The heaviest games on PC by weight. Best PC games with low system requirements

These are the top 10 most difficult games on PC for those who are not afraid of hardcore and are willing to challenge the smartest monster AI.

Get ready to die over and over again, waste nerve cells and smash the keyboard on the floor in a rage. You will hate these games, but you will definitely come back to them again.

The list includes only projects of recent years with cooperative and online passage.

1. Dark Souls 3 - legendary dark fantasy

"" - the third part of the famous series of action role-playing games pleases with a significantly improved gloomy picture and not at all reduced the complexity of the passage.

Video: trailer for the game Dark Souls 3

A game for people with nerves of steel, instant reaction and well-developed intuition. In 2016, it received the title of "RPG of the Year" and a dozen other awards, and this is not at all surprising.

2. Rust is one of the most famous survival games

Rust is a game for those who are overconfident in their survival skills. Here, they are of little use, at the initial stage, both beginners and veterans of the genre die equally often.

Video: trailer for the game Rust

At first, there were zombies in the game, but later it was decided to abandon them. No wonder, real opponents are much more dangerous!

3. Nether - a shooter with a Stalker atmosphere

"Nether" is another version of the post-apocalyptic future, but this time everything is as it should be, with dozens of different kinds of mutants.

Video: trailer for the game Nether

Unfortunately, now the game is not as popular as it used to be, but it is still interesting to look at it. Moreover, it is completely in Russian and without internal monetization.

4. Spelunky - indie platformer with roguelike elements

"Spelunky" is a great hardcore roguelike about an unnamed archaeologist going in search of treasure in a 2D cave.

Video: game trailer

And don't be put off by the fact that Steam has the achievement "complete in 10 minutes". It is quite possible to do this, but first you will have to spend several tens of hours on unsuccessful attempts.

5. Hotline Miami - meat action in acid tones

"Hotline Miami" is something like the very first "GTA" with a top view of the pixel metropolis. Only much more insane.

Video: trailer for the game Hotline Miami

When the game is completed, pay attention to the continuation, it is no less meaty, interesting and driving.

6. Legend of Grimrock - Prisoners in an isolated dungeon

"Legend of Grimrock" is a classic "old school" RPG with a group of prisoners wandering through a twisted, dangerous dungeon.

Video: trailer for the game Legend of Grimrock

The game looks lamp and cozy, and the numerous turns of the corridors do not have time to get bored because of the huge number of monsters and mysteries. She also has a sequel.

7. Bit Blaster XL - retro arcade shooter

"Bit Blaster XL" is a game created by one person in 75 hours and sold over 300,000 copies in the first months. This is a space shooter with very simple graphics.

Video: trailer for the game Bit Blaster XL

Funny, primitive and very addictive. This is nostalgia for slot machines from childhood with a symbolic cost, pleasant sound and difficult passage.

8. Celeste is a pixel platform game with a great storyline

Celeste is another 2D pixel adventure that, on closer inspection, goes much deeper than it first appears.

Video: trailer for the game Celeste

Moderately difficult, accessible for beginners and veterans of the genre, with excellent art, touching sound and charismatic characters. And in Russian.

9. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove - 2-player 8-bit style platformer

Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove isn't just another pixel platformer pretending to be a game from the 90s. This is a great adventure, thought out to the smallest detail.

Video: trailer for the game Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove

10. SpaceChem - a puzzle about a programmer

"SpaceChem" is a really difficult puzzle game designed for a narrow audience of hardcore techies. The player takes on the role of an engineer in the reactor compartment of a spaceship.

Video: trailer for the game SpaceChem

And this is not an exaggeration, just look at the number of hours played by people who write positive reviews of the game. The picture here is simple, but primitive, the sound is not bad, and the gameplay is original and infuriating.

This is a list of the hardest PC games in our opinion. We selected projects in a variety of genres, but, of course, we could not include absolutely everything in the selection. To find other interesting games, we recommend browsing the rest of the tops on the site.

The release of each new game is necessarily accompanied by questions on the forums about its optimization: it is important for gamers to know how well the project works on various configurations and how efficiently it uses computer resources.

2013

Crysis 3

The game, which inspired many to upgrade the PC, as one of the first required DirectX 11 support, demonstrates impressive graphics, and also contains a wide range of settings that allow you to find the perfect balance between a beautiful picture and good performance. What can I say, in some scenes Crysis 3 looks better than some modern AAA games.

