The best PC games of all time are a mixed bunch, ranging from chaotic real-time strategy games to chill life sims.
Since anyone who grew up in the ‘90s and early 2000s would have had the ‘family computer’ to play games on, these types of games were required to run on a load of different kinds of hardware, a lot different from today’s requirements being top-end PCs.
We’ve compiled a list of the best PC games of all time, with a particular focus on games that are either PC exclusive, or offer the best experience when playing on a computer when compared to console.
13. Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3 builds on the great CRPGs of yesteryear like Diablo, Planescape: Torment, and Ultima. The reason it’s so popular, especially as a recent title, is the fact that it spends time developing its characters and fleshing them out, adding to a narrative that makes you feel like you should care about the events unfolding on screen.
It feels like there’s no amount of wasted content, and every single thing you can do in it leads to something interesting or rewarding happening.
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While the game is perfectly playable on consoles, Baldur’s Gate 3 excels on PC due to the large number of menus and clicking you’re going to be doing, with mods amplifying that experience.
12. Planescape: Torment
Another one for the CRPG crowd, Planescape: Torment is another game set in a Dungeons & Dragons setting and developed by Black Isle Studios, the same group behind the early Fallout and Icewind Dale games.
As far as RPGs from the 1990s go, Planescape: Torment is a great pick due to its gripping story and unique setting, which is a rather dramatic step in a new direction from typical D&D settings. In 1999, seeing this represented in a video game in the way Planescape does it was rather jaw-dropping, especially as you get into some of those late-game locations.
11. Theme Hospital
One of the best simulation games that isn’t The Sims (more on that later, however), Theme Hospital put a fun spin on the classic business management game formula, satirising the ‘for-profit’ system of US healthcare while juggling it with some hilarious fictional diseases.
Everyone remembers the Bloaty Head or Invisibility patients, and the fictional content of the game clashing with the realistic business side of the game made it a rather compelling experience.
10. Unreal Tournament 2004
Before Epic Games had Gears of War and Fortnite, it had Unreal Tournament, a series of first-person shooters that acted as more of an exhibition of what the company’s proprietary Unreal Engine was capable of.
Unreal Tournament 2004 felt like the point where this series peaked, featuring excellent, fluid maps and challenging action gameplay, as well as easy to set up LAN compatibility for those groups of players who wanted to play together.
Nowadays, you can’t get Unreal Tournament 2004 from any official sources, and the Epic servers for the game have been closed. It’s considered abandonware, so you can still pick it up if you know where to look.
9. Thief: The Dark Project
Thief: The Dark Project’s dark moody atmosphere is second to its immersive sim-like qualities, putting you in the role of a master thief where each level tasks you with breaking into various locations and stealing an object of great value for the client.
While some may argue the game’s second half is rather lacklustre (including its controversial final few levels), Looking Glass Studios designed some particularly bonkers levels for you to mess around in. The Sword, for example, remains a timeless classic in stealth game canon, something that belongs in the Video Game Level Hall of Fame.
8. World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft fever was at an all-time high in the mid-2000s, and to this day it’s still something that has managed to captivate the MMO community. It’s an incredibly polished game with a steady pipeline of new content.
Even if you’re not a massive World of Warcraft player nowadays, the temptation to jump on for a quick session can sometimes be a little too alluring, thanks to the massive amount of solo and raid content that has become available over the years. While we could also recommend other MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV or Guild Wars 2, it’s WoW that manages to retain its strong playerbase the most.
7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls games are great across a variety of different platforms, popular for their huge open worlds and fun RPG mechanics. But I’d argue that Skyrim is best played on PC thanks to the amount of mods you can use.
With the large amount of free quest mods you can download, as well as thousands of other custom configurations you can use to transform the game in any way you want, the chances are that if you don’t like Skyrim, there are ways to tweak it to make it more enjoyable for you.
6. Deus Ex
Deus Ex was an early pioneer of the immersive sim, a genre which emphasises player choice in how they want to accomplish their mission using layers of rules and systems that can be exploited by the player.
The original Deus Ex is arguably the best example of this genre done well, with incredible level design and mix of tools at your disposal, where the gameplay goes incredibly deep to allow you a huge degree of freedom. You could play the same level multiple times, and find new things to do or fresh ways to approach each objective.
5. The Sims 2
The Sims series has a universal appeal that managed to break the gaming seal and hit mainstream culture, and its best entry by far is easily The Sims 2.
The Sims 2 heavily improved on the foundation laid by the first game, introducing fully 3D environments, more in-depth personalities and deeper gameplay across almost every single mechanic. With The Sims 3 being a little too big for its boots, and the fourth game stripping back many of its features, The Sims 2 remains the best pick for fans of the series to revisit.
4. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
Often called one of the best real-time strategy games of all time, Age of Empires II feels pretty timeless in 2026 despite being almost thirty years old. It manages to find a perfect balance between aggressive and defensive gameplay, with economic and logistical decision-making being key.
The Definitive Edition remake from 2019 is arguably the best way to play this game nowadays. Not only is it the most accessible version of the game, but the huge plethora of new content, expansions, and balance patches has kept it fresh over the years.
3. Minecraft
Minecraft is still one of the strongest sandbox games going around today, offering a near-limitless amount of opportunities to play or create whatever you want. With mods and custom servers, this potential goes beyond what Mojang originally intended for the game, giving you plenty of new experiences.
Minecraft’s broad appeal makes it a great choice for all ages to play, and it has been applied to many other uses in culture beyond simple entertainment, being used by professionals in the education, architecture, science, and archival industries.
2. Doom
1993’s Doom is the game that revolutionised the first-person shooter genre, prioritising chaotic action and fast-paced movement to deliver an experience that was jaw-dropping in the 1990s. And to this day, it’s still barely aged.
On the whole, the game is dripping with atmosphere, with dark industrial browns juxtaposed against red, hellish landscapes. Combine that with the excellent level design, and you have a game that is extremely fun to play for the first time, and even better when you come at it the second time around.
1. Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is a masterclass in almost every single facet of game design. It’s got incredible level design, a perfect story with fully fleshed out narrative, and a wide variety in mechanics which ensures the game doesn’t feel stale at any point.
There are several elements of Half-Life 2 that were very innovative for its time too, such as the physics-based puzzles and platforming which came about as a result of Valve’s Source engine. It’s stuff you may take for granted in modern games, but this was revolutionary in 2004.
For a game that takes around 15 hours to beat, Half-Life 2 is neither too short, nor too long, instead providing you with an experience that is just the perfect length. If you are left wanting more by the end of it, you’ve got those excellent two episodes—each around six hours in length—to sink your teeth into.
Topics: PC, List, Steam, Epic Games, Features, Half Life, Half-Life 2, Minecraft, Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls, Baldur's Gate 3, World Of Warcraft, The Sims, Doom