Since entering Early Access on March 23, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has remained atop the Steam global top seller's list, drawing a peak crowd of 89,000 concurrent players. It has also crossed the million sales mark this week, according to this morning's press release.

"We couldn’t have reached this milestone without the dedication of our players and we are truly humbled by their passionate response," writes Brendan Greene in the release. "As we move to make improvements and deliver new content we will actively engage this growing fan base."

We've covered Battlegrounds extensively, including our list of what we'd like to see from the battle royale shooter as it makes its way through Early Access—a few of which have already come true. Evan has been enjoying the game, calling it an entry-level Arma, and we also put together a list of tips on staying alive in Battlegrounds.

Even in Early Access PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has overtaken Dota 2 to become the game on Steam with the most concurrent players: 1.3 million. PUBG has enjoyed a stunning ascent, bolstered by updates that have improved optimisation and fixed bugs as part of a roadmap to launch.  The developers are even looking weather, improved traversal systems and cross-platform support with aim-assist and fancy water tech. In light of all this progress we've updated our list of features we'd like to see in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

More stats

Every PUBG round is a story, and I’d the game to capture that using data. I want to see a winner’s route through the map, with annotations for moments they got a kill. I’d like to know how far I’ve travelled in a game. I’d like to see who spent the most time stationary in a bush. I’d like heat maps showing the most contested parts of a map in a round. I’d like to look back at the landing points of every player on the map and see where players like to congregate after they jump out of the plane.

Optimization, optimization

Just as Battlegrounds entered Early Access, Bluehole released a roadmap of the progress they hoped to make with the battle royale shooter. Much of it was focused on optimization, and that's great. I think the game runs pretty darn well for a fresh Early Access title, but I'm looking forward to seeing the optimization dialed in over the coming months. Even looking at the larger cities on the map can result in some steep fps losses, and actually visiting those denser areas can turn the game into a slideshow.

As it is now, a lot of streamers I watch have their graphics settings turned down as low as they'll go to compensate for those optimization issues. That feels like a shame, since Battlegrounds is a really nice-looking game. I know optimization is a priority for Bluehole, and I'm hoping to keep seeing improvements as the weekly and monthly patches arrive. Updates since its Early Access launch have improved optimisation, but it still appears to be an issue for a number players.

Night mode

Adding a night mode to PUBG was something I saw suggested in our comments section, and I love it. With randomised rain and fog weather settings already used to obscure visibility on Erangel, imagine how tough fighting under the cover of darkness would be? And it'd be terrifying too—the sound of unidentified footfall closing in around you, vehicles revving over hillsides with their headlights cut, and the Red Zone briefly illuminating pockets of The Island with fire. Flash bangs would become essential for lighting up buildings, while thermal goggles and sniper scopes could be the rarest and most sought after loot drops.  

Melee mode

My recent quest playing for a bare-fisted PUBG chicken dinner ended in failure. And while I did eventually come second, it involved a lot hiding under bushes, beneath bridges and in abandoned toilets. It was a slog and although I'm not convinced an all-fists round would work, I do think a melee weapons-only bout could be great fun. Imagine spotting someone way off in the distance, but being forced to track them down one-on-one with a scythe—or instead of offing someone with a close range shotgun blast, being required to do so with a frying pan? Moreover, chasing four other survivors around in the last phase of the enclosing circle would be total chaos.

A killcam

It sort of stinks to be killed during a match, especially near the end when there are only a few players left, and not be able to spectate the end of it. I have a natural curiosity for how things will play out, perhaps in some respects driven by the desire to see my killer get his comeuppance (or, if he wins, at least to feel like I was killed by the best player). At the same time, I understand how spectator mode could be used for cheating. If you have a buddy in the same solo match, you could pass along information on enemy locations if you were allowed to just sit there watching.

At the very least, then, I'd love to see a killcam feature added. I'm often uncertain where my killer was when he dropped me, so a little replay, from the other player's perspective, would be helpful. It would help players learn from their mistakes if they could fully take in the circumstances of their deaths. Also, it could help to curb cheating or aimbotting or other exploits, providing some visual proof that someone was up to no good.

Spectator tools

The totalitarian governments in Battle Royale and The Hunger Games use the survival setup to quell youthful rebellion and political dissidence in their populations by broadcasting the bloodsport to every home. If only that was easier to do with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. It’s eminently streamable, but the overall flow of a match is difficult to see. This might be a problem only a team of broadcasters will be able to solve, but I’d still like to be able to follow players around the map, skip to players with the most kills, and snap the camera to hotspots where firefights are breaking out. Chris is right about stream sniping being an issue, but the drama of a teense round of battle royale in PUBG deserves to be captured and celebrated beyond the game. 

Better directional sound

My biggest problem in Battlegrounds—apart from the fact that my aim isn't so great—is that when I'm fired at from a long distance away, I have a lot of difficulty telling where the shots are coming from. Bluehole posted recently about how the gunshot sounds work in Battlegrounds, but in my experience—and I've seen others saying the same—even though I know what the sounds mean, it's still very difficult to tell which direction they're coming from.

Many times I've taken cover from an assailant, only to continue to take fire because the assailant isn't where I think he is, based on the sound of the gunshots. And I've seen it happen in-game to players I've been firing on. Above, I nail a guy a few times, and he moves behind a tree, but he clearly thinks the sounds are coming from the left side of the screen. He tries to put a tree between us, but fails. While I'm happy he was wrong and that I was able to kill him, I've been in the exact same situation, and I know how frustrating it is.

Sound effects balance

This is really just a matter of tweaking things during Early Access, but right now the volume of certain sound effects feels a bit out of whack. I can hear footsteps if another player is in a house with me, but can barely hear the noise of them opening a door a few feet away, so door noises need to come up a bit in the mix. Occasionally, footsteps outside seem a bit too muffled, as I've been startled in the past to suddenly see another player sprint past—though at other times footsteps sound just fine and can be heard over long distances.

Rain, meanwhile: it's just a bummer. I appreciate that sounds can be muffled during a rainstorm—that's just nature. But rain currently feels overly noisy, and here's the real kicker: it just sucks to hear the sound of rain in a game for twenty solid minutes. I absolutely hated when it rained in DayZ: I would immediately leave the server and look for a sunnier one. It's just tiring to have to listen to that constant, inescapable noise while playing a game. (Though in life, I quite enjoy it.)

Better swimming

Admittedly, swimming is probably very difficult for someone wearing a motorcycle helmet and leather coat while carrying three guns and several grenades. If anything, perhaps swimming should be a lot harder than it is in Battlegrounds. 

It just sort of sucks, though: I feel like it takes forever to paddle across a river. I don't know if it's a strong current coded in the water or what, but it's already extremely punishing (and a little boring) to swim even a short distance. As someone who has wound up in the water more than once—usually due to poor driving or fleeing in panic—I wouldn't mind feeling a bit more like Michael Phelps and a bit less than Michael Caine.*

*No offense to meant Michael Caine. He may be a very strong swimmer. It's just that he's 84 is probably not as good a swimmer as Michael Phelps, and also I think he got eaten in the Jaws movie he was in.

We've been enjoying our time with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the Early Access battle royale shooter. We've also enjoyed watching others play it, and we've put together a collection of our favorite kills (with the exception of those accomplished through the upside-down car strategy, which we already covered here).

Below, gaze upon our favorite kills involving cars, grenades, frying pans, fists, and in one case, a door. Oh yeah, a few have guns, too.

Annnd action!

This scene tracks better than most action movies, featuring car combat, lovely first person camerawork, a tense shootout in the street, and some timely reinforcements when things look grim. To see the whole clip, check out the link below. Someone get Hollywood on the horn.

Via Reddit

Up in smoke

Weed_Man deserved better than this. Weed_Man is worth more than death by motorcycle-squashing from a skyscraper’s height. No one should puff-puff pass like this. Tragic.

Via Reddit

Karma

In which Twitch streamer Ninja speaks a bit too soon. 

Via Twitch

How to fly

There’s no preventing a death like this. If you’re the PUBG Terminator’s target, might as well lay down and wait for the big shotgun in the sky to take you away. 

Via YouTube

Man vs Nature

PUBG’s most dangerous threat isn’t other players. It’s not what the big blue forcefield or the risky gear hunt. PUBG’s biggest monster is Mother Nature. I’ve seen more matches go awry due to trees leaping in front of drivers than just about anything else, and it never gets easier to watch. 

Via Reddit

Para-shoot

I really hope the player this person shot out of the air before they could even finish parachuting wasn’t a newcomer. There’d be no better excuse to quit playing videogames for good. 

Via Reddit

Car-ma

Never leave a squadmate behind, unless it’s to grab a car or motorcycle to save them with the terrible power of vehicular manslaughter. It’s hard to watch this clip without feeling A) sorry for the helpless squad getting run over one by one, and B) vicariously invigorated by the power rush the drivers are going through. 

Via Reddit

Divine intervention

PUBG can be pretty tense and surprising, but damn, that’s some poor aim. It’s a scene straight out of Pulp Fiction. On the other hand, those are some nice dance moves. The punching player earned that beatdown. 

Via Twitter

Pan, the bullet trickster 

OK, so it’s not a kill, but seeing 50 players empty their weapons into a frying pan covering another player’s ass is the triumphant inversion of death, a bold proclamation that says—well, I’m not entirely sure to be honest. It’s just funny.

Via YouTube

Bam!