BioShock Infinite

One of the best story shooters in the history of the gaming industry pleases with a beautiful picture, a large number of graphics settings, as well as support for many modern technologies. The Unreal Engine 3 engine itself is well optimized, and in capable hands it demonstrates the wonders of performance, which happened with BioShock Infinite.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

tomb raider

The brand new adventures of Lara Croft delight gamers not only with a variety of situations and exciting gameplay, but also with excellent graphics, good work with multi-core processors and innovative technologies - for example, the TressFX option, which makes Lara's hair soft and silky better than any shampoo.

Battlefield 4

DICE knows its Frostbite engine like no other. Therefore, the games of the Battlefield series get the perfect optimization. This also applies to the fourth part: in the settings of the shooter, the gamer will find many options that will help set the parameters necessary for good performance. If that doesn't seem enough, you can find tips on editing the config file on the game forums, which will further increase the frame rate per second.

2014

Elite: Dangerous

Ryse: Son of Rome

The Xbox One exclusive that moved to PC gave gamers a fascinating story of a Roman legionnaire, impressed with beautiful graphics, and also pleased with good scalability, thanks to which the game is perfectly optimized for weak PCs and at the same time is able to load a powerful system in high resolution - up to 4K.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The Nemesis system, which endowed the orcs with "memory", was not the only feature of the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor action: the game also distinguished itself by good performance and a flexible range of settings. Owners of weak gaming PCs got the opportunity to enjoy an excellent fantasy story with a comfortable fps, while owners of top systems were waiting for advanced graphics settings and 4K textures.

Alien: Isolation

2015

Star Wars: Battlefront

Mad Max

The case when the setting of the game became the reason for good optimization: the world of Mad Max is a wasteland, so there is simply nothing to load the hardware there. At the same time, the excellent design of the locations and the general atmosphere of the post-apocalypse make the game impressively beautiful in its dark charm. However, it works without problems on weak PCs.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CD Projekt RED did a great job on the action RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, as a result of which the game demonstrates comfortable performance even on not the most powerful gaming systems. Of course, sacrifices had to be made for this - the release version of the project looks worse than the one shown at E3 during the announcement, but even after the graphics downgrade, The Witcher 3 remains one of the most beautiful RPGs of recent years.

StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void

The final game of the trilogy, StarCraft 2, not only brought the massive story campaign to a close, but also received new graphical improvements and support for 4K resolution. In addition, Blizzard paid special attention to the optimization of the network part (the most important element of a game sharpened for multiplayer) while maintaining the system requirements of the strategy at the level of the previous parts of the trilogy.

Grand Theft Auto V

PC gamers had to wait for Grand Theft Auto V for a long year and a half, while the owners of the consoles were already enjoying the adventures of the trinity of the main characters, but the wait was worth it: Rockstar Games released a project that was perfect in gameplay and technical terms. The game contains a huge number of settings, each of which clearly shows changes in graphics and video memory consumption. Thanks to excellent optimization, GTA V works stably on weak computers, and can also load powerful systems to the eyeballs, with a corresponding improvement in the visual part.

2016

Need for Speed

Titanfall 2

The developers of Titanfall 2 have released a beautiful, dynamic and undemanding shooter, which implements adrenaline wall runs and epic battles of combat robots. "Old Man" Source 2 in the capable hands of Respawn Entertainment produces an excellent picture and at the same time pleases with a consistently high frame rate per second on any game configurations.

Stellaris

Paradox has released a beautiful, large-scale and exciting space strategy that contains an extensive range of settings and easily adapts to different configurations of game systems. Of course, the most epic battles on weak PCs can experience frame drops, but most of the time, players enjoy a smooth picture without any performance problems.

Battlefield 1

One of the most beautiful online shooters, exploiting the theme of the First World War, which is so rare in the gaming industry. Battlefield 1 delivers great graphics, unleashes the power of the most powerful hardware with ease, and is free from netcode issues. But it is worth noting that the environment destructibility system is very demanding on the CPU, so for ultra settings it is better to get the appropriate components.

Overwatch

Blizzard knows how to make good multiplayer games. And he also knows how to optimize them: the Overwatch online shooter will run even on an office laptop, and the owners of powerful systems will be able to turn the settings to the maximum and get quite modern graphics combined with excellent performance. The authors did not forget about the network part, so you are not threatened with connection breaks and high ping.

The Division

Action MMORPG from Ubisoft pleases with a wide range of graphics settings, intelligently distributes resources between processor cores and copes with bundles of several video cards. In addition, The Division impresses with beautiful graphics (albeit degraded from the first showings of the game) and works fine on weak PCs.

