's story. And it doesn't always play out like you might expect, either. If you like games that give you plenty to chew over long after the credits have rolled, Zero Escape is the thing for you.

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63. Little Nightmares​

Developer: Tarsier Studios
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Tarsier's side-scrolling toybox of terrors is a great puzzle platformer, for sure. But it's also an exquisite little horror game. Watching poor tiny Six, in her yellow coat that's too big for her, crawl through the bowels of a horrible ship of monsters is an unforgettable experience. People talk about the monsters that chase you: grotesque, giant, long limbed, the uncanny twisting of angry grown-ups as glimpsed by a scared child. And yeah, they're very good. But what you've really got to watch out for is the level and sound design. The sequel is very good, too, but it doesn't have a room full of discarded shoes, knocking together with leathery squeaks and hollow clatters. Why... why are there so many shoes? Why are they here? Who decided to keep them? And what, exactly, is chasing you through them...?

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62. Hardspace: Shipbreaker​

Developer: Blackbird Interactive
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Release: 2022
Where can I buy it?Steam, Epic Games Store
The life of a shipbreaker isn’t easy. It’s their job to tear apart hulking space cruisers, harvesting their materials to pay off an astronomical debt to their own employers. Not only do they have limited amounts of oxygen to contend with, but wrecks themselves are packed with hazards. One misplaced laser slice could result in a catastrophic explosion that atomises both them and their precious haul. Still, despite the constant threat of death, shipbreaking doesn’t seem so bad. Methodically separating metal panels and disconnecting fuel lines is a fairly relaxing way to spend an afternoon. Hardspace is mundane in that compelling way only the best games about work can be. Pop on a podcast and get scrapping. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is an absolute delight.

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61. Stardew Valley​

Developer: ConcernedApe
Publisher: ConcernedApe
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Stardew is a farming simulator with a whole life attached to it. You can happily spend every day growing carrots or wheat or flowers on your outskirts farm by this pixelly village, ambling into town once in a while to sell your beetroots and buy seeds for next season. But you won't. You'll go fishing on the pier for a whole week. You'll explore caves and meet some slimes. You'll hand a homemade pie to your favourite neighbour and watch their face distort with polite yet unimpressed acceptance. It may be a spiritual successor to Harvest Moon, but the density of stuff to do in this little hamlet surpasses anything your nostalgic memory of those older games can manage. You can rebuild a community centre with the help of some magical pipsqueaks. You can start a one-person jam industry. You can stick your nose in the dramas and problems of the villagers. You can woo and marry that pie-hating neighbour, and have a baby with them who will sit in the house all day and do nothing while you toil the earth, what an ingrate. Stardew Valley offers its players low-key control over a small patch of land. It is less a power trip and more the manifestation of that simple life that so many of us, at some point, wish we could have.

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60. Hollow Knight​

Developer: Team Cherry
Publisher: Team Cherry
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
An action game that's anything but hollow, this is a subterranean world full of angry wasps and skull-faced beetles waiting to bite and sting. Hollow Knight sprawls out in every direction, a modern mash-up of Metroid and Dark Souls. The insects of Hallownest are grim-faced, mysterious and adorable all at the same time. But within its cartoon gothic lies a tough game of death and rebirth, unlockable skills, boss battles with set patterns of attack, and the satisfying feeling of learning your way around a cavernous, dim world with its own bug-sized culture. Just look at this map, and tell me you aren't intrigued.

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59. Heaven's Vault​

Developer: Inkle
Publisher: Inkle
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
This adventure game will teach you how to read again. Granted, it won't be in English, or any language used by the people of earth, but Ancient. That's the hieroglyphic script used by a long-dead civilisation in Heaven's Vault, and it's your job as scholar and cosmic sailor Aliyah Elasra to reconstruct the history of "The Nebula" by deciphering this long lost lingo. This is no mere gimmick. An entire language has been created especially for you to scratch your chin over. If that sounds hard, don't worry. The game massages your guesswork if you're too far off the mark, but never so much that it takes the satisfaction away. It doesn't just make you feel clever, like when detective stories guide you to a solution. It lets you really be clever. Discovering what makes one word a verb and another an adjective is just one early revelation waiting for those who go all in on this constructed fantasy language. There are so many other joyful discoveries. Every compound word is made of smaller components that come together in their own logical way. The word for "star" is literally "high bright light thing". Tenses have their own defining symbols. And figuring out how the Ancients used to write big numbers is a particular head scratcher with a fascinating solution.

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58. Fallout: New Vegas​

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release: 2010
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
You've been shot in the head. But when has that ever stopped you? The nuclear wasteland has been traipsed upon by many a Fallout game, but New Vegas is the one with heart. Essentially a road trip with quite a lot of detours, this first-person shooter RPG entrusts you with the future of Nevada, including a revived city of gamblers and rogues. Highlights on this tour of the radioactive desert include: being shot at by a sniper embedded in a dinosaur's mouth, finding a bunch of people crucified by men dressed as Roman centurions, cracking the skull of the blazer-wearing scumbag who put a bullet in your brain and left you in a ditch. This makes it sound all action. In reality, much of New Vegas is spent jabbering. Thanks to the complex branching storytelling that other Fallout games neglected, talking your way through some conflicts is a viable strategy. See for yourself, postie. Pay a visit to the megalomaniac who has styled himself after Caesar, and try to play him off against the army of prissy Californian soldier boys. It'll probably work out.

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57. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain​

Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Attempting to pick through the conspiratorial history of Metal Gear's universe is a mission even the most leathery of special ops agents would refuse, but MGS V: The Phantom Pain makes it all worthwhile. This is a glorious third-person muckabout not because of the winding nonsense happening on-screen between levels (well, maybe a little bit) but rather because of the wide open world. You have the carte blanche of a lone soldier operating behind enemy lines, under the orders of no government. You can deploy inflatable dummies on the road in Afghanistan and lie in the sand nearby until a truck hammers the brakes and the drivers get out to apprehend the balloon man. Then you can steal the truck and drive it into the desert. You can run back and tranquilise the drivers, and take them into the desert too, and wake them up surrounded by a circle of more inflatable dummies. No, this has nothing to do with your mission. You're supposed to be infiltrating an outpost and bringing a hostage to safety. But look at these idiots. This is much more fun.

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56. Terraria​

Developer: Re-Logic
Publisher: 505 Games
Release: 2011
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Terraria is Minecraft without the fussy third dimension. You can craft your way to a stunning cabin in the wilds of its lushest forests, or you can dig a nice troglodyte's hole in the ground and make it just as cosy. This is all about homemaking, and I don't mean in the traditional "cook dinner and do some sewing sense". No, it's about literally creating yourself a home, a place to call your own among the zombies and creepy things that lurk in the ground beneath. Oh, you'll be going down there, make no mistake. You didn't think you'd be crafting without the mining, did you? Don't worry. The randomly generated 2D world can be as forgiving or nasty as you want to set it.

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55. Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura​

Developer: Troika Games
Publisher: Activision
Release: 2001
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Arcanum to its friends (of which there are many) is an isometric, story-heavy cRPG with a lot of interweaving quests and weirdness. Think original Fallout (this came from a lot of the same core team) and you're in the right area. Except Arcanum is set in a fantasy word of orcs and elves, caught in the midst of an industrial revolution. Magic and technology are also incompatible, often misfiring or bricking around one another. You could be anything from a long-striding gunslinger to a battle mage, but expect to have wildly different experiences based on how you build your character. Arcanum is a complex world, and the powers of science and sorcery aren't the only things you'll have to deal with. As is the way of things, you become responsible for saving this weird, lush world, and in the process you'll have the chance to solve a demonic murder mystery, engage in some art theft, make shady business deals, travel to an island prison colony, and annoy some elves. Arcanum gives you few hints and a lot of freedom, and it's still a rich delight to play today.