Now that’s how you cook a grenade! Simmer it on a low heat, lure a disillusioned player into a small room, swap spaces, toss, and enjoy. How about that amazing ragdoll at the end? Cathartic. 

Via Reddit

Flying lesson 

Looks like this location is becoming a hotspot for cool car stunt kills. Despite how many times we’ve seen it happen, this clip earns inclusion for the dramatic editing and Arnold cameo. 

Via Twitter

Hidden weapon

A little patience can go a long way in PUBG. So can hiding in an upturned car. Plays.tv user Bashery used such a driving accident to their advantage, discreetly watching the final moments of a match unfold until only a few contenders remained before popping out and cleaning up. 

Via Plays.tv

Threading the needle

So the kills are a bit sloppy, but after defying physics by threading two bodies and a motorcycle through a thin window, I’d be a bit disoriented too.  

Via YouTube

On page two, more frying pans, flying punches, and a door death.

Supine surprise

File this under 'You Have Got To Be Kidding Me.' Not only does the player take a major fall off a cliff, survive with a sliver of health, have the wherewithal to spot another player, and have the steady hands to aim and kill him—but it's the final kill of the match. This winner deserves more than a chicken dinner.

Via Reddit.

A low blow

Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause has a particular knack for parachuting from the sky and hijacking a car before his boots even hit the ground. The player in this clip from streamer WannaSp00n is clearly no Rico Rodriguez.

Via Twitch.

Long distance relationship

Fair bit of sniping here, and while it's a knockout and not a kill, it still shows the dangers of climbing a mountain to have a look around. Nice shot.

Via Reddit.

Hail Mary

One disadvantage of playing in a squad of four is the inclination to carpool. Sure, it lets you use the diamond lane, but it also leaves you open to extremely timely grenade throws. Next time, you might want to split up before you blow up.

Via YouTube.

Stop and pop

The shooting range is naturally a great place to look for guns: unfortunately, that's not exactly a secret. Luckily, the player above stays calm, works through cover, and manages a nice little jump-n-pump-action. Hitting a moving target is tough, but hitting a stationary target when you're in motion is even more impressive.

Via Reddit, where you can watch the entire clip.

Sting like a bee

We've all been there: being chased by someone with a gun when we have no gun of our own. We've probably all also tried to fight back with our fists, but this surprise flying punch is definitely one to be savored.

Via Reddit.

Leading 'em on

Another nice bit of sniping, this time at a moving buggy. The first shot pops the driver out of the car, the next seals the deal. Next time, bring a tank.

Via Reddit.

Delivery!

I wasn't aware the word 'dope' was still being trafficked, but who cares: driving a car up a cliff, through the air, onto the terrace of a building, then jumping out and wasting the two players who just happened to be there? Yeah, that's definitely dope.

Can't see me

Here we see the wily chameleon, blending in with his surroundings using natural camouflage. The screaming in the clip is understandable. I would have screamed too.

Via Reddit.

Fried

Frying pan, or flying pan? Both, in this case. Breakfast is served.

Via YouTube.

Central air

How to deal with an unwanted guest? Show them to the door. If the door isn't handy, the window will do. Thanks for visiting!

Via Reddit.

Occupied

Remember, it's polite to knock before entering a bathroom, just in case it's occupied by four other people.

Via Reddit.

Gunslinger

I don't much care for the revolver in Battlegrounds: it takes a long time to reload and only holds a few shots. It can make dropping foes pretty satisfying, though, as the player above does with three different enemies.

Via Reddit, where you can see the entire sequence (including finishing off the three players with a car).

Knock, knock

It's not a bad idea, really, to open a door and take cover to one side, thus hopefully preventing an ambush. It does appear, however, to leave a slight risk medical scientists describe as 'Early Access Game Fatal Hover-Plummet.' Ask your doctor if opening doors is right for you.

Via Reddit.

Need a lift?

And just to prove that Battlegrounds isn't all death and mayhem, let's finish with a moment of serendipitous sportsmanship.

You don't kill your way to victory in a gruelling round of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on luck alone. Anyone who's survived a hundred-man deathmatch and come out on top will tell you that having a solid strategy is the key. Some players (like me) avoid conflict as much as necessary as the bloodbath transpires. Some players rush high-value loot areas to secure the best gear. And then there are those that intentionally flip one of Battlegrounds' disused cars so they can turtle inside it.

Earlier this week YouTuber Sir Lance and his partner stumbled into a pretty killer tactic to survive the chaos of the first 20 minutes. En route to a bunker, they accidentally flipped their sedan and landed upside down. Now, most people would do the logical thing and get out of the car, use a bandage to recover the health they lost from flipping over, and continue on foot. But not these two geniuses. 

For about 20 minutes, they sat upside down in the car and waited. At one point, Sir Lance scores an amazing kill despite being upside down with his view obstructed by the long grass—one of the most badass things I've seen in Battlegrounds so far. Eventually Sir Lance and his pal are forced to abandon the vehicle as the deadly electric field, which effectively narrows the size of the map, closes in. At that point they're in such good shape from avoiding combat that they don't have much trouble winning the round.

Being a sitting duck might sound stupid, but it works beautifully. As Evan wrote yesterday, Battlegrounds plays like a streamlined, hyperconcentrated Arma. And like Arma, there's no 'command' for flipping an overturned vehicle. And, mercifully, flipped cars also don't explode like they do in most videogames including the other popular battle royale game, H1Z1: King of the Kill.

All this means most players have learned to view overturned vehicles as useless, abandoned objects in the environment. Who could possibly anticipate that someone would be sitting inside of one just waiting? Why would they?

Those two small kinks in the established formula of how we expect vehicles to work in videogames is what makes Sir Lance's tactic so effective. And players have already started exploiting it to hilarious effect. Twitch streamer PaperbagNinja and three friends piled into a tipped over jeep and waited patiently to ambush players strolling by. With four against one, the element of surprise doesn't matter nearly as much, but that doesn't mean it's not hilarious. 

If you do decide to use this strategy, just be careful. Players are quickly wising up to it, as demonstrated by omnomanom on Reddit. 

Sadly, I don't think sneaky sedaning is going to fool people for very much longer. With more examples hitting the Battlegrounds subreddit daily, players are beginning to regard any flipped vehicles with an appropriate amount of caution.

That said, it's not like Battlegrounds' cars will go back to only being useful for something as boring as driving. No, no, no. See, the only thing more ingenious than sitting in a car for 20 minutes like a middle-aged parent waiting for their kids to finish school is using that same car for physics-defying feats of strategic prowess. Consider this clip posted to Twitter: 

Or this amazing play by Headlessturt1e where he uses a jeep for a stealthy rooftop infiltration: 

Okay, so not everything in Battlegrounds is realistic, but I'm willing to bend the rules a bit if it means more of these ridiculous stunts. 

Arma has quietly become a very influential game.

Bohemia Interactive's military sim series has been around for 15 years (including its early life as Operation Flashpoint), but its best ideas are only now being borrowed by some of today's most popular multiplayer games: Ark: Survival Evolved, H1Z1: King of the Kill, Rust, or even low-key open-world co-op romp Ghost Recon Wildlands. Directly and indirectly, these massive-scale shooters build on Arma's legacy of fidelity, big maps, and its make-your-own-fun mentality.

Add PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to that list. Born from the Arma mod Battle Royale (which became the basis for H1Z1: King of the Kill), Battlegrounds is the latest mutation of the emerging subgenre of the same name. Despite that relatively long period of gestation, Battlegrounds' launch last week wasn't without the expected Early Access bruises. Developer Bluehole seems to be on top of it, issuing its first patch yesterday, but the reward system has been having issues. Server performance has struggled here and there. And even on lower settings, my framerate plunges when I look at the biggest cities on the map. 

Still, Battlegrounds is the best game of its kind available, thanks in large part to its considerable Arma DNA.

Concentrated

If Arma's tea, Battlegrounds is espresso. Its format compresses the time and space you're accustomed to in sandbox FPSes, dropping you into a 64 km² map (much smaller than Arma 3's 270 km²) that perpetually shrinks in diameter. King of the Kill players know how this system works: a 'safe zone' is marked on the map a few minutes into the match, and all players have to scramble to get inside. Anyone caught outside takes damage over time. Every few minutes, a smaller zone within the previous zone appears, forcing anyone left alive closer together. A match takes 20 minutes at most.

Some core Arma mechanics are purposefully shrunk down, too. Your compass is a fixed part of the UI, not something you have to find, equip, then 'pull out' by hitting a key. Body positioning matters, but you don't have nine different infantry stances to fiddle with. Each gun shoots a different caliber of ammo, but it's an easy system to grasp.

In short: Battlegrounds isn't a simulation, but it retains plenty of Arma's spirit. Using your eyes to spot and track enemies is an essential skill, for example. When you see someone running across a field, there's this 'I know something you don't know' sensation—I can totally shoot this guy, he doesn't see me, you'll think. But like Arma and DayZ, it's usually not a matter of putting them under your crosshairs and jabbing the left mouse button. You want to wait until they're out in the open, when they're checking their inventory, when they're preoccupied and aloof. In these moments, I love the way Battlegrounds asks me to think critically and examine an enemy's body language, check which towns are nearby, or guess based on the state of the ever-changing safe zone what that enemy might do next.