Gears of War 4

The continuation of the well-known series of action movies from a third person is at the forefront of technological progress: Unreal Engine 4, DirectX 12, support for all kinds of graphic "buns" and 4K resolution. In addition, it is also a great game with an exciting co-op campaign and exciting multiplayer. It is worth considering that you will need to install Windows 10 to run the shooter.

doom

Hurricane shooter Doom pleases gamers not only with the beauties of Mars and detailed monsters from Hell, but also with excellent optimization that can reveal the performance of any computer. Thanks to the support of different APIs (openGL, DirectX 12, Vulkan) and graphics technologies, the game is able to flexibly adapt to different configurations and demonstrate a comfortable fps indicator (which is very important in battles with demons and in network mode) on both weak and powerful configurations.

2017

Destiny 2

The popular online shooter works great on any PC configurations, and also easily scales to powerful systems. Bungie has added support for all possible technologies to the game, as a result of which the PC version of Destiny 2 demonstrates technological superiority over the console versions. Add to this the ability to run in 4K resolution and stable 60 fps even on weak systems, and you have one of the most optimized games of 2017.

And again, the Frostbite 3 engine, which has established itself as one of the most productive. The online shooter Star Wars: Battlefront 2, dedicated to battles in the Star Wars universe, works well on configurations with outdated components, copes well with multithreading, contains many sliders in the graphics settings section, allowing you to find the perfect balance between a beautiful picture and a high frame rate in give me a sec. On the technical side, there are no complaints about the game, and loot boxes with microtransactions are a thing of the past.

Injustice 2

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

The sequel to the shooter about the adventures of the brave fighter William Blaskowitz, who fights against the Nazis who have occupied the entire planet, demonstrates excellent performance on any configuration: the game will work stably at maximum graphics settings on a four-year-old budget gaming video card, while producing a bright, juicy picture. Of course, the top-end hardware shooter is also capable of downloading to the eyeballs, if you have a 4K monitor.

This concludes our list of the most optimized games of recent years. But that's not all: expect a similar selection of games from 2018 in the coming months.

PC gaming is not limited to just a desktop computer. These games will run smoothly both on laptops and on outdated PCs.

Many of us have been in a situation where we want to play PC titles, and only have a laptop with us that only plays simple games. It will launch, for example, Doom, but we have already played this game several times. I want something new. Where can I find a selection of the best games for computers with an integrated graphics card or for a gaming laptop? On our website.

Here is a list of the best games with low system requirements - games that you can immerse yourself in for several hundred hours and not worry that your device will not be able to handle them. Almost all genres are represented here: adventure, action, strategy, puzzles, and even Mount & Blade (whatever genre it belongs to). You won't find particularly demanding titles like The Witcher 3 and PUBG on the list (they are best played on a regular PC), but there are plenty of options without them.

In addition to the titles collected here, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the list of all games released on GOG since 2004. If you haven't played, let's say, Half-Life 2 yet, then know that your laptop can easily handle it. And if you're into the classics, check out the Internet Archive, which has an in-browser emulator and an impressive game library that includes hits like Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 3D, The Oregon Trail, and more.

We also recommend reading articles with selections and games of the "" genre. Before installing each game, we still advise you to check the system requirements, and if we forgot to mention your favorite game that fits into this topic, write about it in the comments.

Dropped off the main list

Developer: Failbetter Games Buy

Another game with a lot of text inserts that should run on any electronics that has a screen built into it. This is a sequel to Failbetter Games' browser-based text-based adventure game that adds a lot more action, while retaining a focus on story. Explore a subterranean ocean in a Victorian-era world where some hell is going on, then crash your ship and start over.

Developers: Dennaton Games Buy

In its place could be any indie game made entirely in 2D. Why did we choose Hotline Miami? Firstly, because it's gorgeous, and secondly, like most indie games, it will run on any device with a color display. But there is one important nuance: you need to play it with headphones or speakers, because Hotline Miami is also famous for its amazing soundtrack.

The most obvious candidate for this list, but I just couldn't help but include FTL here, because this is one of the best games in the "one more fight and I'm going to bed" genre. This space simulator invites us to take control of a spaceship on its way to an important mission. You also have to correctly distribute resources and fight your way through the galaxy.

You can pause the game at any time, which is very convenient if you downloaded it to your laptop, and simple graphics mean no lags and freezes. But keep in mind that taking the game with you on the road is fraught with serious consequences ... After all, after each loss, you will probably want to fight at least one more battle.

Developer: Subset Games Buy

This phenomenal little turn-based strategy game is from the makers of FTL, PC Gamer's favorite of 2018. You just want to replay it, using different mechanical units and mastering new tactics. As we said in our review: “A demanding, harrowing, difficult and rewarding game. There's a huge amount of perfect strategy in a small Into The Breach."

Developer: Mega Crit Games Buy

A roguelike card game that you quickly get used to. It uses the strategic fun of board games combined with the intricacies of games like The Binding of Isaac and Risk of Rain, where finding random items can change the course of the game. If you get a good combination, you can become a terrible card god. Like the best roguelikes and board games, Slay the Spire is an absolute treat for players when you hit a devastating combo.