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54. If Found…​

Developer: Dreamfeel
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam, Itch
If Found… remains one of the best visual novels on PC. Dreamfeel’s coming-of-age story follows Kasio, a young trans woman who is returning to her small Irish hometown 1993. Taking place within a series of diary entries, the only way to read this story is to erase what’s on screen. Using your mouse an eraser, you can wipe away the diary’s words, sketches, and scribbles to reveal more entries, acting as a transition to get from one scene to the next. Erasing someone’s written thoughts and feelings at first feels destructive but it quickly starts to feel like a force for healing. You’re essentially destroying the past to make room for a new beginning and that’s something that really touched me the first time I played. If Found… is ultimately a story about being young, queer, and trying to get your shit together that’s both beautifully raw and gut-wrenching authentic.

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53. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy​

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Keeping with the visual novel theme for a minute, Capcom's courtroom lawyer 'em up series of Phoenix Wright games are another high point for this most clickable of genres - and the Ace Attorney Trilogy gives us definitive proof of that on PC. Bundling HD versions of the first three games of the series into one, finger-waving treat, the Ace Attorney Trilogy sees newbie lawyer Phoenix Wright fight for the lives of his clients, gathering clues to prove their innocence and finding flaws in witness testimony with a big bellowing cry of "OBJECTION!" All three games have devilishly good mysteries at the heart of them, and courtroom scenes are a real thrill from start to finish - especially when the climactic third game ties them all together. You could quite easily start with its more recent, flashier prequel, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, if you prefer - they both hold up as equally brilliant standalone experiences that don't require any previous knowledge in order to enjoy - but for us, the Ace Attorney Trilogy shows Wright in his best and purest form. And that, my friends, is the honest to goddamn truth.

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52. Dusk​

Developer: David Szymanski
Publisher: New Blood Interactive
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
”Kill the intruder”. Dusk doesn’t do anything by half-measures, and its introduction is no exception. Awakening in a grungy basement, with nothing but a pair of rusty sickles to your name, you are immediately attacked by three chainsaw-wielding psychopaths with bags over their heads. From there, Dusk just keeps escalating further. Dilapidated farmhouses give way to decaying cities, haunted military bases and floating cathedrals to eldritchian deities. Yeah. Dusk goes places. Your journey is a rollercoaster of blood, bullets and nightmarish monsters. Weapons are snappy and chewy, an arsenal of powerful firearms that turn most of your adversaries into a pile of gooey gibs. Dusk is the game that influenced the current wave of retro-inspired FPS games, and for good reason. It’s still the best of the bunch.

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51. Valheim​

Developer: Iron Gate AB
Publisher: Coffee Stain Publishing
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble, Game Pass
Valheim has come the closest to capturing the sense of wonder and discovery of early days Minecraft - an incredible feat considering Minecraft was something entirely new at the time. Valheim doesn't innovate on the formula much, but it still has a host of lovely and engrossing simulation systems, such as wooden buildings that get wet in the rain, smoke that collects in rooms without a chimney, and - most dangerous of all - giant tree trunks that obey gravity and roll down slopes like unstoppable cylinders of death once chopped.

The best thing about this stylish Norse-inspired survival game is exploring its procedurally generated worlds. The worlds aren't infinite, but they are gigantic, and the one real quest - to summon and slay the various bosses found across this mystical world - sends you very far afield at times. The joy of packing up your things, crafting a longship, and setting sail across rough seas on a long voyage across Sea Serpent-infested waters is unforgettable, and the thing that will keep us coming back to Valheim again and again.

 

[Stella Brando]

50. Hitman 3​

Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: IO Interactive
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble, Epic Games Store, Game Pass
IO Interactive's World Of Assassination trilogy has gone from strength to strength over the years, culminating in the most thrilling of their 'kill the boss simulators', Hitman 3. This is a game that's all about dressing up as the chef and sticking a cake knife in a bad person's back. Or maybe poisoning their champagne. Perhaps you prefer the gentleman's approach, such as pushing them off the roof of an unfinished skyscraper. Or mulching them into wine thanks to that handy grape press over there. You get the idea. There are so many brilliantly delicious assassination options to pursue here - and thanks to IO's cunningly all-inclusive access passes to the older games in the trilogy, you can do the deed in all the best missions from Hitman 1 and 2 right from the heart of this third game as well. It is, quite literally, the best of three worlds. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lovely bottle of claret that needs corking.

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49. Age Of Empires II: Definitive Edition​

Developer: Forgotten Empires, Tantalus
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, Game Pass
There's a reason why people are still playing Age Of Empires II decades after the game was released, instead of the much more recent Age Of Empires IV. The earlier example of the real-time strategy sequels had simply captured the mystery and brutality of the Middle Ages so perfectly already, and to a soundtrack of proper banging choons. "Chaos is a ladder," said Game Of Throne’s Machiavellian pimp Littlefinger. That’s Age Of Empires II in a nutshell. An experience that's pure chaos in digital form, heaving with civilisations that each have their own distinct units and flavour, and endlessly replayable randomised maps to conquer. They’re still adding to it, too, with new expansions even after nearly a quarter of a century. Yes, there's a good reason people are still trying to play Age Of Kings. They're still trying to climb the ladder.

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48. 2:22am​

Developer: Umbrella Isle
Publisher: Umbrella Isle
Release: 2014
Where can I buy it? Itch
2:22am is a game I played at possibly the perfect time in my life. Sleeping too little and drinking too much, a series of vignettes blending reality, dreams, and VHS video was spot on for feeling lost and trapped in life. But any game can hit that hard if it catches the player at the right time. I keep coming back to 2:22am across the years because it's still the game which most feels like recurring dreams. Each playthrough, around its core (real?) plot arc, it semi-randomly draws a selection of vigenettes from a larger pool. Across each playthrough and especially across repeat visits, you'll find new surprises, familiar scenes, and new twists on scenes you know, with elements thrown together and drawn out in new ways. It's small, simple, and such a haunting mood that I still think of it years later.

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47. Soma​

Developer: Frictional Games
Publisher: Frictional Games
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Whereas Amnesia was a first-person horror game about forgetting things and hiding in cupboards, Soma shifts its focus to sci-fi horror at the bottom of the sea. There aren't just disturbing monsters that make your screen shiver and go all bleary here though. There's also a more existential fear present in this crusty ruins, which only gets more intense and profound as the game goes on. It starts innocently enough - you are a regular Joe having a regular hospital appointment for a regular MRI scan, but a blink of an eye later and you've woken up in a deep sea facility 100 years in the future. Mysterious, yes, but not frightening. Yet. As you tramp through the zapping, messy remnants of a malfunctioning research station, you start to realise the facts. With each onward step the story cranks up the dread. This is an unsettling game about an identity crisis like no other, and it has the punchy ending BioShock wishes it had. A last-minute gamble that will leave you both satisfied and troubled all at once.