Like Arma, too, you should play it with friends. Scrounging for loot is more satisfying when you're filling in each other's equipment gaps ("Anyone got any 7.62mm?") and announcing big finds over voice chat. Moments of leadership emerge: deciding when to jump out of the plane at the start, deciding which group of buildings to raid next, figuring out the right time to ditch a vehicle. Someone's got to make those calls, and I like that Battlegrounds makes me feel the disappointment when they go wrong alongside doses of GTA Online-style calamity.

Other than the performance imperfections and untenable gunshot sounds, I'm only curious, and slightly concerned, about how quickly Battlegrounds might age. Although it's a prettier, grittier, and more deliberate game than King of the Kill, those who've already put a ton of time into battle royale might eventually feel like Battlegrounds is a better-fitting set of pants. The Early Access offering is shallow: a map, essentially one mode, and the mildly satisfying lure of sick trenchcoats awaiting you in the loot system. It'll be interesting to see if the devs can keep pace with the game's burgeoning community.

Overall, Battlegrounds' approach to simplifying simulation-style systems and mechanics is successful. Many of my gaming friends who bounced off of Arma because they perceived it as too unwieldy are diving in, and those who haven't yet have been asking me enthusiastically about whether they should. I'm glad to have a short-form gateway game to sell them on the fun of FPS fidelity.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but this week a patch will arrive for public servers on Tuesday—it's currently on test servers already—and it's aimed pretty squarely at lousy rotten no-good cheaters.

First, a fix to prevent a 'lag switch' cheat, in which a player increases their ping to such a degree that they aren't where they appear to be and thus can attack and kill other players from relative safety. To combat this, players whose ping exceeds a certain (unstated) value will be locked in place, "unable to move, rotate, and attack others."

Another fix is being added to prevent players from removing foliage from the game by editing an .ini file. Sounds like some people just can't live without a chicken dinner, even if it means deleting shrubs just so they can see a little better.

Also of note: flashbang grenades have been a bit problematic in that they can sometimes cause game clients to freeze and crash, so for the time being they have been removed from the game.

There's also a handful of bug fixes and improvements, so have a look at the full patch notes below. And, if you're playing the battle royale shooter these days, we've recently published a great guide for finding the hottest loot locations in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Client performance improvements

• Slightly improved the drop in FPS when driving vehicles

Anti cheat

• In order to prevent using "lag switch" to cheat, the characters will now be locked and will not be able to move, rotate and attack others when the ping exceeds a certain value
• You will no longer be able to remove the environment foliage by revising the .ini file

Custom games

• Fixed the issue that was causing the sound to break when there are too many vehicles in a small area

Bug fixes

• Partially fixed a bug that caused the character to get stuck in different objects in the environment
• Partially fixed a bug that caused the game client to freeze
• Fixed a bug that caused the crosshair to still be visible while in no-UI mode
• Temporarily removed the flash bang from the game as it was causing game clients to freeze/crash

As we mentioned in our guide earlier this week, sound is an important element in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: it's key to listen very carefully for player footstep, car engines, and of course gunfire, especially when that gunfire is directed at you. Battlegrounds developer Bluehole posted an in-depth explanation of how gunshot sounds work in their battle royale shooter, and it's worth a listen (technically, a read) for anyone playing.

When someone shoots at you in Battlegrounds, you might hear three different sound effects, though what you hear, and when you hear it, depends on the distance between you and the person shooting, and how close their bullet comes to hitting you.

First, there's the sound of the gunshot, which has a propagation delay. "The propagation velocity is 340m/s so if a pistol is shot 340m away from the listener, he will see the muzzle flash first and hear the gunshot after 1 second," writes Marek, Battlegrounds' lead gun designer.

If you hear a 'whizz' sound that means a bullet has flown past you. You may also hear a crack sound, which is the "bullet bow shockwave." This occurs when the bullet, flying at supersonic speeds, passes you. The radius for the whizz and the crack are different, with the whizz radius being considerably bigger. In other words, if you hear a whizz and a crack, the bullet has passed very close to you, and if you only hear a whizz, it was close but not that close.

The image above demonstrates how that all works. An example is also given about the series of sights and sounds that occur when someone shoots at you from 1,000 meters using an AWM, which has a 900 meter-per-second muzzle velocity:

1. You see the muzzle flash
2. After ~1 sec you hear the crack/whizz (assuming no air drag)
3. After ~3 sec you hear the gunshot

The post continues:

"We blend between different sound samples based on distance (the maximum distance and attenuation characteristic is also affected by suppressor attachment). The close gunshot sounds louder and more clear than the distant one. In the current public build, all bullets generate a sound crack effect. We've changed this mechanic by adding a velocity check, so bullets travelling slower than speed of sound will not generate the crack effect but just whizz."

Paying close attention to these sound effects should give you a better idea of the distance someone is shooting from, how close they're getting to hitting you, and even what sort of weapon they're using.

Bluehole expects Battlegrounds to spend six months in Early Access, and as we reported earlier this week, the game is off to a strong start, earning over $11 million in its first weekend on Steam.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched on Steam Early Access this past Thursday, and according to its developer, Bluehole, it has already raked in over $11 million in sales. The multiplayer battle royale shooter also drew a sizable crowd of combatants with a peak of 67,000 concurrent players, says Bluehole's press release. People didn't just play, but also watched: Bluehole reports over 150,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch.

If you're looking to get started with Battlegrounds yourself, make sure you check out our guide on how to get started and stay alive. We also wrote up our impressions of the last-man-standing shooter during its closed beta period.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds exploded into Early Access in March and quickly became the PC's most popular battle royale: roughly 100 players parachute from a plane onto a 18x18km island, search for weapons and gear, and fight to the death. All the while, a shrinking circle closes around the island, a blue energy field that damages the health of players caught in it. Players must travel, by foot or in vehicles, into the safe area, drawing closer and closer to the remaining players for a final showdown. The last one left alive wins.

While Battlegrounds doesn't have the raw complexity of Arma, there are still a few things you need to know before your boots hit the ground (and you swap them for different boots). Here are our best tips on staying alive and winning in PUBG.

Follow this guide, and you'll have a shot at being the last one standing.

Press Ctrl+T immediately

Ctrl+T mutes voice chat. You will want to do this the moment you enter the lobby, which places all the players on a tiny island together to run around, punch each other, pick up weapons, and blast each other in the face. Your time in the lobby, typically, is under a minute, but trust me: you'll want to mute voice chat right away so you don't have to listen to the players who choose to spend their time in the lobby shrieking or yelling racist slurs.

After a minute in the lobby, you'll appear on the plane with everyone else. The shrieking and slurs will continue, naturally, so don't unmute voice chat, ever, not even for a second.

Land as fast as possible

Hitting the ground before other players is essential, especially if you're landing in an area other players are aiming for, and particularly if it's a zone without much loot. We've actually put together a separate guide on how to land that's full of tips for getting your boots on the ground.

Know your landing zones

Sometimes you may want to land in a zone where there's top-quality loot, but that means more immediate competition from other like-minded players. Other times you might want to begin in a more secluded spot, even if it means a sparser selection of loot. Either way, learning the different areas is important, so we've built a separate article for it. Check out our guide to PUBG's hottest loot spots.

Don’t stop moving

When you’re in an exposed position or in an extended firefight keep moving as much as possible. If you know where your target is, move laterally to them. If you're looting outdoors, hit the Tab (inventory) key, then keep dancing with WASD as you drag items into your inventory with the mouse. Standing still is what gives enemies the time to line up headshots.

Use freelook

Battlegrounds is as much a game of Where's Waldo as anything else, and you've got to use your eyes well to win. Hold the Alt key to move your head, along with the camera, independently of your body. This is especially useful during the aerial decent, when you'll want to be scanning in all directions to spot parachutes.

You should also use freelook to scan for enemies while prone—turning your whole body is more likely to give away your position.

You can swap which shoulder the camera looks over

While in third-person, if you click and hold your right mouse button, then tap Q and E, you can swap shoulder views. This is useful if you're trying to peek different sides of cover or carefully work your way around corners.

Respect the bush

Hiding in a bush might seem like a bad idea, given that a bush offers exactly zero physical protection. Yet, because of how difficult it is to see a player crouched in a bush it’s a remarkably effective hiding spot and can be used to surprise or simply hide. If you’re fighting in the wilderness always give nearby bushes at least a cursory inspection and be aware of your surroundings.

Understanding the electric wall of death that will consume us all

The blue circle is as dangerous as anything else in the late game and can be a source of annoyance throughout as it siphons you towards other players. 

From the first moment you're able to jump out of the plane, you have about 1 minute 50 seconds  to do some initial looting before the first circle is identified. Here are the timings for each of the circles:

Circle 1: 5 minutes

Circle 2: 3 minutes 20 seconds

Circle 3: 2 minutes 30 seconds

Circle 4: 2 minutes

Circle 5: 2 minutes

Circle 6: 1 minute 30 seconds

Circle 7: 1 minute 30 seconds

Circle 8: 1 minute

Early zones do minimal damage (you can use boost items to entirely mitigate this), however if the energy barrier reaches the next white circle while you’re still outside of it, that damage will double. The base damage goes up progressively with each circle, with late game zones capable of killing you in a matter of seconds.

What does armor do?

When I first played PUBG I was picking up cosmetic head choices over motorcycle helmets. Big mistake. The three armor tiers have two sets of statistics: durability, and damage reduction. 