Enemies that once seemed threatening now fall to their knees before you. This game is fun to play over and over again thanks to what you can unlock: stronger cards for each type of deck, as well as protagonists who play differently from each other.

Developer: Wadjet Eye Buy

The new adventure game from the developers of Blackwell, Wadjet Eye, is one of their best creations. They have demons, exorcism, light role-playing elements that affect the course of the plot. Here is an excerpt from our review: “Unavowed is another fantastic adventure game from Wadjet Eye. It's great to see studio founder Dave Gilbert back on the horse. The humor was not always to my taste, and the voice acting was not very good in places.

Putting that aside, this is a great example of a modern point-and-click adventure. The addition of character customization and companions are small things, but they change the atmosphere of the game in a huge way, even if other aspects, such as puzzles, seem to be of the past.”

Developer: Buried Signal Buy

An ingenious puzzle game that creator Jason Roberts spent years developing and designing. Through its puzzles, Gorogoa tells an interesting story, which makes it stand out from the rest of the genre. As we wrote in our review of this game, “the story provides an interesting, ambiguous framework for exploring recurring patterns. You try to create a whole picture from the available details, filling in the gaps on your own ... Fantastic interaction between the plot and game design.

Developer: Ludomotion

A surprisingly ingenious roguelike that will run even on computers with an integrated graphics card. Unexplored retained the complex and interconnected systems that made ASCII-era roguelike designs replayable, like magical scrolls and potions you could create yourself. But here these elements are not presented in text format, but in an intuitive interface.

The battles in the game are not turn-based, but in real time. You can pause the game to think about what to do next, but you also need a reaction to gracefully deal with enemies with your melee weapons (by the way, each type of attack has a separate animation).

The real innovation of Unexplored lies in the procedural generation of the history of the world, linking the dungeons and hinting at the rivals we will meet in the future. Each dungeon here is a truly unique place with its own backstory, which is extremely rare in this genre.

Developer: Asymmetric Buy

One of the funniest games of 2017 and probably the funniest RPG we've ever played. In this project, you explore the world for new jokes, not for loot. The jokes here are scattered all over the world, they are even in the settings menu, and finding new jokes is a real pleasure. In addition, West of Loathing has a strong RPG component, and the playable classes are very different from the standard ones - how about Bean Thrower and Cow Hunter, for example?

As we wrote in the game review: “Flush the toilet for experience points, search a haystack for a needle, or head into a mine to find meat ore (meat in West of Loathing is the backbone of the economy), then insult your reflection in the mirror. to enter berserk mode and gain an attack buff. And be sure to explore every corner of West of Loathing, not for the sake of pumping characteristics and new weapons, equipment and hats (of which there are more than 50!), But for the sake of endless jokes, each of which is funnier than the previous one.

Developer: StudioMDHR Buy

Perhaps the most beautiful game that you can run on a laptop or a weak computer. A distinctive feature of the project is hand-drawn and animated 2D graphics in the spirit of classic cartoons. Cuphead says hello to Gunstar Heroes and other platformers from the 90's, inviting us to fight incredibly difficult bosses, each of which has several phases.

If defeats do not upset you and are ready to memorize the order of actions of the bosses in order to defeat them, then you will have a great time. What is worth only an amazing soundtrack and visual style of the game, inspired by the animation of the beginning of the last century.

Developer: tobyfox Buy

The breakthrough game of 2015, which turned the entire RPG genre on its head, owes its popularity to the fact that you could even run the game on a toaster. And I don't want to say that it looks bad or that we didn't like the gameplay. For those who are familiar with the laws of the RPG genre and the hackneyed ones found in every second game, Undertale has become a bright, charming and delightful swan song that makes us rethink all our gaming habits.

Go on a date with a skeleton, tame (or kill) dogs, and contemplate the plight of a mouse deprived of cheese. Undertale will make you question every choice you make, except, of course, choosing to shop at local stores.

Developer: Red Hook Studios Buy

Brilliant and tense strategy where we have to wander through the dungeons, literally imbued with the spirit of Lovecraft, which is expressed in the ingenious presentation of the plot and in scary quests. When your party comes face to face with the horrors of the dungeons, its members are under stress, and the more stressed, the more likely that the heroes will begin to lose their minds. All this creates constant tension.

What if the plague doctor is the most reliable member of the squad, but he constantly insults his comrades, increasing their stress level? The death of characters in Darkest Dungeon is usually quite harsh, but you will understand that it is not so easy to break away from the game, even if an entire squad of heroes has just died in front of your eyes.