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46. Umurangi Generation​

Developer: Origami Digital
Publisher: Origami Digital, Playism
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it?Steam
Where many games seem to flinch at being seen as political, Umurangi Generation fully embraces it. Jet Set Radio meets Evangelion in this stylish first-person photography game where you get to shoot photos on the go in a troubled city. Your urban surroundings are filled with concrete high rises, neon signs, and grungy graffiti and getting the perfect shot may require you to expertly navigate the city. Dropping down from ledges, balancing on metal beams, and jumping from one balcony to the next - it’s basically a photographer’s dream playground. Photo objectives cleverly guide your eye to what’s really happening within the walls of the city, from armed militia to solemn candlelit memorials. Taking pretty photos is fun, but in Umurangi Generation they have a purpose, and that’s to document what’s happening to this city and the creative young people who are helpless to stop it.

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45. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc​

Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble, Game Pass
Danganronpa has a reputation these days as the much-memed series where eccentric high schoolers brutally murder each other because a teddybear tells them to. But sensationalist anime games are hardly an underrepresented genre, yet Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has stood the test of time to emerge as a classic of the visual novel medium. Don't get me wrong: Danganronpa works best when it's focussed on being a dark comedy thriller, and its attempts to be serious don't always land. That being said, there's a surprising core of emotional realism to this game, even on occasions when the specifics get bungled. This isn't like Ace Attorney, where everyone shakes off a friend's death at the end of a trial knowing they'll be back to visit in ghost form sooner or later. Danganronpa contains some really affecting depictions of grief and the faces it can wear, and stays with you much longer than you'd expect from the shock-tastic cartoonish premise.

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44. Hades​

Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam, Epic Games Store
Hades may have fallen a little further in the underworld since our last version of this list, but this isometric roguelike is still an absolute masterclass of its genre - and the best way to annoy your dad, too. As the little-known Greek god Zagreus, you've got to stab and dash your way out of hell, with each death serving as a reset button for its intense, but moreish combat. Of course, nobody can actually escape Hades, don't be foolish - and why would you want to, when so many interesting people live down here? Naturally, not all of its deities and demi-gods want to help you out, but the way you find yourself clashing with old flames time and time again, dashing back and forth across the room to avoid a literal bullrush from Asterius the Minotaur or dodging a barrage of pink spit from a bony Hydra's head, just makes those relationships stronger and more personal over time. Get it wrong and its another clamber out of the blood pool at the start of the game. Another disapproving glare from dad.

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43. Paradise Killer​

Developer: Kaizen Game Works
Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble, Epic Games Store
What if Suda 51 created a Phoenix Wright spin-off for the Dreamcast? We reckon the result would look a lot like Paradise Killer, a bonkers detective game from Kaizen Game Works that is stunningly singular. After an eon in captivity, investigation freak Lady Love Dies returns to Paradise, an island within a pocket dimension where a council of weirdos harvest the faith of kidnapped humans in an attempt to resurrect a long-dead god. After the majority of the island’s upper echelon is brutally murdered behind a locked door, it’s your goal to find out whodunnit. Paradise is dripping with its own mythology, making understanding the game’s own logic the first step in your attempt to uncover the culprit. As the sole arbiter of justice, you can choose to accuse at any point as long as you hold the evidence to support your claim. The game does have a “true” ending (that is absolutely worth uncovering) but ultimately the decision is yours to make.

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42. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim​

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release: 2011
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
You are the Dragonborn. Your superpower is that you talk loudly and it hurts people. This first-person fantasy RPG is the fifth in a beloved series, and takes its player to Skyrim, a frosty, mountainous region of Cyrodiil, inhabited by the rebellious and Viking-esque Nords. Also, dragons. This is a massive open world, filled with off-the-beaten-track adventures, and ripe for modding. Skyrim is the best example of a single player phenomenon, the go-to classic for many, played and replayed so many times that the developers feel it savvy to re-release it seemingly every couple of weeks. Still, in time it may become the most replayed game in history.

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41. Life Is Strange​

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Publisher: Square Enix Europe
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Life Is Strange games are a reliable source of all the feels: bittersweet choice-based bildungsromans filled with friendship, romance, mystery, and superpowers, set against gorgeous backdrops of contemporary Americana. All the games in this franchise are outstanding in their own way and can be enjoyed stand-alone, but it's definitely a case where starting from the beginning helps you to get the most out of call-backs connecting all the stories together. Original protagonist Max's time rewind has yet to be beaten for the most entertaining power in the series, and her ability makes Life Is Strange one of the few narrative adventure games to really justify the use of branching storylines, by allowing you to explore alternative outcomes without breaking the fiction. The first game is also, for better or worse, the LIS entry with the most traditional point-and-click puzzle elements, making it a useful starting point for old-school fans keen to check out the modern evolution of the genre.

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40. Horizon Zero Dawn​

Developer: Guerrilla Games
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam
I’ll be the first to admit that one of Horizon Zero Dawn’s most central pillars sounds like a joke, one a frustrated designer might throw out in an overrunning meeting. Robot dinosaurs, yeah? Put ‘em in along with the laser skateboards and airhorn explosions. But they’re not a joke: their hulking hyperaggression and intricate, partially dismantlable designs make for some of the most breathlessly entertaining fight (hunt?) scenes in modern open world-dom. This particular open world, a post-apocalyptic US retaken by Mother Earth in all her grassy, snowy, jungle-y splendour, also happens to be a joy to explore. I believe this is still the only game I’ve ever cleared of quests, sidequests and errands before simply wandering around, enjoying the scenery and soundtrack, just because I didn’t want to leave.

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39. Phasmophobia​

Developer: Kinetic Games
Publisher: Kinetic Games
Release: 2020 (Early Access)
Where can I buy it? Steam
Phasmophobia is the champion of creating a truly unsettling atmosphere. The steady hum of audible silence drowns out all other noise as you enter one of its haunted abodes. Darkness envelopes every room, leaving nothing but nightmares lingering in the murky corners. It makes every attempt to unsettle your troupe of ghostbusters, and in my case, it always succeeds. Your task is to investigate a haunted location for evidence of spooky activity. Finding that evidence will force you to poke around in the dark, though, which gives the ghost plenty of time to make contact. They might start small, flickering the lights or tossing a plate across the room. Or, if you’re particularly unlucky (like me), they might stare at you through a tiny crack in the bathroom door before attacking unprovoked. They’re unpredictable. They’re terrifying. They kind of convince me that ghosts are actually real. Most sessions end with me searching my own house for similar signs, and that fear tells me Phasmophobia is a winner.

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38. Homeworld​

Developer: Relic Entertainment
Publisher: Sierra Studios
Release: 1999
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Manuals. Remember them? Homeworld’s manual was amazing, set out like a history textbook intended for the Hiigarans who’d been exiled to the desert planet Kharak thousands of years earlier. You can search it up easily enough online if you want to see for yourself, but I’ve still got my copy decades after I first played Homeworld. The manual totally enthralled me, and the excellent, accomplished three-dimensional strategy of the game it was included with didn’t hurt either. Neither did the personal sacrifice of Karan S’jet in becoming Fleet Command, voiced capably by Heidi Ernest, a protagonist who physically embodied your Mothership base throughout the campaign. Studying the fictional background to Homeworld’s mission to reclaim the ancestral world of your people helped to ground the game, which could have easily ended up as an interesting strategy experiment without all that gosh-darn context. That’s why manuals were important. Bring back manuals, kids.

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37. Cities: Skylines​

Developer: Colossal Order
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
What is the best method of urban waste disposal? Perhaps a single, centralised landfill site with garbage truck routes spreading out like tendrils. Or maybe multiple smaller rubbish heaps in a secluded zone of each suburb. No. The correct answer is to dedicate an entire offshore strip of land to your city's trash and call it "Stink Island". Cities Skylines presents you with more than the problem of smelly litter. How far should your business district be from housing? What is the most efficient way to get electricity to the retail hub? How many roundabouts is too many roundabouts? At its cosmopolitan heart, this is a management game about making people happy en masse (or at least vaguely satisfied). It is the best building game for the municipal-minded and it staunchly refuses to guide your planning. This is your sandbox, so build some castles. Or, uh, some incinerators.