The durability tells you how much damage a piece of armor can take before it’s destroyed, damage reduction tells you the percentage of damage the armor mitigates up until it is destroyed, increasing through the tiers. Furthermore a piece of armor is 100% effective up until the moment it is destroyed. That means a Tier 3 helmet with 1 durability will still save you from a Kar 98k headshot. 

Tier 1 armor provides 30% damage reduction and has a durability of 80 on the helmet, 200 for the vest.

Tier 2 armor provides 40% damage reduction and has a durability of 150 on the helmet, 220 for the vest.

Tier 3 armor provides 55% damage reduction and has a durability of 230 on the helmet, 250 on the vest.

It’s also worth noting that arms and legs are unaffected by armor, but you take 50% less damage when hit there, while headshots do 2.5x more damage than a chest shot. Effectively, then, arms and legs have permanent 'Tier 2.5' armor.

Full credit to akadiablo2213 for some fantastic testing.

What are the best guns?

There are lots of pistols, SMGs, rifles, and shotguns in PUBG. Luckily, we've put together a separate guide to guns, ranking the best ones in each category so you'll know which ones to look for, and which to pick when you've got to choose between them. Check out our guide to the best (and worst) PUBG weapons here.

Watch out for red zones

There are two circles you need to keep an eye on: the one showing you the safe zone, and the one showing you the blue death-field. But don't forget red zones. Red zones show you an area that is about to be fire-bombed, and with your head down collecting loot or eyes out looking for enemies, it's easy to miss the on-screen text warning you about an impending bombing. You might suddenly realize you're standing in a red zone—it'll show on your minimap as well.

Being in a red zone doesn't mean you're definitely be killed—I've made it through several even as the bombs were dropping—but it's still not a place you want to be if you can avoid it.

Dive, dive, dive!

If you’re put in a situation where you need to swim or just fancy taking a dip, it’s always worth bearing in mind that while underwater you can’t be hit by bullets (though you will need to surface for air periodically). My former soldier friend tells me this has a basis in reality and that anything below a .20-caliber round will be stopped by 5 feet of water (though he may have learned this from an episode of Top Gear).

Don't kill your teammates

Maybe this sounds obvious, but killing teammates won't just hurt your chances of winning a squad game but may actually get you banned. PUBG has shown it has a zero-tolerance policy for team-killing, and it's being enforced. Killing teammates deliberately can get you banned, killing teammates as a joke can get you banned, and even killing teammates who have killed your other teammates can get you banned.

It's probably best to save your ammo for the enemy.

Learn to communicate with your squad

Speaking of teammates, you need to learn how to speak to your teammates: it's a real skill you can hone and improve to make sure your communication is efficient and precise. If you and your friends want to tighten your comms, we've got a separate list of tips for you. Check out our guide on how to communicate in PUBG to keep your squad alive.

Moving faster

When your weapon is unequipped (the X key, by default) you can run slightly faster, perfect if you’re dashing to cover or escaping the blue circle.

Using boost

You may have noticed that when using boost items (painkillers, energy drinks and adrenaline shots) four thin bars above your health bar turn yellow. These represent the four stages of boost, with the following effects.

1 Bar: you will slowly heal over time.

2 Bars: you will heal over time slightly faster.

3 Bars: you will run slightly faster.

4 Bars: you will aim down your weapon sight slightly faster.

Boost is also the only way to get back to 100% health when damaged, other than using a rarely found medkit. If you make it to the late-game and have a stack of boost items, it’s worth keeping your bars topped up even if you have full health. 

Distance and rangefinding

The PUBG map (including water) is 8km by 8km, divided into 1km2 squares. Zooming in on the map allows you to see further squares denoting 100m2. You can use this to judge distances and estimate how far away a zone, building or player is from your location. 

In nearly all firefights, stopping to calculate distances and changing your weapon’s zeroing would not be recommended unless you excel at spatial awareness and in-game geometrics. Instead, you’re best off using aim adjust to aim slightly above your target to account for bullet drop.

One exception to this is sniping. You can roughly mentally map out the distance between your sniping spot and visible landmarks, changing your weapon zeroing to match when you see targets, using the PgUp and PgDn keys by default. It’s worth re-mapping these keys to something more natural (like mousewheel) if you want to use it consistently.

Riding shotgun

If you’re alone, driving a car, you may think yourself entirely defenceless. But simply switching to an unoccupied seat (Ctrl+1, 2, 3, or 4) will allow you to fire your gun while the car is moving. For best results you want to be on flat terrain (like a road), otherwise aiming may prove problematic.

Turn up the volume

Seriously, put on headphones and crank the volume as high as you can without doing damage to your ears. Sound is incredibly important for everything from distant gunfire to really really distant gunfire, car and plane engines, and especially footsteps. While there is a walk button, most players run all the time, and running makes noise. Keep your ears peeled for telltale footsteps, and keep in mind that other players can hear yours as well.

Close doors—usually

Doors, by default, are closed. Upon entering a building, make sure you close the door behind you. Typically, you don't want to announce to other players that you're inside a building, and an open door signifies that pretty clearly. If someone doesn't know you're inside a building, they may just waltz in without a care in the world. In the gif below, I'd closed the door behind me and was looting when someone pulled up in a car (and naturally I heard the car before I saw it). 

Since the door was closed, the player had no reason to think anyone was inside, which let me easily kill him even though my aim was pretty shit.

The other benefit of closing doors is when you leave. An open door not only signified you're in a building, but that you have been in a building. Someone coming across a building with a closed door will probably assume the building hasn't been looted, so making them fruitlessly search the rooms and find nothing is a good way to waste someone's time.

Usually. There are times you may want to leave a door open as you leave, to let someone think you're in a building. They'll creep carefully around outside for a couple minutes long after you're gone. Again, wasting other players' time isn't ever a bad idea.

On this list you'll find the best PC games we're playing right now—recent singleplayer hits, thriving esports, and a few modern classics that would improve any library. We'll continue to update this list as new games release, removing older favorites and replacing them with our latest obsessions. Rather than an ever-expanding list that reaches deep into the past, we're shooting for a practical answer to the question: 'What new PC game should I get?'

If you're looking for a more comprehensive list which includes our favorite games from the past few decades, check out our yearly Top 100 list  or our list of the most important PC games. For an up-to-date look at upcoming games, we've assembled the new games of 2020. For budget options, check out the best free games on Steam and best free browser games. 

Need a new system to play these games on? Here's our advice on what kind of gaming PC you should get, or take a look at our best graphics cards roundup to upgrade your GPU.

Our favorite games of 2019

• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
• Disco Elysium
• What The Golf?
• Control
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Telling Lies
• Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers
• Resident Evil 2
• Outer Wilds
• Outward
• Amid Evil
• Observation
• Anno 1800
• Remnant: From the Ashes
• Afterparty
• Slay the Spire
• Apex Legends
• Session
• Man of Medan
• Metro Exodus
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Warframe

At the end of every year, we recognize a select set of games in our Game of The Year Awards, with one receiving our overall GOTY prize. We've started posting our 2019 awards, and will continue recognizing the year's most surprising, well-crafted, and creative games through December 31.

Above, you'll find a list of some of our favorite games of 2019, not all of which will be recognized in our awards, but all of which we recommend (listed in no particular order). We think just about anyone can get something out of these games—except for maybe Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers, which is fantastic but also requires the commitment to play through a hell of a lot of Final Fantasy 14 so that it comes through as a payoff. (Don't tell Steven "MMO" Messner we said so.)

In 2020, we plan to revamp this list with a new format that better reflects the games we love and are playing right now, with more frequent updates that bring you recommendations from across our entire team, which spans Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. For now, we back our 2019 recommendations above and below with complete confidence. Whatever kind of game you're looking for, you'll probably find it on this list.

Competitive online games

Apex LegendsReleased: 2019 | Developer: Respawn |  Origin | Our review

Apex Legends is the best battle royale game available now. The map is fantastic, the 'ping' communication system is something every FPS should have from here on, the guns and movement are great fun (no wallrunning, but sliding down hills feels great), and it's free-to-play with nothing to pay for except cosmetics. It isn't the game we expected from Respawn, but we're glad it's here. Check James' review for more.

Rainbow Six SiegeReleased: 2015 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Counter-Strike's sexier cousin. Siege might lack the sharp hit detection and purity of CS:GO, but it's a more accessible and modern FPS that rewards clever timing and coordinated teamwork as much as aim. Siege's learning curve is a result of all the stuff (characters, gadgets, elaborate maps, and guns) that's been added since December 2015, but eventually you find yourself picking operators, map spots, and roles that you're comfortable with. Ubisoft continues to support Siege, dropping four major updates per year along with regular fixes.

OverwatchReleased: 2016 | Developer: Blizzard | Battle.net | Our review

With Overwatch's colorful characters and bright, inclusive world, Blizzard brought the world of team-based hero shooters to an entirely new market. Teams of six take the roles of tank, DPS, and healer to battle over objectives, not just who can get the most kills. It's a game that rewards—if not requires—teamwork. And with a growing cast of now 27 heroes to choose from, there's a character to fit just about any play style.

Fortnite Battle RoyaleReleased: 2017 | Developer: Epic | Official site | Free-to-play | Our review

What started as a sterile PUBG imitation has evolved into the Minecraft generation’s arena shooter. Fortnite’s building system rewards good aim and an eye for architecture equally, extending battle royale shootouts from green pastures to impromptu skyscrapers slapped together in a minute. With ridiculously frequent updates from Epic Games that introduce new weapons, traps, tools, and skins, Fortnite is easily worth the price of admission, and even then, worth the time it takes to master such an obtuse, irregular building system.