Developer: Terrible Toybox Buy

This is a point-and-click adventure game from Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island author Ron Gilbert. It's full of mysteries that no game in this genre can do without, but it gives players freedom of movement and choice, so you can always find a new path if you get stuck in an episode. In my review, I called it "a quality adventure with creative puzzles, strange but lovable characters, and an intriguing plot with a touch of mysticism."

Developer: ConcernedApe Buy

The indie sensation that brought farm life from Harvest Moon to PC. Build your own farm, turn it into a real vegetable empire, explore the world around you, spy on your neighbors, fall in love and start a family. This game has fairly simple graphics, so it's guaranteed to run on a laptop, and it's also a great way to keep yourself busy on long flights.

N++

Developer: Metanet Software Buy

Cute platformer with a billion levels. Okay, actually there are fewer of them. Approximately thousands, but if you count all the levels that modders have created, then it’s not far from a billion. As I wrote about N++ right after the game was released on PC, “it's more of a toy that you take out from time to time to get purely aesthetic pleasure. Probably one of the most enjoyable platform games ever."

Developer: Suspicious Developments Buy

Created by former PC Gamer editor Tom Francis, who previously released Gunpoint, Heat Signature is a game where the gameplay consists of sneaking into spaceships and fighting with the crews of these ships, where everything that comes to hand is used. In our review of the game, we wrote this: “Heat Signature encourages creativity by constantly increasing the difficulty, as befits a good immersive sim.

I constantly share with friends stories of incredible robberies in which all decisions were made in a hot head. Heat Signature manages to create a lot of memorable situations in a procedurally generated universe."

Developer: inXile Entertainment Buy

Sequel to Planescape: Torment? It sounded too good to be true, but inXile took the engine that Obsidian built their Pillars of Eternity on and recreated the world of Torment as an RPG that retained almost everything we loved about the original. Fortunately for all laptop owners, the game is not particularly demanding on hardware, and therefore anyone can get acquainted with it.

In our review, we wrote the following: “A slow start flows into a thoughtful adventure in a memorable setting. A great sequel to the classic RPG."

Developer s: Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl Buy

The original version of the game looks like it could run on anything, but oddly enough, it used up all the CPU power, overloading the system. Her remake, called Rebirth, is quite comfortable on low-end computers and laptops, thanks to a new engine that gave us a new visual style, wider rooms and a lot of new content.

2D games like The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth are usually designed for weak systems, and if you like games with procedural generation of objects and rooms in which you have only one life, be sure to check out Dungeons of Dredmor, Spelunky, FTL and Rogue Legacy. And when you get hopelessly addicted to this drug, move on to the additions for The Binding of Isaac: I'm talking about Afterbirth and Afterbirth.

Developer: valve Buy

I could include just about any Source engine game here, as it runs great on systems that are outdated by today's standards. (Perhaps because he himself is already outdated). Half-Life 2, with all the new visual mods, no longer fits that category, while Portal 2 remains one of the most fun and inventive puzzle games out there, even when you play it at 800x600 and on the lowest graphics settings.

After all, it's not the fancy visuals that matter here, but the amazing voice acting of Stephen Merchant, J.K. Simmons, and Ellen McLain, and that potato sequence.

Developer: Mojang Buy

Most often, laptop owners ask the same question online: “Will Minecraft run on it?”. And the answer is simple: “Most likely, yes.” Mojang's cube world isn't very demanding on systems, and it's perfect for killing a couple of hours in it - especially if you have an urgent article about games with low system requirements hanging on your nose.

Recently, it is usually played on tablets, consoles or smartphones, but you can download a set of mods and the latest updates, and then run it on your PC. You will find the link.

Developer: Firaxis Games Buy

If you are choosing games for your outdated computer, then it is better to stop at the Civilization series, namely the penultimate part. But don't blame us for the fact that the game will draw you in so much that you will forget about sleep and breakfast, trying to wipe the insidious Gandhi from the face of the earth. Part 4 runs great on a laptop, and if your gadget can handle this game, it's worth checking out other similar titles like Amplitude Studios' fantasy Endless Legend and Triumph's Age of Wonders III.

Developer: SEGA Buy

What is good about the 2008 game? The fact that it was released in 2008, which means that it does not need a powerful gaming system. Valkyria Chronicles is a great tactical RPG that is a lot like Firaxis' XCOM reboot. And the beautiful art style on the PC looks simply bewitching. This is one of those JRPGs that every fan of the genre should try out (this also includes Trails in the Sky and the Y series from Falcom).