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36. Left 4 Dead 2​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2009
Where can I buy it? Steam
Valve's co-op zombie shooter wasn't bundle in with their infamous Orange Box collection of games – Left 4 Dead 2 came out a couple of years too late - but it still feels like one of the gang, doesn't it? Part of that era, that graduating class. Getting from one side of a level to an extraction point on the other, racing through a burning hotel, a fairground, a dark swamp, doesn't sound so hard, but when you throw hundreds of zombies in the way it becomes more of a challenge. Left 4 Dead 2 took everything from the original and amped it up, introducing three new special infected (including my personal love-to-hate favourite the spitter) and the AI game director 2.0, able to throw new zombies in your team's path based on how well you're doing, and even alter things like the weather to make a dynamic challenge. Even though it's over a decade old now, and many other games have since iterated on its template, Left 4 Dead 2 is still the first port of call for many looking for some co-op game funsies. It's a heady blend of frantic shooting, creepy environments, and zombie blood and guts going over the place that remains perhaps unmatched to this day.

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35. Doom II​

Developer: id Software
Publisher: GT Interactive Software, id Software
Release: 1994
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Has there ever been a more perfect weapon in an FPS game than the Super Shotgun? Nope, don't even try to answer. It was a rhetorical question. Of course, the Super Shotgun has since gone on to become a staple of id's Doom series, and you might be wondering why 1994's Doom II is on this list as opposed to, say, the mroe recent and also excellent Doom Eternal? It's a tough choice, but as much as we love Eternal's meat hook combo, Doom II is the one we keep returning to. It remains an absolute beast, a pacy and brutal shooter that's solid and steady, simple to pick up, challenging if you want it to be (how many levels have you scoured to 100% completion on the highest difficulty setting, mum?) - and it has the best shotgun. Moderno-Doom came close to supplanting it during our discussions but there's something about the straightforward kill-running of Doom II that has kept up its bloody momentum to this day.

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34. NieR: Automata​

Developer:
Publisher:
Release:
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble
Nier: Automata is a mercurial beast that refuses easy classification. From the opening sequence, you might deduce this is a story-led bullet-hell shooter, but delve a bit deeper and you'll find a hack and slash action RPG that's also a time-looping elegy about the nature of life, consciousness and seizing hold of your own destiny. One of the (many) wonderful things about Nier: Automata is going into it as blind-folded as your protagonist - a sightless android sword warrior called 2B. This is a world where the words "machine", "robot", "drone", and "android" are not necessarily synonyms, and the war in which you are fighting makes less sense the more you fight it. Funny and touching, this is a game about humanity with nary a human in sight.

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33. Diablo 2​

Developer:
Publisher:
Release:
Where can I buy it? Battle.Net
This most scarred veteran of action role-playing games has recently been Resurrected with a fresh remake, but it's the original that we still look back on most fondly. Maybe it's the crunchy loop of "kill, collect and clear outta there" or maybe it is the just as crunchy sound effects that made every item pinched and every enemy batted feel like you just cracked open a delicious little pistachio of dopamine. Granted, newcomers to this series (or dungeon-crawling ARPGs in general) are perhaps better off starting with Diablo 3, the modern sibling with shinier armour and all his teeth still intact. But Diablo 2 is still the better game because… well, because our deputy editor Alice Bell said so.

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32. Titanfall 2​

Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Publisher: EA
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, EA App
Titanfall 2 could be two games and they’d both be excellent. It’s an exquisitely crafted movement shooter, all nicely weighted wallruns and kneelslides, married to a stompy mech fighter that slows down the pace in exchange for more tactical, almost timing-based skirmishes. The original Titanfall handled this dynamic, semi-asymmetrical multiplayer brilliantly, and the sequel – with its more distinct Titan chassis and loadouts – refines it to near perfection. The campaign, too, is worth playing by itself. If anything it’s even more essential: there’s still a blend of crisp on-foot combat with larger-scale mech wars, but it’s constantly kept fresh by a well-paced series of mechanical twists and some genuinely creative level design. And yes, I’m honest, I did like making friends with the robot.

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31. Rocket League​

Developer: Psyonix
Publisher: Psyonix
Release: 2015
Where can I buy it? Epic Games Store
The quintessential car football game. Forget your FIFAs and your eFootballs. This is the kind of modern day kickabout anyone can boot up and play (literally). With two to four players per team, each player uses their own toylike rocket car to hoof a ball around a stadium encased in transparent walls. The goal is goals. A simple concept, but one that Rocket League has clearly perfected the moment you start playing. You can boost your car with a tank of refillable rocket juice, ping the ball with stylish flips, and soar through the air like an ascendant eagle looking for a header. There are plenty of skilled players out there, but play with friends and it's the perfect way to idle away an evening.

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30. Hypnospace Outlaw​

Developer: Tendershoot
Publisher: No More Robots
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Coolpunk is dead, BWL. Long live Coolpunk. Hypnospace Outlaw's greatest strength is creating a rendition of the world wide web circa 1999 that is believable yet completely unrooted from our own reality. Accessed while you sleep via a lo-fi headband, Hypnospace is geo-cities described to you by someone suffering from the flu. Playing as an enforcer, an unpaid internet cop hired by dubious tech company Merchantsoft, it’s your job to hunt down digital misdemeanours. You do this by exploring web pages, clicking hyperlinks and following breadcrumbs using Hypnospace’s built-in search function. The game’s central narrative is compelling enough, but the real joy comes from picking through the game’s expansive number of websites. On the one hand Hypnospace is quirky, funny and surreal. But it’s also empathetic, stuffed full of stories about real people looking to belong in an exciting new frontier for humanity. It’s a time capsule of an era that never existed, yet one that still feels tangibly real.

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29. BioShock​

Developer: 2K Boston, 2K Australia
Publisher: 2K Games
Release: 2007
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
The twisted collision of Jules Verne and Ayn Rand, BioShock is a first-person shooter that immerses you beneath the waves with a big wrench and a shotgun. It still suffers the indignity of being one of the most discussed games in writer and designer circles, but if you can wade past its ocean of "here's my take" thinkpieces, BioShock continues to delight. You'll be too busy hacking helicopter drones and setting oil on fire and getting both heebies AND jeebies from the excellent horror-flavoured set pieces to think about those lukewarm takes from ten years ago. If BioShock is a theme park ride of animatronic story-telling, then it is a really good ghost train. You should leave your skepticism on the grass outside and embrace the nervous scares. It is only fair that a game with such a strong opening (and one infamous moment in the mid-game) be cursed with a limp finale. You can't have everything.

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28. Dota 2​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2013
Where can I buy it? Steam
Sustained for years on ever-shifting metagames and seemingly bottomless strategic depth, Dota 2 is still delivering the kind of arena-based magician warfare that you can lose yourself in for weeks. There’s always a fun new item combination to try or a hero to improve with or some outrageously cheeky tactic to copy from a pro match, and even if you think you’ve tried it all, I guarantee there are at least fifty other techniques for pushin’ lanes and murderin’ wizards that you’d never have even conceived. Of course, not every match will be a good opportunity to experiment, and Dota 2’s lengthy (yet almost constantly tense) games can bring out the worst in people. But if you’re at all the competitive sort, it’s also an environment in which making a successful play – big or small – feels instantly impactful and exceptionally satisfying.