PlayerUnknown's BattlegroundsReleased: 2017 | Developer: PUBG Corp. | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

100 murderous hopefuls skydive onto an abandoned island, grab whatever weapons and ammo they can find, and fight to the death. Rinse and repeat. Though the concept wasn't new (PlayerUnknown himself is responsible for multiple battle royale modes and mods), PUBG made the battle royale genre into the phenomenon that it is today. As a third- or first-person shooter, PUBG is more realistic and less arcadey than Fortnite. The joy of it is how it forces players to move and take risks as an ever-shrinking forcefield funnels surviving players toward each other until a winner climbs out of the wreckage. Every instant of every game is a flood of important decisions to make, and any one of them—even a minor one—could lead to your doom. 

Rocket LeagueReleased: 2015 | Developer: Psyonix | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

The best and only synthesis of hockey and soccer than you can play with rocket-powered battle cars. Where most esports rely on gunplay or clicky top-down wizardry, Rocket League is all physics and speed. Simply put, you're trying to smash a giant soccer ball into a goal with a car. But the cars can jump, and flip, and fly into the air once you get the hang of it (which will take a while). Even after three years, Rocket League players are still inventing new moves and tricks—if there's a skill ceiling, no one's bumped it yet. It's intimidating and your first matches will probably be rough as you learn to steer and backflip and ride the walls, but since there are so many other new players at any given time, as well as training modes and bot matches, you can still get up to speed even if you're entering the arena late. Note that while you can play Rocket League with a mouse and keyboard, and some good players do, most prefer a controller.

HearthstoneReleased: 2014 | Developer: Blizzard | Official site

Despite the departure of game director Ben Brode, he of the flannel shirt and megaton laughter, Hearthstone remains in relatively rude health. The game's last two expansions—The Boomsday Project (August 2018) and Rastakhan's Rumble (Devember 2018)—have rightly been criticised for failing to freshen the meta sufficiently, but nonethless it's possible to build a deck with any class and pilot it successfully on the ladder. Those looking to try-hard on a budget should consider Spell Hunter, which is relatively cheap to build, whilst those looking to make instant enemies may prefer the ultra aggressive Odd Paladin, which remains obnoxious despite a recent nerf. For those of you with ladder anxiety, Hearthstone also now includes a rich suite of single-player content in the Solo Adventures section. There you'll find Rumble Run, Puzzle Lab, Monster Hunt and Dungeon Run—plenty of fun, without the pressure of a turn timer. 

League of LegendsReleased: 2009 | Developer: Riot Games | Official site

MOBAs are hard, rewarding competitive games because they demand teamwork, quick reaction times, and knowledge of beginning, middle, and endgame phases that vary with the role you play. And if you're going to play one, LoL is the best place to start. League of Legends has had remarkable staying power as one of the most popular games in esports for a couple simple reasons. One, it strikes just the right balance of depth and approachability for a MOBA. A gargantuan roster of heroes means you could spend years learning the ins-and-outs of the game, but mechanically it's less demanding than Dota 2, and more involved than Heroes of the Storm. Two, Riot Games hasn't been afraid to make significant changes to the map, characters, and other systems over the years, so there's always something new to learn.

If you can, play with a team of friends—it's far more fun (and effective) to coordinate on a headset than deal with randoms over text chat. If you bounce off of LoL, Dota 2 is of course extremely popular as well, and both are free-to-play, so give it a shot.

Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5Released: 2016/2018 | Developer: DICE 

While Battlefield 1 diehards insist that it's the superior game, we recommend both BF1 and BF5. On BF5's side, EA has done away with paid seasons passes, and is releasing all new maps free, plus there's a battle royale mode now. 

Meanwhile, though, Battlefield 1 is included with Origin Access (both Basic and Premium) and is pretty cheap otherwise, so if the World War 1 setting appeals to you, it's a low-cost entry into the series.

Here's our Battlefield 1 review, and our Battlefield 5 review.

Singleplayer and co-op shooters 

Doom (2016)Released: 2016 | Developer: id | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

The original Doom—back in 1993—is the most influential shooter of all time. With a pedigree like that, 2016's Doom reboot could have coasted by on the family name, had some fun, and called it a day. Instead, Doom surprised us all by being a spectacular shooter in its own right. More than that, Doom abandoned a lot of the storytelling conventions and cutscenes we've come to associate with modern games: about 30 seconds into the first level, the main character physically throws the plot across the room and shoots a demon in the face. Doom has a singular purpose, and if you're not a gun or a demon's face, it doesn't care to know you.

The remarkable thing about Doom is how eagerly it embraces ridiculous ideas as long as they're fun. Punch a demon until extra ammo pours out? Yes. Infinite stream of high-explosive rockets? Absolutely. The entire game is a crescendo, a heavy metal guitar solo that just gets louder and louder. Speaking of heavy metal, that soundtrack? Phwoar. What a game.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2Released: 2018 | Developer: Fatshark | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Like Vermintide 1, Vermintide 2 takes on the format of Valve's classic co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead. Each hero is generally capable but vulnerable on their own. Among the swarms of rats are elite enemies that specialize in ambushing individual players, leaving them helpless until a comrade rescues them. The mutual need for protection makes Vermintide unusually dependent on good teamwork, and sharp spatial awareness and generous instincts are better for survival than perfect aim.

There are five heroes to play, and each has three subclasses and a long list of possible weapons and specialty skills. Every successful mission rewards players with random weapons and loot, and a surprisingly deep crafting system helps players customize their heroes. Random matchmaking to find groups is fine, but Vermintide 2 is a real joy when played with friends, like a corporate team-building exercise with swords and axes.

DuskReleased: 2018 | Developer:  David Szymanski  | Humble Store, Steam

If you have any nostalgia for DOS-era shooters like Doom and Quake, Dusk has got it all: finding color-coded keys and secret chambers, a metal soundtrack, and high-speed strafing with dual-wielded shotguns while blasting the faces off of demons. An ideal way to spend an afternoon. Check out our Dusk review for more.

Resident Evil 2 (Remake)Released: 2019 | Developer: Capcom | Steam | Our review

A superb remake of the survival horror classic, with a mix of nostalgia and newness that Andy called "tense, challenging, and beautiful" in his review.

Action games

Grand Theft Auto 5Released: 2015 | Developer: Rockstar North | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

GTA 5 runs beautifully on PC, and its open world is still the best of any game, a gorgeous sprawl that replicates everything we associate with Los Angeles: the flat heat, the atmosphere, the fact that the city is so damn big. The campaign is the series' best ever, punctuated by ambitious heist missions involving all three protagonists. It's a lot of fun to spend time in this world.

If you want to take things further, GTA Online is waiting for you with an absolute ton of stuff to do. Not all of it is amazing, but with a few friends, it's great fun to knock through the Online mode's bespoke heists, and owning a business feels pretty cool too. There are plenty of ways to play this game forever, including all of these great mods.

Assassin's Creed OdysseyReleased: 2018 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal | Steam | Our review

Ubisoft nailed the latest in the Assassin's Creed series, fully embracing the roleplaying genre and retooling its typical open world to-do list into an adventure full of quests worth doing—all set in its grandest world to date.

Dishonored 2Released: 2016 | Developer: Arkane Studios | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

The best immersive sim around, with sprawling, complicated levels that are wonderful to unpack, as well as a couple of high-concept missions that you'll never forget. It's like Arkane made a sequel based on how much everyone loved Lady Boyle's Last Party in Dishonored—most of the levels here are just as good. The option to play as two characters, with their own version of the story and sets of powers, offers even more replay value.

Crucially, too, Dishonored 2 offers more non-lethal ways to play if you're not a perfect stealth player. Being able to block enemy sword attacks, get them into a chokehold, shove them over then boot them in the face, knocking them out, is the best fun. Likewise, using Emily's domino ability to knock out multiple enemies at once feels incredibly empowering. And that's just one of many ways you can play.

Hitman 2Released: 2018| Developer: IO Interactive| Steam  | Our review 

Agent 47 has been taking contracts and knocking off targets in games for almost 20 years, but the latest in the series is his best work yet. What's extra great about Hitman 2 is that if you didn't play the previous Hitman reboot (also great), you can purchase upgraded versions of all of its levels. And if you do own 2016's Hitman, you can have those for free. For more on why we love Hitman's latest incarnations, head to our 2018 award for Best Stealth Game.

Action and turn-based RPGs

Nier: AutomataReleased: 2017 | Developer: Square Enix | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

This offbeat action RPG focuses on extremely stylish androids who've been sent to Earth to make it safe for humans again by wiping out the dangerous machines that dominate the landscape. But the story isn't as straightforward as that—and not all of the machines you face are brainless automatons. Some of them have hopes, dreams and orgies (!). The story in Automata is surprisingly fantastic, with multiple endings that change your perspective on your characters, and well-written sidequests. 

This is one of those games that overreaches slightly, but is better for having done so. As an action game, it's not quite Platinum's best—that mantle still belongs to Bayonetta—but it's still satisfying to batter robots with a big sword in washed out open world environments. A deserved cult hit, even if the game still hasn't been properly patched on PC (there's a fan mod that smooths out a few performance issues).