Developer: Technocrat Games Buy

Wadjet Eye, in collaboration with publisher Adventure Game Studio, continues to produce high-quality modern adventure games that modestly require a "Pentium or higher" processor. If you are not reading this article from a pager, then there is a high chance that you will be able to launch Technobabylon from Technocrat Games. A cyberpunk point-and-click adventure set in the near future. (Follow the link for the full review.)

Developer: Klei Entertainment Buy

Studio Klei got the hang of it on its first try with Mark of the Ninja, a flashy ninja-starring platformer that easily beats most 3D stealth games. And you don't need a powerful gaming system to run it - it runs surprisingly quickly even on older PCs.

Developer: TaleWorlds Entertainment Buy

TaleWorlds' Mount & Blade project is described on most resources as "a strategy RPG with sandbox and simulation elements," and it's one of those games that has acquired a decent amount of fans who, even after a few years after the release, continue to play it.

You should opt for Warband if you are determined to fight the bandits on horseback (in fact, this is still the same original, but with additional content). Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord promises us more advanced graphics, but if you are not confused by the outdated visuals, then Warband, coupled with all the mods, will captivate you for months.

Developer: Infinite Fall Buy

A touching and sometimes sad story about crimes, revealing secrets and trying to fit into a strange and cold world. Night in the Woods attracts not so much with its mysteries, but with lively and deep characters, as well as a melancholy atmosphere. Walk along power lines, fool around with old buddies, disappoint your parents, and fight the system.

At first, the pace of the game will seem too slow for you, but over time you will get used to it. If you have a long train ride ahead of you, and it's pouring rain outside, you won't find it.

Developer: 2×2 Games Buy

Don't be fooled by the cute looks of the units, this is a serious World War II-themed strategy game set on the Eastern Front. Of course, the cute interface is confusing, and at first glance you might not understand that we are facing a deep war game. If you've wanted to try this genre for a long time, but you've always been put off by overly detailed menus, then Unity could be your first step into the realm of war games.

Developer: Inkle, Cape Guy Buy

80 Days is a great retelling of Jules Verne's classic Around the World in 80 Days, and you'll spend most of your time in the game reading. This is a novella, rightly recognized as one of the best gaming scenarios of 2015, in which there are also elements of strategy - you need to make your own itinerary of your journey. I recommend running it on a laptop to fully appreciate the art style, read the text easily, and carry it with you whenever you're on the road or waiting.

Developer: Noumenon Games Buy

Snakebird is another game that tries to fool us with its cute art style. In fact, this is one of the most difficult puzzles in the history of the genre. The mechanics themselves are quite simple - move the heroes around the level to eat all the fruits, and then head to the exit, but the design of the puzzles makes you wonder, since even at first glance simple levels can be a task for several hours.

If you don't mind a good twist on your brains, then Snakebird should be your pocket game.

Developer: Yacht Club Games Buy

When you accidentally stumble upon Shovel Knight, you realize that you have found a real treasure. It's an emotion comparable to the feeling when you rummage through the collection of old NES games that your parents bought and find Mega Man or DuckTales for the first time. But this game is much better, as it has more secrets, more interesting mechanics, and more unexpected artistic tricks that games from the 8-bit era simply were not capable of.

Challenging but fair to the player, Shovel Knight pleases us with user-friendly controls that fit wonderfully on the keyboard. And its style for 8-bit projects of the past implies compatibility with any computers and laptops.

Developer: Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd., Abstraction Games Buy

I try not to go overboard with visual novels, but Danganronpa definitely deserves a place on the list as it's one of the most talked about and crazy Japanese novels of recent years. The kit comes with two games from the series at once: Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair. And in my review, I tried to briefly describe the plot of the first part: “A crazy and perverted villain named Monokuma, who appears in the guise of a mechanical bear, traps the students of the school and forces them to play a creepy game. The only way to leave this place or, as he says, “graduate” is to kill another student.” And everything is set at the highest level.

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Buy

The cRPG industry is reborn again, which should please all gamers with weak computers. Some games, like the luxurious and fully 3D Divinity: Original Sin, are a bit system-hungry, while others make the most of the Infinity Engine without putting a lot of strain on the players' computers.

With pre-rendered backgrounds and relatively modest visuals, Pillars of Eternity runs on medium machines too. Yes, its requirements are slightly higher than Baldur's Gate's or Planescape: Torment's, but you get a nice-looking game from the very beginning that does not require installing a lot of additional visual mods. Read our full review of Obsidian's RPG in the spirit of old projects, and pay attention to Shadowrun: Dragonfall from Harebrained Schemes.

Developer: Blizzard Play

As long as you have Wi-Fi, you can easily fight in the card game from Blizzard, which is still considered the king of the genre on PC. Regular updates keep Hearthstone up to date. Plus, it's completely free (with the exception of the in-game store), so you can start playing right away.