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27. The Sims 2​

Developer: Maxis Redwood Shores
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release: 2004
Where can I buy it? Nowhere, sadly.
Four generations into the blockbuster life simulation franchise, The Sims 2 still stands out as the pinnacle of the series. The original game was a different beast: endlessly entertaining, but held back from its full vision by both budget and technical limitations. Its sequel was the one to introduce series staples such as fully 3D graphics; a detailed character creation suite; a life cycle that included ageing, genetics, and generations; days of the week, injecting some variety into your Sims' routines; and countless other milestone firsts added in over its four-year lifespan. While the third and fourth entries into the franchise have both taken the series in new directions, said directions have often pushed aggravating microtransactions, which is especially galling when you realise that there's been no period of actual innovation in the series to rival that of The Sims 2. It even still looks great after nearly 20 years… if you're lucky enough to have access to the original CD-ROMs, that is, since the game isn't available on digital platforms.

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26. Kentucky Route Zero​

Developer: Cardboard Computer
Publisher: Cardboard Computer
Release: 2013
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Good things come to those who wait, and it took seven years for all five acts of the strange, wonderful journey of Kentucky Route Zero to come out. Wrapping up with the final act in January 2020, you play as Conway, a truck driver making his last delivery via the titular Route Zero, a mysterious and secret Kentuckian highway. The focus here isn't on challenges or puzzles, but on storytelling - on the people Conway meets and the magical realist adventures he has along the way in a world that sometimes looks like a play or supernatural shadow puppet show. It's melancholic, otherworldly, but sweet and thoughtful all the same. One of the best stories yet told in games, Kentucky Route Zero is proof positive that the road less travelled is worth taking.

 

[Stella Brando]

25. Fortnite​

Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Epic Games
Release: 2017
Where can I buy it? Epic Games Store
Fortnite’s brash visual stylings may prove nauseating for most, but Epic’s Battle Royale behemoth is popular for a reason. Winning isn’t always the goal here, with seasonal battle pass challenges encouraging players to explore every corner of its ever-changing island. Still, achieving that elusive victory royale is certainly a thrill, especially with friends. Recent seasons have introduced fluid movement mechanics, additional vehicles and the fan-favourite no-build mode, which ditches the game’s complicated building mechanics in favour of pure gunplay. Is it silly? Of course it is. But that’s the point! Fortnite is a toy box filled with your favourite action figures, letting you bash Jill Valentine, Darth Vader and Robocop together like you’re eight years old all over again. Basically, the fun is yours to find. Go fishing! Attend an Ariana Grande concert! Watch Christopher Nolan’s Tenet! Fortnite is more than just a Battle Royale. It’s a platform, and an expansive one at that.

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24. Project Zomboid​

Developer: The Indie Stone
Publisher: The Indie Stone
Release: 2013 (early access)
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Project Zomboid is a survival game with incredible depth, giving it a distinct sense of authenticity over any competitor. There are often multiple steps involved to complete even the smallest of tasks, such as barricading a window, but that doesn’t make it tedious. Every action has the potential to attract danger, and that fills the tiniest details with tension. Jumping a fence, opening a door, or walking around a corner might be the catalyst for a series of events that leads to a slow gory death, forcing you to be constantly aware of any potential danger if you want to survive. It’s brutally difficult, but, as it says in the opening moments, it’s the story of how you died. That’s a rather damning intro, and it makes every day that you’re alive feel like a huge achievement. Few gaming accomplishments are more rewarding than breaking your Zomboid survival record, and it’s a nightmare that I’d urge everyone to embrace.

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23. Half-Life 2​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2004
Where can I buy it? Steam
Half-Life 2 is the first-person shooter equivalent of Solitaire. Everyone has it installed. The ubiquitous shooter of crowbar-wielding fame sees its hero, unspeaking physicist and MIT graduate Gordon Freeman, appearing in the oppressed City 17. It doesn't take long for the game to shunt you along its rollercoaster and into the arms of a resistance movement trying to overthrow the quisling overseer of the city and his croaking gunmen. There are no special powers or abilities. No wall-running, no backstab animations, no slow-motion bullet-dodging or fancy teleportation (at least none you can control). Yet the appeal of Half-Life 2 is in the momentum of Gordon's tireless stride. It is one long journey from railway track to sewer to secret base to abandoned neighbourhood to beach to prison to city streets, travelling without blinking from one setting to another. Half-Life 2 may have aged since it zapped into existence in 2004. But it still has some of the best pacing of any shooter you can load up today.

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22. Persona 5 Royal​

Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Sega
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, Game Pass
JRPGs are synonymous with the grind, you know, like having to spend hours peppering the same group of goblins just to level up enough to move onto another group of chunkier goblins. They can be expansive, overwhelming and time-consuming in ways that just don't respect your time. Persona 5: Royal isn't perfect in this regard, either, but it makes all of your hours spent in its stylish rendition of Tokyo incredibly meaningful. The game's about a group of high schoolers who become The Phantom Thieves, vigilantes who enter an alternate dimension and cleanse the souls of the wicked. Aside from great turn-based battles with horrible demons, it's the stuff you get up to in your spare time that makes this RPG truly sing - the ramen trips with your boy Ryuji or talking through some issues with Ann down the diner. Spending time with these characters on the outside is how you improve your stats and relationships in the world of Persona, and it makes every minute feel important and worthwhile. Sure, the game might be a 120-hour special, but I'd give anything for another 200 with my fellow thieves.

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21. Team Fortress 2​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2007
Where can I buy it? Steam
Most hero shooters these days require you to do a lot of homework, to swat up on the names and abilities of 30 neon-haired gunslingers and keep on top of their ever-changing metas. Team Fortress 2 is the shooter that throws out the textbook and gives you a nice easy cheat sheet. You've got nine simple roles: a spy, a soldier, a heavy weapons man, a flamethrower trooper, a sniper, a demolitions man, an engineer, a medic, and a scout. Their goal: to capture the enemy team's briefcase of paperwork. It's a fast-paced multiplayer shooter, yes. You will get shot in the bonce from across the map. Of course. But the chaos is manageable. There is nobody called "Wanda Wildcard" with five distinct powers and two ultimate abilities that fill the arena with one of the 12 coloured attacks currently turning a ballroom into total havoc. In Team Fortress 2, a Spy is a spy. Yes, it has evolved since its 2007 debut, going free-to-play and adding new maps and modes and choices of weapon. But at its core, this is still that solid, funny shooter of attack, defence and fashionable headwear.

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20. Bernband​

Developer:
Publisher:
Release:
Where can I buy it? It's free on GameJolt
Take a walk through the streets of another world. Bernband is all about atmosphere. It's a walking simulator in the best possible sense (you have visible hands but you won't be using them). But also a full-body transplant into the clattering frame of an extraterrestrial in a pixelly alien city. A ringed planet hangs in the sky, hovercars zip through the air below, alien rockers headbang in a dank club. There are plenty of other secrets to discover, and alleyways to canter down (take a good look around that seemingly abandoned underground car park) but I'll say no more. Bernband is best enjoyed in a quiet, unpressed moment.

