Good simple games for pc

Few games will make you fear for your life upon encountering the most mundane of inanimate objects the way Prey does — and fewer still will then give you the power to become those objects yourself. Developer Arkane Austin is now working on Redfall , an open-world, co-op vampire shooter. No game simulates the feeling of being in command of a starship flying by the seat of your pants like FTL: Faster Than Light.

It's a game you shouldn't expect to survive — more likely, you'll be blasted out of the sky by a vastly superior enemy ship or boarded by a death squad of giant killer insects who massacre your crew.

Maybe your life-support system will be hacked and everyone will suffocate. Its tactical combat never gets old, tons of loot and random events keep every game feeling unpredictable, and unlockable ships force you to change up your strategies on subsequent runs. And every so often, you might even win. MOBAs have earned a reputation for being dense and difficult to learn, but immensely strategic for those who put in the time.

Because every second matters, matches are always exciting even when they seem slow. Are you farming gold? Are you scouting the enemy? Or crossing the map to help out a teammate? Or heading back to base to heal? Its complexity can scare players off, but those who stick through it will be rewarded with some of the most strategic gameplay around.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is the closest thing we've had to a near-perfect recreation of the real world in the virtual space. Using real-time Bing data to allow you to fly to and from any place on the entire planet has raised the bar for simulations to heights never seen before. Accessible to anyone, or as realistic as you want, this is open-world at its most literal. Free-flying around the globe, participating in landing challenges at some of the world's most famously difficult airports, or just sightseeing, Microsoft Flight Simulator is an unparalleled achievement.

Don't forget to grab one of the best PC joysticks to make this flight-sim experience that more immersive. The marvelous PC port overhauled and further enhanced the gorgeous wild western atmosphere of Rockstar's most recent open-world adventure and added even more activities, unlockables, and impossibly fine details to its expansive map.

It's possibly one of the biggest and best single-player PC games ever and it has an extensive multiplayer mode too.

RDR2 on PC is handily a must-play for anyone with a rig beefy enough to run it. Through its relaunch and subsequent three expansions FFXIV has slowly morphed from a relatively generic good-versus-evil plot into a sprawling, political, and fantastical thriller.

Story missions are intended to be tackled solo, and even instanced dungeons now have an option for you to enter with computer-controlled party members instead of forcing you into a group with strangers.

Square Enix had to temporarily stop selling FF14 upon its release, as the expansion's popularity exceeded the company's server capacity. As well as transplanting the dice-rolls and deep dialogue options from Dungeons and Dragons into a lesser-seen noir-detective setting, it offers entirely original ways to play, such as such as debating against 24 different sections of your own brain, each representative of a different skill or trait.

Your down-and-out detective is thrust into circumstances where you must solve a murder, but with all great stories its not the conclusion that is solely gratifying, but the journey you took to get there as its ludicrously detailed world and cast of characters drive it along, supported by some of the best writing seen in a game.

Nier: Automata is, by all accounts, a game that shouldn't exist. Director Yoko Taro's original Nier flopped back in , but it nevertheless developed a ravenous fanbase — and for good reason. To put it simply: Nier: Automata does what the original sought to do, learning from its failures and building on its successes to create a blend of hardcore and fluid combat, bullet-hell shoot 'em up segments, and visual novel stylings.

It all coalesces into something entirely new. The game is very challenging even on easy difficulty because every game is randomly generated. We played for 27 hours and were never able to reach the Federation, but every playthrough was unique and fun. Although the game is still in early access, Factorio is a well-functioning game worth your time.

In a way, it is similar to SimCity, except instead of building streets and buildings, you create conveyor belts and factories. You will collect resources and construct everything by hand at first, but as you progress, your factories will become more and more complex and automated.

However, building a massive manufacturing empire while raping the world of resources makes enemies with the alien populous — "Spitters," "Biters," and "Worms. Developer Wube Software has the official release slated for September 25, , but don't let that stop you from buying the very stable and virtually complete build right now.

When first-person shooter Borderlands launched in , developer Gearbox marketed it as having "87 bazillion" different guns. In actuality, the game's "Procedural Content Creation System" is capable of randomly generating over 3.