The Witcher 3: Wild HuntReleased: 2015 | Developer: CD Projekt RED | GOG| Our review

The Witcher 3 follows Geralt, the world's grumpiest monster-slaying bounty hunter, as he fights and magics his way across a medieval fantasy world. It tells a well-written, clever story, but more importantly, The Witcher 3 is the best open-world RPG you can explore right now (and quite possibly the best there's ever been).

The Witcher 3 is great mostly because it's so full of things to do. It's a huge world chockablock with ghouls, vampires, and wraiths—and the people can be pretty nasty, too. The size and depth of the world gives every quest context, an anchor that feels like it stretches back into history. Investigating a haunted farmhouse, for example, turns up clues about the type of spectre involved. Choosing the right weapon and brewing up a special potion feel like steps in a centuries-old ceremony. The Witcher 3 is a triumph of worldbuilding.

Besides the world, Geralt himself is the star of the show. He's frequently dour and funny and jaded, and he's an appealing character to spend time with. Some of the storylines will mean more to long-time fans of the Witcher books and games, but even without playing the earlier games in the Witcher series, The Witcher 3 is worth several hundred hours of your time.

Divinity: Original Sin 2Released: 2017 | Developer: Larian Studios | GOG, Steam | Our review

A classic-style isometric RPG that feels completely modern, with four-player co-op, great characters, and super-challenging turn-based combat that makes heavy use of physical interactions: cast a rain spell to put out fires, for instance, or splash oil around to spread them. With big open areas, interlocking quests that can be completed in any order, disguises, status effects, and the freedom to whack any NPC you feel like, it's worth putting up with a little wonkiness (which has been improved with the Definitive Edition update) to experience such a creative, freeform campaign. The writing and roleplaying are also top-notch, giving you a real emotional investment for a campaign that can easily stretch to the 100 hour mark.

OS2 also includes built-in game master tools for running your own adventures, and separate, free mod tools that give you full access to the engine's capabilities and all of the included assets.

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant KingdomReleased: 2018 | Developer: Level-5 | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

One of the prettiest and most ambitious JRPGs on PC, Ni No Kuni 2 follows Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a young half-cat king who sets out to build a peaceful new kingdom—and a new circle of friends—after his rightful crown is stolen from him. Ni No Kuni 2 channels Suikoden and Studio Ghibli, pairing an expansive open world with exciting realtime third-person combat, and grounding them in a satisfying kingdom building sim. Scout new citizens by visiting fantastical far-off kingdoms, earn better gear by tackling secret dungeons and minibosses, then bring everything back home to improve your own kingdom. The kingdom sim is enjoyable in its own right, and every other part of the game benefits from it, from exploration to combat. Ni No Kuni 2 is a cute fairytale wrapped in complex systems that connect in meaningful, interesting ways, and there's not an ounce of fat on it.

Dark Souls 3Released: 2016 | Developer:  FromSoftware | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

What Dark Souls 3 lacks in originality—like the Souls games before it, it's an action-RPG that takes you through a baroque, dying world filled with monsters and opaque storytelling—it makes up for in polish. It's by far the smoothest of the series, gorgeous and stable on PC, and that translates to faster, more vicious enemies that will murder you without mercy. But you're also a bit more nimble this time around, keeping the notorious Souls challenge intact but rarely feeling unfair. And like all the Souls games, there's so much here if you plunge into the RPG depths: classes and magic systems, shortcuts and speedrun options, gear upgrading and NPC storylines to follow if you can make the right choices. Conquering Dark Souls 3 once will easily keep you busy for 50 hours, but if it gets its hooks in you, you could keep playing it for years.

Exploration, survival, and building games 

Stardew ValleyReleased: 2016 | Developer: ConcernedApe | GOG, Humble Store, Steam| Our review

The Harvest Moon farm-life sims used to be console-only. Then indie designer Eric Barone came along and made this tribute so we too can enjoy the pastoral fantasy of chicken ownership and mayonnaise profiteering. In Stardew Valley, you inherit a farm in the countryside and split your days between growing crops and befriending the locals, a colorful cast of eccentrics, some of whom can be romanced. You either get super serious about maximizing your income, creating the perfect grid of profitable crops for each season, or just potter about, taking the occasional fishing trip or delving into the monster mines as the mood takes you. An entire subgenre of farming/crafting sims with obligatory fishing minigames has sprung up in its wake, but Stardew Valley remains the best.

Kerbal Space ProgramReleased: 2015 | Developer: Squad | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review

You build a spacecraft, and fly it into space. Simple, right? Usually it's not. A lot of things can go wrong as you're constructing a vessel from Kerbal Space Program's vast library of parts, almost always explosively so. But as you trial-and-error your way to a stable orbit, you start to unlock the full breadth of what Kerbal offers. You can build many different types of ship, and use them to edge further and further out into the solar system, enjoying your achievement as you contemplate the vast solitude of space. Kerbal Space Program is equal parts slapstick comedy and majestic exploration—incredibly silly, but evocative where it counts.

SubnauticaReleased: 2018 | Developer: Unknown Worlds | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Depending how you feel about diving, Subnautica can be either a wonderful opportunity to explore an alien aquarium or a straight-up horrorshow. Even with the survival stuff turned off so you don't have to regularly grab fish and eat them as you swim past, its depths contain claustrophobic tunnels and beasts big enough to swallow you whole. The thing is, Subnautica works as both a tense survival game about making it day by day in a hostile alien ocean and a way to drift around meeting strange sea creatures (and eating them).

ProteusReleased: 2013 | Developer: Ed Key and David Kanaga | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Proteus takes nature and simplifies it into evocative shapes and sounds. Curved hills, solid tree trunks, frogs that burble and bounce. Wandering over its island of pastel plants and animals triggers a variety of pleasant noises, a symphony that builds as you chase birds or stand still among the fireflies. It's what every chillout room aspires to be.

Strategy games

Into The BreachReleased: 2018 | Developer: Subset Games | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Try to save the human race from an alien invasion, five turns at a time, in the brilliant bite-sized roguelike strategy game from the makers of FTL. Into the Breach feels almost like a puzzle game, because it presents you with clear information on what the enemy is doing every turn, and it's so well-balanced, there's almost always a solution that will get you out of a mission alive. There are multiple teams of mechs to unlock and choose from, and their abilities play off one another incredibly well. In the Rusting Hulks squad, for example, the nimble Jet Mech can drop a bomb that deals damage and envelops enemies with a smoke cloud, while the passive ability on the Rocket Mech causes smoke clouds to deal damage to enemy units. Each squad has its own playstyle, and you can freely mix and match mechs to create your own team-ups. Ending a mission after preventing all damage to the fragile civilian buildings scattered around the map never stops feeling like a triumph.

XCOM 2: War of the ChosenReleased: 2017 | Developer: Firaxis | XCOM 2 on Humble | War of the Chosen on Humble | Our review

This brutal strategy game puts you in charge of a resistance force during an alien occupation. The XCOM format blends base building, squad construction and strategic command with tense turn-based tactical battles. As you pilot your enormous home base between territories, you gather materials and research the enemy to unlock cooler space lasers and rad-as-hell armour for your crew.

Vanila XCOM 2 was a tough, lean survival game that held you to account with a doomsday countdown. War of the Chosen gives you even more problems in the form of three minibosses who stalk you throughout your campaign. Fortunately, you can befriend three resistance factions—each with their own suite of gadgets for you to research—and use their leads to track down your nemeses. The result is a layered, engrossing tactical game with a lot of dramatic intrigue. We developed a strong love/hate relationship with the Chosen. Hate to see them messing up our plans; love to blow them up with massive space guns in revenge.

Total War: Warhammer 2Released: 2017| Developer: Creative Assembly | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Warhammer is a dark fantasy setting shared by multiple games, popular because of its grim maximalism (it has two Mordors and about three Draculas). The Total War games are a venerable series of historical strategy games with unit-shuffling battles and large-scale nation management. The combination of Total War and Warhammer is a perfect match. Warhammer's factions are strong mixes of trad fantasy archetypes and oddballs like the beloved ratmen called skaven, who are easily set against each other on a big map. Meanwhile, the abstract scale of Total War seems less odd when removed from recognizable historical events. It's the best of both worlds. There's a campaign where each faction races to control a magical vortex by conducting a string of rituals, each providing a significant boost when performed, but if you want to slow the pace you can spring for both this and the previous game, then combine their maps together into a gigantic life-consuming war for domination called Mortal Empires.

Slay the SpireReleased: 2019 | Developer: Harebrained Schemes | Steam | Our review 

A brilliant singleplayer deck builder, Slay the Spire hooked the PC Gamer team back when it was in Early Access, and now it has even more to offer, including daily challenges and custom runs. The joy of it, as Evan explains in his review, is how much power you can accrue through smart deckbuilding. Because it's a singleplayer card game, the monsters don't have to have fun, and your deck doesn't have to be balanced with any other—which means absurd combos are possible. But it's also possible to create terrible decks as you ascend the spire, picking new cards along the way and finding relics that encourage certain builds. There's so much strategy to learn that it can take tens of hours to reach the endgame, but starting a new run always feels exciting.

BattleTechReleased: 2018 | Developer: Harebrained Schemes | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Lead a scrappy mercenary company across a half-scripted, half-procedurally generated singleplayer campaign as you complete escort, assassination, base capture, and other missions for cash, salvage, and faction reputation. In the style of XCOM, BattleTech is about sending roster of mechs (and to a lesser extent pilots) into planetary combat, then managing the monetary and mortal aftermath of that spent armor, broken mech legs, dead pilots, and plundered parts of your enemies in the comfort of your spaceship base. 