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19. Portal​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2007
Where can I buy it? Steam
What can be said about Portal that hasn't been said already? It's the game that cemented Valve as great makers of games. A platform physics puzzler using the titular holes in space, carefully training the player to understand mass and gravity and preservation of energy to pass complex tests, would have been good enough. But Portal sets this inside a weird testing facility that appears to be deserted, with some of the best environmental storytelling ever to be found in a video game – seriously, the scrawled graffiti in your favourite RPG is as nothing to the quiet set dressing in this short little experimental puzzle game. The lasting impression is GLaDOS, though. Possibly the greatest video baddie of all time, the robot that launched a thousand memes. GLaDOS walks the incredibly thin edge between being frightening – an increasingly malevolent AI, who grows more murderous the longer you're running around her facility – and being somehow personable. It's an extraordinary game, and one that will forever stand the test of time.

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18. Disco Elysium​

Developer: ZA/UM
Publisher: ZA/UM
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Taking up the mantle from CRPGs such as Planescape: Torment and many others, Disco Elysium is an isometric RPG without the gunfights or spellcasting. It is set in the crumbling fictional city of Revachol, where people are nasty, violent and broken, but rarely want things to come to blows. At least, not with a police detective as stinking of booze and desperation as you. How are you ever going to solve the murder behind your hotel with such a thundering hangover? This role-playing game is all characterisation, all the time. And I'm not just talking about the sweary kid throwing stones at the corpse that you need to examine, or the programmer testing soundwaves in the crumbling church across the canal. The real character-building is done by you, in the head of your disgraced policeman protagonist. Multiple voices vie for attention as you go about your murder investigation, with 'Logic' clashing with the supernatural call of 'Shivers', as 'Suggestion' battles with a voice known as 'Half Light' on whether to charm or threaten the folks you need information from. It's a great trick, turning the skill tree of the common RPG into a set of competing inner demons. Playing Disco Elysium is like entering and navigating a parallel world while the ghosts of your home dimension still flock around you.

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17. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows Of Amn​

Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Black Isle Studios, Interplay Entertainment
Release: 2000
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store
Not sure I’ve ever played another CRPG that’s gripped me as much as the Bhaalspawn’s adventures taking on the dark wizard Jon Irenicus, a compelling villain played with menace and vigour by the late David Warner. There’s some genuine heft to Baldur's Gate II's 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign, with a varied cast of differently aligned companions to nark off by pulling and palling up with other party members they don’t like. Take smug paladin Anomen and evil cleric Viconia along, and you’ll see what I mean. You even bump into the legendary drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden and his mates again at one point, and he’ll attack you if you fought him in the first game. Baldur's Gate II is like that, building on its, to my mind, weaker predecessor. It takes the already excellent Baldur’s Gate and ramps everything up by a factor of ten. Oh, and Jan Jansen. Just Jan Jansen.

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16. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines​

Developer: Troika Games
Publisher: Activision
Release: 2004
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
It's said that any time you mention Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, someone somewhere reinstalls it, like an angel getting their wings at the ring of a bell. The enduring power of this all-time cult classic — a game that was able to rise so far above its immensely troubled development and launch — makes that kind of magical thinking feel entirely believable. Based in the World Of Darkness TTRPG setting, Bloodlines is an action-RPG that actually manages to translate the essential appeal of the tabletop source material into the medium of a video game. It avoided the predictable early-2000s pitfall of going all-in on the action — which would have been disastrous, Bloodlines' combat being… serviceable, but not its strongest suit. Instead, the choice to develop a solid cast of characters, and provide a wide variety of ways for your fledgling vampire to interact with them and influence the world around them, resulted in a game that still feels bang on-trend after nearly two decades.

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15. Mass Effect 2​

Developer: BioWare
Publisher: EA
Release: 2010
Where can I buy it? Steam
Go to space, punch a reporter. Mass Effect 2 covers all the major power fantasies in one intergalactic third-person sci-fi RPG of guns and conversation. The galaxy is under threat from the Reapers, a dormant anti-civilisation made of country-sized squidcraft and conveniently soldier-sized ground troops, and it's up to you and a posse of specialists to stop them. The problem: you don't have the posse yet. So off you pop on a round-the-spiral-arms trip to collect and convince some old friends and new buddies to join a suicide mission that will (hopefully) save all sentient life. This is developer BioWare at the peak of their powers, as everything stems back to its well-observed cast of characters. You can help your war-hungry Krogan crewmate get through his brutal Rite of Passage. Or aid Mordin the Salarian in a quest to find his scientific protege. The outcome of these sidequests is important too, because depending on how your relationships have evolved over the course of the game, that final suicide mission might go awry for any number of them, leading to their deaths. Every decision counts in Mass Effect 2, and it's the game we look forward to most with every replay.

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14. Day Of The Tentacle​

Developer: LucasArts, Double Fine Productions
Publisher: LucasArts, Double Fine Productions
Release: 1993
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble, Itch
The original LucasArts release of Day Of The Tentacle was an instant and deserving point and click classic. It's got everything: puzzles that require you to think backwards and forwards in time, endearing weirdo characters, George Washington, and an evil purple tentacle that's able to take over the world by growing two tiny arm nublets. Day Of The Tentacle might not be the most famous of the Lucas-era nine-verb-menu games, but the pirate with the funny name has gotten enough modern sequels and doesn't need this list. And although you might be kicked out of certain dinner parties for saying it, Day Of The Tentacle has better puzzles and probably some better jokes, too. The new art maybe loses a tiny bit of the charm retro you get from the original 90s pixel art, but it's the rare remaster that manages to capture what you always imagined it looked like anyway.

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13. Inscryption​

Developer: Daniel Mullins Games
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release: 2021
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Many collectible card games are cut from the same cardboard nowadays, aren't they? There's a bounty of Hearthstone-likes which emphasise mashing decks together in competitive arenas, with the odd singleplayer campaign told through snippets of dialogue or CG cutscenes. Enter Inscryption: a card-based plunge into the depths of a nightmare. It's part rogue-like, part deck-builder, part escape-room, and almost entirely a psychological horror bonanza. You're trapped in a dark cabin controlled by a menacing stranger who forces you to play a twisted game of cards and... it's so much more than this. It's a brilliant subversion of the genre which encourages you to leave the board and prod the cabin's dusty confines. Maybe the key to a getaway lies buried away in a drawer? Or maybe, the solution lies in the cards themselves? I mean, listen to your ever-reliable stoat. Watch for any physical changes. Carve out your tooth and stick it on the counter. Losing is all right – if unpleasant – and it's all part of discovering your place in this bloody game of cards.

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12. Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season 1​

Developer: TellTale Games
Publisher: Skybound Games
Release: 2012
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble, Game Pass
The Walking Dead Season 1 has plenty of choices to make. Lots of timers ticking down to make you feel pressure, to sell you on the idea that each moment counts. Consequences matter. Scary stuff. While that’s standard for any Telltale experience, The Walking Dead doesn’t need those timers to show how important your choices are. You’re fully aware, just as player character Lee is in the story, that every choice you make will affect Clementine. She’s just a kid, making her entirely reliant on you for survival, but also impressionable and easy to taint with the horrors of this world. Will killing a bandit help you protect your food supplies? Sure, but it’s much harder to pull the trigger when Clementine is watching. Clem’s innocence shapes The Walking Dead Season 1, and the journey her and Lee share is the best glimpse into this brutal post-apocalyptic world yet. It’s a tragic tale filled with heartwarming moments, and it’ll probably make you cry a lot.