It also provides each weapon with a slightly unique look. While primarily a shooter, the game has a rich RPG-like character development system allowing players to customize one of four classes, each with unique abilities and skill trees. These elements combined with vehicular combat, open-world environment, a multitude of side quests, and an adaptive four-player multiplayer cooperative mode makes Borderlands a title that you can revisit multiple times with each new playthrough seeming fresh.

Untitled Goose Game from indy publisher Panic Inc is a more recent title. Players assume the role of a pesky town goose. The town is split up into sections with each having a set of missions or tasks to complete, like stealing items or tricking villagers into doing something.

The game combines stealth and puzzle elements and oddly enough developer House House said it drew inspiration from Mario 64 and the Hitman series.

With its simplistic graphics, it is easy to let this game fly under your radar, but its gameplay is fun and silly enough to make it a good pick for lower-end systems. Its only real flaw is that it is too short. Most players can complete it in a couple of hours. Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter initially launched by Devolver Digital in You play as an unnamed protagonist fans refer to as "Jacket" in Miami.

The game is divided into Chapters, with each having several stages. Missions begin with a phone message that ultimately has Jacket facing off with a Russian Mafia operation. The goal is always to gruesomely eliminate all the bad guys in that location. Starting each stage unarmed, Jacket must use stealth, at least until he finds a gun or melee weapon. He also has access to masks, which can be found on bodies. Each disguise comes with unique buffs to help get through the stage.

While it is an action game, it is also somewhat puzzle-oriented in that players must figure out how to complete areas without being killed, which is not easy. If you can't get the jump on an enemy, you will likely perish and have to start the level again.

Its structure makes it great for playing in short bursts, like while you are waiting to board at the airport. Despite its cartoonish, beautiful graphics, Cuphead is one of the more taxing games on the list, both on your hardware and your sanity.

Studio MDHR's bullet-hell is one that many have found frustratingly difficult, so it's not for everyone. However, once you get the hang of its levels after dying many, many times , it becomes addicting. The sense of relief and satisfaction after completing a stage is a suitable payoff. You play as either Cuphead or his brother Mugman.

The style is reminiscent of the old "visit-the-snackbar" animations with their anthropomorphic popcorn and sodas dancing around.

Coupled with its cool soundtrack, the game makes for a fun experience whether you are watching someone else die or you are playing yourself. Perhaps one of the more underrated titles on the list, the Hack series consists of three hacker simulators from developer i — Hack Run, Hack Run Zero, and Hack Time.

They harken back to the days of text adventures, so you can literally run them on anything. The games put players in the shoes of a hacker who receives an "offer' from a strange "employer" that seems to know more than it should about his or her skills.

The story plays out from a command line prompt as you infiltrate a mysterious corporation snooping on emails, running scripts, and uncovering clues to delve deeper and deeper. The puzzles can be quite challenging at times, requiring a very keen attention to detail.

It is easy to miss clues as the text scrolls off the screen, but diligence pays off, and it is quite satisfying when you crack some of the more security-hardened systems. If all else fails, i added a hint system in the most recent updates for those who get stuck.

Honorable Mention: Uplink Buy it from: Steam. Released in , Half-Life remains a classic that has been updated and remade on multiple platforms. The first-person shooter puts you in the shoes of Gordon Freeman, a scientist at a research facility known as Black Mesa.

Thanks to an experiment gone wrong, Freeman finds himself battling creatures from another dimension. The dystopian sequel, Half-Life 2, is set six years after the dimensional rift caused by the Black Mesa Incident. This time he has to contend with the Combine, a multidimensional society of beings that conquered the Earth within seven hours after being unleashed. Besides some superb writing, the ways in which Gunpoint gradually introduces new mechanics, obstacles and enemies to the original concept is wonderful.

Later levels are filled with head-scratching conundrums that are eclipsed only by their eureka moments. Estimated time to beat: 3. Limbo and its non-related follow-up Inside are both interesting and intuitive puzzle platformers from Danish indie studio Playdead. Both are also great fun and while the former is probably the better of the two, both can be played through and enjoyed over the course of an evening.

Estimated time to beat: 4 hours Link. Set in an atmospheric Wyoming wilderness, this first-person walkabout game explores the relationship between Henry, a fire lookout, and his colleague, Delilah.

Proof that games can tug at the heartstrings even with simple RPG Maker graphics and animation. Estimated time to beat: 5 hours Link.