Unlike XCOM, the turn-based combat is a wonderfully granular game of angles and details: mechs have 11 different armor segments, and weapons and ammo are housed in these individually destructible locations. The orientation, heat level, speed, and stability of your mechs matters, and fights between the durable walking tanks play out like heavyweight boxing matches.

On the next page: Puzzle games, great stories, simulations and city-builders...

Puzzle games

Return of the Obra DinnReleased: 2018 | Developer: Valve | Steam, itch.io 

Our favorite puzzle game of 2018, Return of the Obra Dinn is a detective game set upon a ship once lost at sea. You, an insurance investigator, must determine what happened to the crew. We're sure you've never played anything quite like it (unless you've played it).

Portal 1 + 2Released: 2007/2011 | Developer: Lucas Pope | Steam

Portal would be great if it only had inventive puzzles. It would be great if it only had clever writing. Somehow Valve managed to pack both into an unmissable, unforgettable experience that messes with your head in more ways than one. Its titular mechanic teaches you to think differently by letting you instantaneously create paths to almost everywhere, and its underlying story, at once grim and gut-bustingly funny, is constantly egging you on. 

Portal 2, meanwhile, delivers more of everything that made Portal great, and a peerless co-op mode besides. Portal 2's world is bigger and its puzzles are more complex, and it doesn't sacrifice any of the series' sinister, sassy humor to pull them off. But the sequel's true triumph is that it invites you to play with a friend—not through some tacked-on bonus levels, but through a handcrafted co-op campaign so good it makes the stellar singleplayer feel like a prelude.

Opus MagnumReleased: 2017 | Developer: Zachtronics | Humble Store, Steam | Our review 

The challenge of Opus Magnum isn't just to figure out how to solve each puzzle, but how to solve it the best way. With programmable robot arms you'll build alchemy machines that are more or less efficient at the transmutation task put before you, and there's an amazing number of ways to succeed—simple parts and simple instructions can produce some not-so-simple machines. If it grabs you, Opus Magnum doesn't let you go easily.

GorogoaReleased: 2018 | Developer: Buried Signal | GOG, Steam | Our review

The gorgeous, hand-drawn Gorogoa is one of our favorite recent puzzle games. The premise is simple: arrange illustrated tiles "in imaginative ways" to solve puzzles. The complexity, and the feat of its creation, is in how those tiles interlock with impeccable elegance. As Pip said in our review: "Chunks of interiors and exteriors match perfectly without seeming out of place in either of their respective scenes, an image in a thought bubble lines up with a balcony scene, a star in the sky is positioned perfectly so that it peeps through the gap in an overlaid tile and becomes the light from a lamp." It's best to see it in motion, so check out the trailer here.

Lumines RemasteredReleased: 2018 | Developer: Resonair | Steam | Our review

The classic musical puzzle game, which was first released on the PSP, returns in top shape and is still great after 15 years. The new version is far superior to the original PC port, and the remastered music is fabulous. Lumines doesn't translate perfectly to PC—it's one of those games that feels like it was meant for handheld devices—but if you missed it the first time around, take any opportunity to play it.

Baba is YouReleased: 2019 | Developer: Hempuli Oy | Steam, itch.io | Our review

A wonderful puzzle game in which you rearrange words to create new rules for the world. "It’s part logic puzzle, part existential quandary, part love letter to how much potential is contained in the tiny building blocks of language," said Philippa in her Baba is You review.

Great stories

What Remains of Edith FinchReleased: 2017 | Developer: Giant Sparrow | GOG, Steam | Our review

Explore the curious home of a doomed family in this surprising and varied narrative game, which at first feels like a familiar walking simulator but then transforms into something else. Each member of the Finch family has a story to tell about what became of them, and each tale is presented in almost a minigame-like way—some of these chapters are thrilling, most of them are quietly devastating, and you should play this game without having a single one spoiled. You deserve to discover the secrets of this mysterious house for yourself if you haven't already. More than deserving of our GOTY award for Best Story in 2017.

Life is StrangeReleased: 2015 | Developer: Dontnod | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

You could argue most videogame stories are Young Adult fiction, but Life is Strange is actually like the kind of story in the YA section of your local bookstore. It's about teenagers, small towns with secrets, and coming to terms with adult responsibilities through the metaphor of being able to rewind time. It's Twin Peaks for teens. 

Life is Strange benefited from being released episodically, able to adapt to what players enjoyed about the early chapters and then focus on those elements later. That means you have to give it an episode and a half to get going, and the finale's divisive too, but in the middle it's as affecting an emotional rollercoaster as anything that's about to be turned into a movie and make someone very rich.

TacomaReleased: 2017 | Developer: Fullbright | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Calling a game a 'walking simulator' was probably meant to be pejorative, but I can't think of a better description of what games like Tacoma and Gone Home—and developer Fullbright—do better than any other game: build a world I want to walk around in, explore, and learn to love. In Tacoma, the player walks into an abandoned space station and a mystery. Exploring this detailed setting feels like spending time in a real place, and hours spent there make the departed crew intimately familiar. I saw dozens of tiny stories, comedies and dramas, unfold as I watched the crew through VR recordings and dug into their discarded belongings. If you want to see the future of storytelling, to experience characters and plot in a way that can't be duplicated in a book or a movie, go for walk in Tacoma. 

Simulations, sports games, and city builders

Forza Horizon 4Released: 2018 | Developer:  Playground Games | Microsoft Store | Our review

Unless you're looking for a hardcore sim, Forza Horizon is still the best racing series around.

Euro Truck Simulator 2Released: 2013 | Developer: SCS Software | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

A lot of players have the same story about Euro Truck Simulator 2. Lured in by curiosity, we try this ridiculous-looking game about driving trucks back and forth across a low-budget Europe. Then, hours later, we're flicking headlights up and down while driving through the night. It starts to rain somewhere outside Berlin, the sound adding percussion to whatever's playing on the central European radio station. We're hooked and don't even know why. Even on a different continent in American Truck Simulator it can have the same effect, proving that ordinary inspirations modeled well enough can make for extraordinary games.

Elite DangerousReleased: 2014 | Developer: Frontier Developments | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Space, to borrow a phrase, is big. Really, really big. In Elite: Dangerous, players can become deep-space explorers spanning the entire Milky Way galaxy, or they can be asteroid miners whose entire world consists of two space rocks and the vacuum between them. Both are equally worthy ways to use your flight time in Elite, an open-world (open-galaxy?) space flight sim that masterfully gives players total freedom. At the high end, you can spend your time being everything from a space trucker to a bounty hunter, but newbies shouldn't overlook the simple joy of being a pilot, of the tactile way that flight skills grow and deepen over time. Anyone into sci-fi or flight sims owes it to themselves to spend time in an Elite cockpit—especially if they can do it in VR.

Football Manager 2019Released: 2018 | Developer: Sports Interactive | Steam | Our review

The best game yet in the best football management series.

FrostpunkReleased: 2018 | Developer: 11 Bit Studios | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Part city-builder, part survival game, Frostpunk is about making difficult choices and dealing with the consequences. Trying to keep a handful of citizens alive in a perpetually frozen world isn't just about managing resources but managing hope, and to keep people working toward their future means convincing them there is one, often through brutal means.

Unlike most city-building games, Frostpunk isn't an open-ended experience: it takes place over a 45 day period, with narrative events occurring periodically that can throw a wrench in the gears of your city and society. It's a tense and grim experience where you can wind up regretting your finest moments or defending the harshest choices you made. What are you prepared to do to save lives, and what will the ultimate cost be?

Super Mega Baseball 2Released: 2018 | Developer: Metalhead Software | Steam | Our review 

With so few great sports games on PC, Super Mega Baseball 2 gets squished into our sims category for now—though with Madden finally coming back to PC this year, we may need to add a proper sports category. Super Mega Baseball 2 may look cartooney, but look beyond that, because as we said in our review, it's the "best on-field baseball sim on PC."

On the next page: MMOs, local multiplayer games, and platformers...

MMOs and online RPGs

World of WarcraftReleased: 2004 | Developer: Blizzard Entertainment | Official site | Our review

World of Warcraft might have a few grey hairs here and there, but it's still the undisputed king of MMOs. Set in the high-fantasy setting of the famous Warcraft real-time strategy games, World of Warcraft is the story of you, a hero who rises from lowly pawn to god-slaying badass as you strive to save your world from all manner of fiendish enemies. With 12 classes and 13 races to play as (and an ever-growing list of subraces), who and what your character will become is entirely up to you. And whether you want to play for two hours a month or two hours a night, there are a nearly unlimited number of places to explore, quests to complete, raids and dungeons to conquer, and items to craft. It's less of a videogame and more of a part-time hobby.

World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth, is a bit of a low-point for the series according to its most hardcore fans. That doesn't mean it's bad—the austere mountains of Kul Tiras and lush jungles of Zandalar are evocative and fun to explore—but it is disappointing because World of Warcraft's usually stellar endgame of dungeons and raids are hamstrung somewhat by its wonky gear system. There's exciting news on that front, though: the next update is going to be huge. 

World of Warcraft is the jack-of-all-trades MMO that can satisfy nearly any kind of player. Whether you want competitive PvP battles, white-knuckle raids, or just a fun, colorful story to follow along with while you collect mounts, World of Warcraft delivers.