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11. Apex Legends​

Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Publisher: EA
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it?
The fun person's battle royale. 60 players divebomb onto a colourful map in teams of three and proceed to kill each other off with all the enthusiasm of a murderous clown. Whereas other battle royales have come and gone in the intervening years, Apex has become a dominant force with each new season, bringing plenty of its own ideas and style. Every character has their own abilities, and they are all extremely quick and nimble. There is something very action movie slick about bumsliding down a hill and firing off a canister of smoke to cover your final sprint into a house where you will thrash your opponent to death with melee attacks in a panic after running out of bullets for the Mozambique, the game's worst gun and butt of all jokes. There's no denying Fortnite's supremacy of numbers, or the mainstream, straight-to-business appeal of Call Of Duty: Warzone. But in terms of fun, Apex Legends runs rings around these games. Then fills the ring with toxic fumes and surrounds it with laser fences.

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10. Yakuza 0​

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, Humble, Game Pass
Yakuza is a series about the adventures of Tokyo's best agony uncle, and Yakuza 0 sets it all in motion. You play Kiryu Kazama, a low-ranking member of the Dojima crime family in the seedy, semi-fictional city district of Kamurocho. Your superpower is fists, feet and thoughtfulness. There is a twisting, melodramatic plot with all the characters and tropes of Yakuza movies or long-running TV dramas, but right in the middle of it all is Kiryu, implicated in a murder he didn't commit and determined to unravel the mystery. But not before he's helped all and sundry work out their problems on the side.

Listen. There are video game sidequests, and then there are Yakuza sidequests. Kiryu is the perfect mark for the city's many conmen, and the hero-about-town for its put-upon citizens. He is naive and well-meaning, an avatar of Power Ranger wholesomeness. He's the one who's never above helping the members of a rock band become more authentically "tough", or helping a kid win back his copy of much-loved 1980s RPG, Arakure III: Quest For The Quantum Quill. The real treat, though, is finding that even these small stories have layers of their own.

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9. Factorio​

Developer: Wube Software
Publisher: Wube Software
Release: 2020
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
Ah, the fresh, untouched surface of a brand-new alien planet. What shall we do with this blemish-free world? What shall we achieve? Invoke the power and principles of the production line, that's what, because honestly, was there ever really any other answer?

You start as a teeny tiny figure on the surface of this pristine world, but full automation is the aim. All human elements must be stripped out (and the alien element also because sometimes the wildlife likes to attack) in favour of the glorious machine. This is a mechanistic self-determined puzzle for efficiency freaks, where position, timing, speed and quantity all have to be weighed up as you plop down little conveyor belts and electricity pylons to keep your factories running smoothly. But it's the seemingly endless procession of upgrades and new goods that keeps you from ever truly "finishing" your factory, and what keeps us coming back for more.

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8. Outer Wilds​

Developer: Mobius Digital
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release: 2019
Where can I buy it? Steam, Epic Games Store
Outer Wilds and its homebrew NASA mission in a spaceboat made of wood left a deep impression on us in last year's RPS 100, but a change of crew has now dislodged it from its previous top spot. This is still a game of rare imagination, however, and one that captures that sense of awe and wide-eyed adventure like few others. You are an explorer from an alien world who has noticed something funny about your sun - it seems to be exploding every 20 minutes. With each explosion you are flung back in time with another brief window to sojourn around the solar system and discover secrets.

The suggestion is that you go find out exactly why this stellar time loop is occuring. But before you unravel this mystery, you will take your first-person spacesuit to a handful of planets and planetoids, scooching from one globe to another to find ruins and runes hidden on the surface (and sometimes below the surface). This is a sci-fi folk tale that lets you be the bumbling protagonist, bonking your head on rocks and falling to your 19th death. Perishing in clumsy spaceship crashes, suffocating in space, drowning in cold sand, and falling into the sun. You will die a lot in this playful orrery of exploration and discovery, where the laws of physics and weather that apply on one planet do not dictate what happens on another. But you will always come back, warming your feet in front of a campfire. As a game, it is a wholesome, beautiful thing. As a story, it's a soothing meditation on death and why - if you think about it - it's pretty silly to be afraid of whatever comes after the ultimate head bonk.

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7. Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition​

Developer: FromSoftware
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release: 2012
Where can I buy it? Steam
The first of FromSoftware's Dark Souls games isn't what it once was. The languishing state of its online servers (now likely never to be recovered for our beloved Prepare To Die Edition) have only made everyone's favourite 'hard game' even harder in recent years, cut off as we now are from all those friendly messages of guidance and helpful hints - although we certainly won't mourn the jerks telling us there's treasure to be found off the edge of its cliffs. There's more hope to be found for Dark Souls: Remastered, but it's the earlier version of FromSoft's grim-faced, fantasy action RPG that we cling to all the same, preferring the atmospheric murk of its original visuals over the remaster's bump in frame rate.

Yes, it's still hard as nails, and many people will tell you it is a game about perseverance. That's all fine. But also, you will be crushed by a boulder and set on fire by a dragon. Everybody's pain threshold comes at a different point in the gloomy world of Lordran, where the only direction is provided by sour-faced chucklers in armour, or big, bearded leviathans hiding in the ground. But if you do manage to burst through that wall of hurt with the stubborn tenacity required by its punishing bosses and sadistic traps, you'll become a seasoned wayfarer of the single best level in video game history. Yes, it is all one giant level, a "closed world" rather than an open one. Every step in this landscape is the furthest you've ever been from the shire, until you find a mysterious contraption, an elevator, a doorway, a shortcut along a cliff that leads, oh my word, all the way back home.

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6. Dishonored 2​

Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release: 2016
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble, Game Pass
The first Dishonored was a marvel, blending brawny action with the elegance of its immersive stealth in a tale of betrayal, back-stabbing and mercurial teleport hops through the rat-laden streets of Dunwall. But Dishonored 2... Crikey. There's a reason this first-person stealther has stuck so long in the memory, and it's all down to the masterful levels Arkane have created to unpick with your supernatural powers. These devs really know how to make an immersive sim, and it's what separates this game from pretty much any other stealth adventure. A Crack In The Slab and The Clockwork Mansion are frighteningly clever missions that bend to your blade as much as they boggle the mind, but there are so many other treats and delights to be found in the splintered, sunny streets of Karnaca that just the thought of them has us itching to dive back into them.

Simply put, Dishonored 2 is a masterclass in design. Not only do you feel like you're stalking targets, you feel like you're creeping through an architect's showroom. You can choose to leave everyone alive if you wish or you can opt for a more chaotic approach. Whichever you'd prefer, I mean, you're in control here. Whatever methods you opt for, the outcome is the same: delight. Is this stealth perfected? Quite possibly.

---

5. Elden Ring​

Developer: FromSoftware
Publisher: FromSoftware, Bandai Namco
Release: 2022
Where can I buy it? Steam
It's a wonder that Elden Ring even exists, to be honest. If Dark Souls' action-RPG antics are a puzzle box, then Elden Ring is a warehouse full of them with signposts replaced by bonfires that sway in whichever direction the air-con dictates. You're presented with an open world that's vast, sure, but filled with copious, monstrous things: boss fights against gigantic, blistered lizards, treasure hunts in crumbled ruins, gladiatorial bouts in spectral arenas. Then you might discover an elevator that travels downwards and downwards and downwards...

...And when you finally reach the bottom, the game swells even further than you'd think imaginable. Again, the sheer scale of the operation doesn't ever mean the momentum drops, either. You're forever encouraged to push through the fog of war and uncover the secrets nestled within, as this is how you'll get stronger and finally beat that West Country beastman in the castle to the north. Elden Ring is also the most welcoming of FromSoft's offerings, as you're not forced to butt your head against one wall for hours on end but goaded into battering several others until they crumble into precious Runes to re-invest in whatever build you're rocking – and there are many.