For the attention of gamers are presented most demanding gamesPC 2016 of the year.

Battlefield 1 opens the top ten most demanding games on PC in 2016. The game takes its toll with detail, picture quality, and not the number of shots, screams, groans, explosions. Not without reason, in this part, the background sound in battle was removed. In the middle of a tense battle, sometimes there is a lull that incredibly immerses you in the atmosphere of the terrible events of the last century.

call of duty: Infinite Warfare- a very demanding game designed for the most top-end computers. The picture in the new Call of Duty is as realistic as possible on the current engine. And it's not just about CG-rollers, which, of course, are available here. Most of the screensavers are made on the game engine and look just fine. It will be possible to evaluate the "grafon" at the locations. After all, you have to wander not only through dark corridors or ruined buildings. You will often fly into space, which means you will enjoy the views of other planets and, of course, actively participate in battles.

Quantum Break- a game designed for the most powerful PC. Quantum Break was originally planned as a hybrid of a video game and a television project. The whole game is divided into five acts, each of which has several separate levels. After passing the next act, the player is briefly allowed to become the main villain and make a responsible decision that will determine how further events will develop. The slowdown and stop time effects in Quantum Brake are perhaps the most beautiful of all available in modern games. Refractions of space, waves spreading along the chronofield in all directions, "soap bubbles" inside which time slows down, stars smeared across the sky with bright lines, optical distortions created by a miniature black hole - this is only a small part of what you will be able to see in the game.

It is a continuation of the Deus Ex shooter. The new part of the computer game is recognized as one of the most demanding for 2016. Most of the story of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided takes place on the territory of Prague, where Adam's apartment, the OG 29 unit, the Church of the Machine God, a brothel, a bank and other important objects are located. Single missions in Dubai, Golem and then in the cold snow serve to diversify the visuals and gameplay. Separately, it is worth mentioning a really amazing puzzle mission in virtual reality, which, in its admiration for cubes, refers to the world of Portal. The levels have become much smaller compared to the last part, but this does not disappoint at all due to the complex and interesting structure, many approaches and an extensive system of electronic protection. Moreover, due to the non-linearity of solving some of the tasks, you simply will not be able to study some of the objects in detail, having received the necessary information through the dialogue system.

Mirror’ s edge 2: Catalyst- one of the most powerful modern games on the PC with impressive and unsurpassed graphics. The main distinguishing feature of Mirror's Edge is the mechanics, and in Catalyst it was kept as faithfully as possible. Jumping feels the same as before, and with it rolls, pulls and wall runs. However, a lot has changed for the better. Probably the key innovation was the “cat hook”, which helps to cling to special “points” in the game world. Although you can’t use the hook everywhere, it still greatly enlivens the usual gameplay, adding new features while escaping from opponents or, on the contrary, attacking. In the new part, the streets became more alive, the roofs were filled with many small details, and the architecture took another step towards futuristic minimalism.

Tom Clancy’ s The Division is included in the list of the most demanding games on the PC in 2016. The agents of the Special Squad will have to save the city and restore order in it. Almost immediately, the player enters a base of operations. It is the development of the headquarters that affects what opportunities the user has. At first, there are only a couple of merchants there and there are three non-functioning blocks: medical, technical and power. Each of them has its own plot and side tasks, for which they give out points for “pumping” the necessary departments of the base. The main advantages of the game - an exciting cooperative; impressive graphics performance, especially weather and lighting; a lot of indicators that you want to improve with new uniforms; the presence of a system for selecting players in all modes.

Assassins Creed: Syndicate- one of the most demanding games on the PC 2106. The plot of the story of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is surprisingly good. There are elements from the past, such as chasing enemies through the sewers, you surrender to kill a target, or use hidden opportunities for the most effective crime. Sometimes the game starts to resemble Uncharted with bright explosions, train wrecks and other effects. A new mechanic that allows you to quickly move between buildings and climb tall buildings using a zipline not only makes it easier to move around the city, but also makes the game a little more dynamic. What can not be said about missions on carriages. Racing through the streets of the city look beautiful only in videos. In reality, you constantly get stuck in the corners of the streets, knock down passers-by and quite primitively push the enemy carts.