The rural drama recalls the ancient and ever-living BBC radio drama, The Archers, but more fantastical themes emerge as you move across the landscape.

Estimated time to beat: 5. You command a band of cosplaying kids in this charming ode to old-school JRPGs. You command the whole squad in turn-based scraps that let the kids transform into powerful alter-egos based on their Halloween getup. Estimated time to beat: 6. Not only do your choices affect outcomes down the line, keeping everyone alive unlocks extra dialogue from its cast of weird, whimsical and wonderful characters.

Hey folks, beloved mascot Coconut Monkey here representing the collective PC Gamer editorial team, who worked together to write this article! Jump to: Under 2 hours About 2 hours Three to five hours Over five hours. Best of the best.

Certainly the one with the catchiest name. It's about pushing blocks, but also pushing words, which then become commands. And from those simple combinations, wild varieties of puzzles unfold. It's hard to describe but easy to understand once you play it, and in our Baba Is You review we dig into why it's so fun to play:. But you can use 'Baba' as the start of a horizontal command, a bit like a programming crossword puzzle.

Write 'Baba is win' and it makes you Baba the win condition of the level. The latest adventure game from Blackwell creators Wadjet Eye is one of its best, bringing in demons, exorcisms, and some light roleplaying elements that affect how the story plays out. An ingenious puzzle game years in the making, hand-drawn by creator Jason Roberts.

Gorogoa tells a story with its puzzles, rather than simply placing puzzles in a thematic wrapping. This is part of what makes it something special, and particularly engrossing, as we wrote in our Gorogoa review : "The story itself is an interesting, ambiguous framework through which to explore the idea of repeating patterns.

A fantastic feat of interlocking storytelling and design. Terraria is a huge game in a very tiny package. Even if you originally wrote it off as a 2D Minecraft clone, it's grown far beyond that label in the years since. Terraria is a crafting adventure with heaps of updates to its name with new bosses, biomes, fishing, and too many other things to name. It was still getting updates in It's also wild how little this huge game demands from your computer with its tiny install size and modest system requirements.

Release: Developer: Indefatigable Link: Steam. In the wake of 's Doom, we've seen a resurgence of new-but-old shooters that fully embrace the graphical styles and level design of 90s hallmarks like Quake and Hexen. Amid Evil may be the best of them: it's the heavy metal album cover version of a 90s FPS, full of epic axes, swords that shoot green energy beams, and grenade launcher wands that fire miniaturized planets as weapons. Every area in the game has a unique aesthetic and set of enemies, so it never overstays its welcome.

And because the design is faithful to its 90s inspirations, it'll run on a toaster a suitably hardcore toaster, anyway. The indie platformer darling of the past few years, and with good reason: Celeste combines tight, instantly satisfying controls with wonderful music and a story that may speak to you, if you've ever battled your way through depression.

If you're more into the jumping than the self-reflection, that's okay too—Celeste has the snappiness of Super Meat Boy, where trying a challenge over and over again takes only seconds, and nailing it at the end leaves you pumping your fists.

That air-dash. Like many PC platformers, Celeste is perfectly playable with mouse and keyboard, but you might want to throw a controller with a good D-pad in your bag if you're traveling. Quite possibly the prettiest game you can play on a laptop or low-end system thanks to its hand-drawn, classically animated 2D graphics.

Cuphead channels Gunstar Heroes and other 90s platformers with tough as nails multi-stage bosses, but learnable tells and patterns make it conquerable if you keep a cool head and stick with it. It's worth playing for the phenomenal soundtrack and art alone, but why not team up with Mugman and take down a few bosses while you're admiring the craft? Made by former PC Gamer editor Tom Francis, creator of the also-excellent and low-spec-friendly Gunpoint , Heat Signature is a game about sneaking onto spaceships, braining guards with a wrench or using all kinds of gadgets to carry out a mission, and dealing with the chaos that ensues.

In our review, we wrote: "Heat Signature inspires creativity through emergent complexity like any great immersive sim. I can't stop regaling friends with my stories of heists gone bad or boasting about my flashes of brilliance in the heat of the moment. Heat Signature is brilliant at teasing these anecdotal threads out of a procedural universe. The entire Emily Is Away series looks like it's running on a 15 year old machine, and it probably could. These fake social media games are interactive stories about a group of high schoolers navigating all their interpersonal relationships.