---

4. Minecraft​

Developer: Mojang Studios
Publisher: Mojang Studios, Xbox Game Studios
Release: 2011
Where can I buy it? Minecraft.Net, Game Pass
Minecraft is one of the few games on this list that hasn't changed position in the intervening year, but that only proves what firm foundations it had in the first place. A definitive game for many of us in the RPS Treehouse, it is the ultimate sandbox. In vanilla mode, it is a cracking survival game that lobs you into a randomly generated wilderness and asks: what's your plan when night arrives and the bad things come? In creative mode, where you can fly around with an infinite palette of bricks and gadgets, it asks nothing but what type of cornicing would work best in your palatial lobby. The things people build in Minecraft are, by and large, reminders that humanity is not so bad. From simple beautiful houses to whole towns spreading vertically across the hillsides to an entire modern city. And let's not forget its functioning computers.

All this, and we have still not exhausted everything this literal blockbuster has to offer. Because once you go online and discover the vast spread of servers, you'll see how much your understanding of the game can change, how versatile it really is. These can be strange places, worlds with arcane rules and bizarre minigames like "bed wars" and "death run". If that is a bit much, the best Minecraft experience is still one of the simplest: grab a friend or two and start a realm of your own.

---

3. Portal 2​

Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: 2011
Where can I buy it? Steam
Almost got you there, didn't we? Putting the first Portal further up on this list without even a whisper about its superior sequel... But no, the cake was not a lie, dear readers, because while our love for the original Portal is strong, our passion for Portal 2 is now even greater. Much like the original, this first-person puzzler is a game that asks you shoot a couple of separate walls with a weird gun, and where thin doorways appear connecting one wall to another. It was, and still is, the most wonderful magic trick ever performed in video games.

Indeed, Portal 2 feels like a true phenomenon. Give either Portal game to someone for the first time and they all react with the disbelief of that baboon who sees the paper disappear. They will create an infinite hall of mirrors to walk down, they will put portals on the floor and ceiling to make an endless tunnel to fall through. Eventually they will do the game's actual puzzles, rooms of three-dimensional thinkiness that will earn your grudging respect. The sequel offers all the wonder and comedy of the first game with added slip-slidey goo and bouncey floors, not to mention a couple of jolly co-op robots who will give you and a close friend some of those severe trust issues you've heard so much about.

---

2. Deus Ex​

Developer: Ion Storm
Publisher: Eidos
Release: 2000
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG
Denton's Law states: whenever someone talks to you about Deus Ex, there is a 45.1% chance you will reinstall it. I think that still holds. Why? How much of this is nostalgia and posturing reverence? How good actually is Deus Ex today? Honestly, pretty great. While some individual elements of Deus Ex feel ancient, as a whole it remains fresh, exciting, dangerous. We're a blank slate thrown into a sprawling conspiracy, a perfectly engineered patsy who uncovers truth more by accident than intent. It is a game for bumbling around with a curious and excitable mind, discovering possibilities and secrets without objective markers, and untangling conflicting orders and advice. So sneak, shoot, talk, hack, pay attention, think twice, and look cool in shades at night.

I think what keeps Deus Ex remain fresh is that it feels so vast and unknowable yet rooted in the personal. It jaunts across the globe, encountering every 90s conspiracy theory and ultimately deciding the future of human civilisation, yet JC is also ensnared in workplace conflicts and family drama. It's a game of grand philosophical speeches and also terse muttering. Its secret places and stories often open more plots than they resolve. And across your inevitable repeat playthroughs, you will learn some key parts have outcomes you hadn't even considered possible, decisions you hadn't realised you'd made. But no matter how much you know Deus Ex, it always feels like a facet of something bigger.

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1. Return Of The Obra Dinn​

Developer: Lucas Pope
Publisher: 3909
Release: 2018
Where can I buy it? Steam, GOG, Humble
The best game about an insurance man ever made, and arguably the most enthralling detective game there's ever been. Return Of The Obra Dinn is a creation of rare brilliance. Set aboard a ship in the 1800s that has been found mysteriously emptied of its crew (the skeletal remains of the captain and a few other notable corpses notwithstanding), your task as the shipping company's resident (and perhaps unfortunate) insuro-bod is to work out what happened to it. Fortunately, you have a magical pocketwatch that allows you to see the deaths of all those onboard in flashback-o-vision. The problem: you don't know their names. So begins a 60-person murder mystery that requires all the logical deduction of a maritime Miss Marple.

To say any more would be to spoil its many secrets, which are best left discovered for yourself. But suffice it to say, Obra Dinn is a monumental achievement for solo developer Lucas Pope, singlehandedly raising the bar for all detective games (big and small) going forward. It's a first-person puzzle box that gives players unprecedented scope to arrive at their own conclusions, not only asking whodunnit, but also whatwasdun and whoitwasdunto - and the thrill of piecing this altogether in the wonderful chaos of its monochrome freeze frames is unlike anything else we've ever played. This is a game where perceptions of a scene can turn on a dime, but the magic of its construction always remains firmly intact, the allure of its mystery drawing you deeper and deeper into its devilishly clever tale of woe and ill-tidings. It is a truly singular piece of work, and one whose place in the RPS pantheon is very much assured.

 

[Stella Brando]

Taken from:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-rps-100-2022-part-one

&:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-rps-100-2022-our-top-pc-games-of-all-time-50-1



We hope you enjoyed this list!

Please leave your comments below.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

skyrim

 

[NecroLord]

What the fuck.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

Ctrl+F
Look for Thief - No results
Look for System Shock - No results

List isn't worth the paper it's not printed on. Behead all gaemz journlolists! etc

 

[Sunri]

elden ring xdddd cmon

 

[Naraya]

No Quake, no Doom lol. GTFO.

 

[d1r]

Spoilers you fucking mongloid.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

what the

rockpapershotgun

ah i see

 

[Grauken]

What the fuck.

 

[NecroLord]

Skyrim is only on the 42th place?
Todd is not pleased...

 

[Grauken]

a top 100 list with lots of entries nobody has ever heard of, funny

 

[flyingjohn]

1:Obra dinnn.
A good puzzle game is somehow the best game of all time? It wasn't even successful enough to inspire clones.

As for the rest of the list,well it rockpaperdilated,no expectation == no disappointments.

 

[mindx2]

... 'nuff said.

 

[fork]

tldr?

It's shit.

 

[Lemming42]

Games suck!

 

[GrainWetski]

tldr?

Newish popular games to get clicks/shill, some older games people remember to get clicks/lend credibility and their friends' trash to shill.

 

[NecroLord]

No one pays attention to game journalists and gaming publications.
Reject modernity embrace tradition.
I can always play games like Thief,Doom 1 and 2,Quake,Blood,Hexen,Heretic,Baldur's Gate and all other classics from the RPG and FPS genres. They are timeless in their perfection and execution. They will be remembered by all,while the typical modern trash will fall into obscurity.
That is all.

 

[Tehdagah]

Apex Legends over Fortnite, RE8 but not RE4, lol

 

[Dadd]

Start from number one next time

 

[†††]

Retardo this thread.

 

[Sarathiour]

Honestly this list is kinda of a work of art, it's just the right mix of classical games, few master pieces, games nobody ever heard about, popamole crap and hopw roewur ne title to trigger the maximum amount of people possible.
The pacing is also just right, you're kept on your toe the whole time on this rollercaster of emotion that is alternatively making your nod in agreement, shaking your head in disbelief, rage-inducing fit and witnessing eyes-gouging horror.



I rate it , never make me suffer trough such thing again.