WarframeReleased: 2013| Developer: Digital Extremes | Steam | Our review

Set in a bizarre science-fiction universe full of esoteric secrets, Warframe sells itself on one amazing concept: You are a space ninja. And yes, it's as fun as it sounds. This free-to-play third-person shooter gleefully taps into the fantasy of being a gun-toting, sword-wielding killing machine through its versatile movement system. You'll air dash, wall run, and slide through levels with up to three teammates as you eviscerate hordes of android enemies in exchange for oodles of crafting resources.

But Warframe's true strength is just how complex it is. Each Warframe (a kind of suit of armor that you wear) plays like its own character class, complete with unique abilities that define its combat style. You might charge into packs headfirst as Rhino or silently assassinate your targets as Ivara. Hell, there's even a Warframe that lets you compose your own music using an in-game sequencer to inflict debuffs on enemies. Learning how to craft and equip these Warframes is a daunting task for new players, but those who endure will find a rich action RPG that can easily devour thousands of hours. What's more, Digital Extremes is constantly taking Warframe in bold new directions, like adding open world zones to explore with friends. It might not be an MMO in the traditional sense, but Warframe is every bit as massive.

Path of ExileReleased: 2013 | Developer: Grinding Gear Games | Steam | Our review

A free-to-play spiritual successor to the beloved Diablo 2, Path of Exile is a dauntingly complex action RPG that will make even the most zealous theorycrafter weep tears of joy. Behind that familiar loop of dungeon diving and looting are several dozen features that each feel like the Marianas trench of progression systems—they're that deep. Skill gems can be chained together to create practically limitless spell combos, while the passive skill tree has hundreds of nodes to choose from that each shape your character in their own small way. And then, of course, comes the gear, which is a whole separate school of learning that can take months to fully understand. Path of Exile is certainly daunting and it won't appeal to everyone.

It's good news then that it's also fun as hell. There's 10 acts to explore, each one touring you through desecrated temples or corrupted jungles full of the walking dead. It's a grim place to be, but the kinetic combat and enticing rewards make the journey worth it. Every few months, Grinding Gear Games rolls out a new temporary challenge league that introduces entirely new progression systems, cosmetics, and enemies but requires starting a new character. Normally that'd sound like a chore, but Path of Exile is so robust that starting fresh is just a chance to learn something new. 

EVE OnlineReleased: 2003 | Developer: CCP Games | Official site | Our review

Brutal, uncompromising, and intimidating—there's a good chance that EVE Online's reputation precedes it. While its players will say that it's mostly hyperbole, there's no denying that EVE Online isn't an MMO for the faint of heart. But in return for a considerable investment of your time and energy, EVE Online achieves something remarkable: It feels alive.

The galaxy of New Eden is an ever-evolving virtual world full of merchants and pirates, mercenaries and warlords, and, yeah, the occasional spy. It's a thriving ecosystem grounded by a player-driven economy where players are encouraged to group together to achieve long term objectives like conquering territory or just becoming filthy, stinking rich. To participate, you'll need to contend with a hopelessly unintuitive user interface and familiarize yourself with a daunting number of systems. But it's worth it. The focus on player-driven experiences creates stories that just don't happen in any other kind of game, and being apart of those narratives is thrilling. It's an experience that is so absorbing, there's a good reason why EVE players joke that quitting for good is "winning at EVE Online."

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm RebornReleased: 2014 | Developer: Square Enix | Steam | Our review

Final Fantasy 14 is a dream come true for Final Fantasy fans who don't mind the rigamarole that comes standard with MMOs. Set in the high fantasy world of Eorzea, you play as one of the series' iconic classes, like a black mage, and set out to help the locals defend themselves from constant invasions by the evil Garlean Empire. It's as generic a Final Fantasy story as they come, but FF14 lives up to the series legacy by populating the world with an endearing ensemble of characters that grow significantly over the course of its two expansions. If you like story-driven MMOs, Final Fantasy 14's sweeping epic is undoubtedly the best.

Square Enix doesn't try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to being an MMO, though. Final Fantasy 14 is formulaic in its progression and the equipment system is pretty bland. It is by no means boring, however. The story reaches some surprising highs and Final Fantasy fans will be pleased to hear that FF14 has a nearly endless supply of memorable boss fights to work through. It might not be as expansive as other MMOs, but Final Fantasy 14 is beautiful and charming.

Local multiplayer games

Nidhogg 2Released: 2017 | Developer: Messhof | Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Some say Nidhogg 2's clay-monstrosity art style and added weapons marred the elegance of the first game, but they're both great in their own ways. Whichever one you choose, the basic format is the same: two players duel across a single screen, attempting to push their opponent left or right into the next screen, all the way to the end of the map. That's a big part of the brilliance of the series: get pushed all the way to your corner, and it's still possible to make a comeback and finesse your opponent all the way back across the map for a clutch win. Pure thrill.

The fighting itself is great, too, like an ultra-lo-fi Bushido Blade. Kills come in one hit as you thrust and parry and throw your swords with simple controls that result in complex dances of stance and aggression. It's exciting, hilarious, and tests the hell out of your reaction time and ability to predict your opponent's moves. There's nothing quite like either Nidhogg.

TowerFall AscensionReleased: 2014 | Developer: Matt Thorson | GOG, Humble Store, Steam | Our review

As cool as bows and arrows are in games like Tomb Raider, TowerFall does them best. Whether played by four people against each other, or two in co-op against waves of monsters, TowerFall makes leaping from a ledge and skewering somebody with a perfect shot easy to do. It also makes shooting at someone above you, missing, and then impaling yourself as the arrow falls back down easy to do. It's as chaotic as it sounds, but the clean pixel art and expressive animation makes it simple to follow, and every triumph and screw-up is visible to all. 

Overcooked 1 and Overcooked 2Released: 2018| Developer: Ghost Town Games | Steam | Our review

We hate Overcooked. Wait, no: We hate anyone who gets in the way in Overcooked, or doesn't bring us our damn tomatoes when we need them, pre-chopped. This four-player kitchen catastrophe simulator sets up some brilliantly simple basics—working together to prepare ingredients, cook basic dishes, and turn them in on a tight timetable—and then mercilessly complicates them with devious kitchen hazards. In one level, on the deck of a pirate ship, some of your counters slide back and forth, forcing you to switch up tasks on the fly. In another cramped kitchen, there isn't enough space for two characters to squeeze past one another, forcing you to coordinate all your movements or get into shouting matches about which direction to go.

There's a lot of shouting in Overcooked, but barking orders, properly divvying up jobs, and setting a new high score feels so good. The controls are intuitive enough that infrequent gamers can get onboard. Just beware of playing with anyone with a truly explosive temper. While both are great, if you haven't played either we'd recommend Overcooked 2, which adds online play.

2D platformers 

SpelunkyReleased: 2013 | Developer: Mossmouth | GOG, Steam | Our review

Spelunky deserves much of the credit (or blame) for the boom of roguelikes in the 2010s, but none have bettered the rich interactions of this game, which sees you adventuring through mines, the jungle, caverns, and even Hell in search of riches and escape. You'll die many, many times along the way—sometimes suddenly, sometimes hilariously, and often because of your own stupidity. But that arms you with knowledge of what not to do and how to exploit the game. Can you trick two NPCs into fighting each other? Can you use a damsel you should be rescuing to instead safely set off a trap for you? What's the deal with the Ankh, anyway? 

These are all things you'll discover as you play more Spelunky. Half the game is 2D platformer; the other half is a rich simulation packed with secrets and interlocking pieces that make the entire game feel like a living organism designed with the express purpose of killing you. That's what makes pulling those pieces apart and using them to your advantage so endlessly satisfying.

CelesteReleased: 2018| Developer: Matt Makes Games | Steam | Our review

In this age of quick saves and infinite lives, action-oriented platformers need to be difficult. And this difficulty almost always becomes the talking point, even for games that seem to hide something more profound beneath their mounds of countless dead (see: The End is Nigh). But no one talks about how hard Celeste is—or at least, that’s not why we talk about it. Even if you roll your eyes at the masochistic appeal of Super Meat Boy or N++, you might find yourself seeing Celeste through to the end. Sharing the vibrant, chunky pixel-art of Matt Makes Games Inc’s TowerFall, Celeste charts its protagonist Madeline’s efforts to scale a gigantic mountain. She’s not going up there to save the world, she’s going up there to save herself. It’s hardly a visual novel, but the light narrative dabs make progress more meaningful than “simply wanting to do it”, and its set-piece moments are really spectacular. It feels great too: Madeline can grab onto walls and quick-dash through the air, and there’s never a lack of new environmental challenges to ward off monotony.

Hollow KnightReleased: 2017| Developer: Team Cherry| Humble Store, Steam | Our review

Hollow Knight is still slightly too new to be regarded as highly as Nintendo's genre-defining Super Metroid, but it might actually be the better game (gasp!). It's at least the best game to follow in Metroid's footsteps in a decade (if you want more games in this vein, make sure to play Cave Story). You play as a small explorer venturing through the remnants of Hallownest, an underground bug civilization, with remarkably little hand-holding showing you where to go. Subtle environmental clues and smartly doled-out powerups will help you find your path through the world, and from the first moments the 2D essentials of jumping and attacking have a perfectly tuned weight and snappiness to them. That's what will keep you playing Hollow Knight long enough to be pulled into its world, and then there's no turning back.

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