DOOM 2016 opens the top three most demanding PC games this year. With the release of DOOM, the id software studio was able to remember that it was once a trendsetter in the gaming market. The new DOOM looks and sounds just great - just take a look at these screenshots and imagine it all in frenzied dynamics. There is literally nothing to complain about, there are no complaints either about the amazing animation or the magnificent brutal dismemberment. But, most importantly, unlike 90% of modern games, all this beauty is almost flawlessly optimized and even in the most intense and bright moments the game feels great at maximum resolution, not allowing the frame counter to drop lower, both on PC and on consoles.

watch Dogs 2 - one of the most demanding games on the PC in 2016. Inconsistencies in the story logic and gameplay haunt the story to the very end, but more importantly, Watch Dogs 2 does not seem to have a common story - in fact, we have a set of motley missions that do not directly intersect. In addition, the creators could not get around their favorite topic with hallucinogens, so you will find one very strange episode with a package of laughing mushrooms. The gameplay continues to use the concept of open world stealth action. All the main tasks come to your smartphone in the form of messages with a link to the city map. The authors really want you to use vehicles, so they block fast travel to the required point. If you are not on the quest, you can easily bypass this limitation by selecting one of the adjacent icons with a side task (like a motorcycle race), teleport and from there quickly run to the desired place.

Forza Horizon 3 tops the ranking of the most demanding games on PC in 2016. The developers have deepened and expanded not only the controls and sensitivity, but also many other elements of the world in Forza Horizon 3. First, the world itself: it has become twice as wide as the coast of France and Italy from FH 2, The territory is huge, it includes forests, desert-sand branching roads, slides, jumps and, of course, virgin asphalt, winking playfully at speed fans flying at full speed. Villages, towns, water, sky of incredible beauty - everything is drawn with pleasant quality, each element of virtual Australia fulfills its intended purpose - it creates an atmosphere and the true beauty of life. The change of weather and time of day is also perfectly implemented.

Every year we sum up the results for the PC platform, presenting a list of the most optimized games. Over the years, a lot of information has accumulated and we decided to collect it in one article to make it easier for everyone to find optimized PC games. There are more than 60 games on our list, so sit back and let's go!

What games are considered well-optimized?

But first of all, we will announce the rules according to which the projects that fall into our field of vision are determined.

Games slow down a lot? Old computer? We start from the technical state of the release version of the game: there should be no crashes, lags, gameplay bugs and graphics artifacts, since the buyer should immediately receive a high-quality product, and not download a bunch of patches for another six months, in order to finally play normally.

But, given the current state of the gaming industry, we give a chance to those games in which the problems were quickly fixed by the first patches and they fight on a par with those games that did not have any special technical problems at the time of release. All others are immediately excluded.

For the games remaining on the list, performance scaling is carefully considered - how much the project reveals the potential of a particular video card, processor and computer system as a whole, how performance grows with the transition to new and more advanced architectures.

An important advantage can be the presence of a large number of settings, since thanks to them the user is able to adjust the performance of the game to his system. For example, after working with the settings, sometimes you can significantly increase FPS and almost not lose image quality - it is logical that such projects get an advantage.

The final list is compiled in such a way that it includes games that scale their performance best, with the least number of technical problems at the time of release, with a large number of settings. We try to include popular and relevant projects for different systems in the list and when compiling it, we do not judge which game from our list is better than another or which has a higher rating.

The Most Optimized PC Games of 2012

2012 was remembered for the release of very interesting games, one might even say, unique in their genre and for a long time gone down in history, overgrown with memes and jokes. It is very pleasant that most of them came out with excellent graphics and worked well on systems that were relevant for that year. In addition, games of various genres and publishers managed to break into the list.

The Most Optimized PC Games of 2013

In 2013, we found ourselves in an interesting situation. The graphics in PC games and console games differed so dramatically that many visually advanced games were sharpened specifically for personal computers. And naturally, many games received not only high-quality graphics, but also excellent optimization. In the list you will see games of various genres and publishers.

The Most Optimized PC Games of 2014

This year has been a landmark year for the PC gamer audience, as the transitional state between past and current generation consoles has required developers to pay more attention to the PC audience. Firstly, we saw a maximum of optimized games - there are 14 of them in our list, and secondly, the quality of optimization for almost any game released in 2014 was higher than in previous years.

Thirdly, the quality of the graphics went to the outrageous, as it seemed then, level. Genre diversity will allow everyone to find the game of their choice.

The Most Optimized PC Games of 2015

But 2015 turned out to be very faded - high-quality ports turned out only for long-term construction, that is, for those games that were developed for 3-5 years. Almost our entire list consists of them, and it's just a coincidence that in 2015 we immediately saw a parade of long-term construction.

As for the rest of the games, all of which have already been developed for the current generation consoles, which is called "from scratch", they received poor optimization and did not make it to our list.

The Most Optimized PC Games of 2016

The main triumph of 2016 was Electronic Arts, which was able to release excellent PC ports with good graphics and optimization. Moreover, that the priority platform for the company is personal computers, so this result is natural. As for other publishers, only a few managed to break into our list, and moreover due to high-quality re-releases of old hits.