We think that 2019 was a year of quiet surprises in PC gaming, with outsider indie hits like Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds sweeping many of the accolades while big-budget series sat on the backburner.

But the roster of PC games coming out in 2020 suggests it’ll be a year of dormant franchises rising again (some in unexpected VR form), polished sequels, and a long-awaited release of one of the most anticipated RPGs of the last five years.

So, 2020 is set to be more of a blockbuster year than 2019, with plenty of love for the golden oldies. We’ve rounded up the 10 most anticipated upcoming PC games of 2020 here.

Make sure you also check out our pick of the best PC games that are out now.

1. Cyberpunk 2077

Announced back before The Witcher 3 launched to become an instant classic, Cyberpunk 2077 has been a long time coming. Polish studio CD Projekt’s latest creation couldn’t look more different to its Witcher series however, set as it is in a metallic neon-lit city of the future. 

You play as V, a cybernetically enhanced mercenary left for dead by persons unknown and guided by none other than a hologram of Keanu Reeves to find your assailants. 

Night City is a sprawling metropolis filled with deviants, crime and opportunity. It looks set to be the most densely populated open-world city ever made, offering unbounded freedom in how you choose to navigate it.

 2. Half-life: Alyx

There’s a growing number of games that are finally tapping into the potential of VR, but the technology has lacked a true system-selling title until now. This Half-life prequel, set just before the events of the second game, may not be Half-life 3, but for VR it could prove just as seminal.

Half-life: Alyx is no tech demo either. It’ll be a full 15-hour story-led shooter, set in and around the iconic City 17 - the communist-style city run by the tyrannical intergalactic species known as the Combine. Oh, and it will have gravity gloves, which is quite possibly the most exciting videogame weapon reveal since Half-life 2’s gravity gun. 

3. Elden Ring

We don’t know much about Elden Ring yet, but what little we do know - that it’s a dark fantasy action-RPG written by George R.R. Martin, developed by From Software, and headed by Dark Souls mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki - is enough to shoot it straight to the top of our ‘Most Wanted’ list for 2020.

There are other trickles of info that tickle our excitement sensors too. It will be From Software’s first true open-world game, filled with dark imagery and a tasteful fusion of eastern and western fantasy imagery based on what we’ve seen in the trailer. A bringing-together of a couple of this century’s greatest fantasy creators that’s likely to maintain From’s penchant for ruthlessly challenging the player.

4. Resident Evil 3 remake

Shortly after the Resident Evil 2 remake came out and wooed us with its mix of nostalgic throwback and decidedly modern level design, this gets announced. The original Resident Evil 3 was famously more action-packed than its predecessor, as you blasted your way through zombie-infested Raccoon City while fleeing the trudging, persistent threat that was Nemesis.

With the Resident Evil 3 remake, expect zombie mayhem mixing suspense with B-movie silliness, an intriguing new multiplayer mode, and an ‘untethered’ Nemesis, who will stalk you through large chunks of the game as you try to prevent zombies from nibbling the tendons out of your ankles. It’s not likely to be as momentous as its predecessor, but a continuation down the polished path the series has been on in recent years. This makes it one of our most anticipated PC games of 2020.

5. Crusader Kings III

Like its predecessor, Crusader Kings III lets you play a noble of various standing in an accurate recreation of the medieval world – be that a devious Duke in southern England, a Viking raider looking to establish a holding, or the head of a sweeping Islamic caliphate. 

It’s an intricate game of politics, backstabbing and power-grabbing, and it’ll be fascinating to see it expanded and improved in a modern engine.

6. DOOM Eternal

2016’s Doom reimagining was the best thing to have happened to the hell-slaying shooter series since, well, the original Doom itself. It managed to recall the pace and ferocity of the original games by introducing brilliant new mechanics; from the vicious glory kills which granted you health, to the jump pads that sent you uppercutting into cacodemons. 

Doom Eternal is building on these new foundations, adding things like grappling hooks capable of skewering demons, the Super Shotgun returning from Doom 2, and improved multiplayer. 

It’ll be a rip-tearing romp across Mars, the moon of Phobos, and to hell and back.

7. Baldur’s Gate 3

Today’s young gamers may associate RPGs with Skyrim and The Witcher, but it was Baldur’s Gate that really set the bar for just how deep and sprawling such a game could be. It was a masterclass of storytelling, as you gathered a party of big personalities who’d clash and converse with each other, and attempt to rope you in on their own adventures.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is being developed by Larian Studios, the bunch behind the excellent Divinity: Original Sin games. The studio will need to reel in its whimsical leanings for the darker world of Baldur’s Gate, but Divinity’s great combat and co-op systems should blend brilliantly into this legendary saga.

8. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

One of the most technically flawed but brilliant RPGs ever released on PC is getting a sequel. Taking place in a modern-day Seattle - albeit populated by vampires, werewolves and other nocturnal creatures - Bloodlines 2 casts you as a human who was recently turned into a vampire.

The type of vampire you choose to play will drastically affect your experience as you prowl the streets of Seattle in search of blood and answers to how you became what you are. Will you be a hideous Nosferatu who’s attacked on-sight on the streets, a high-flying Ventrue, or a suave and seductive Toreador?

Expect deep decision-making, blood-letting abilities, and a deliciously dark city to feast upon.

9. Dying Light 2

The original Dying Light remains a high benchmark of the zombie-apocalypse genre. The parkour mechanics gave it a great sense of flow as you bounded between the rooftops, and the online co-op mode is one of the best ways to do your gaming alongside your friends. It was set in an intense and violent open world that always felt threatening.

But its story left a bit to be desired, which is why Chris Avellone (Fallout: New Vegas, Baldur’s Gate) has been brought in to pen the sequel. 

The game world will adapt to the decisions you make, and zombies will of course continue to be the fast-running, ravenous threat we know them to be from the original. Where the first game was one of the surprise hits of the previous decade, expectations are high for this one.

10. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

There’s something distinctly ‘PC gaming’ about the Mount & Blade series. It’s heavily systems-based, as you strategically build up a feudal kingdom, defend and expand it, plan out large-scale battles, then fight in them yourself from a first-person perspective. 

There’s a lot going on in these games, so it’s no surprise that developer TaleWorlds has taken its time (eight years and counting) with the sequel. 

Bannerlord will feature more detailed politics and dialogue systems, myriad factions, and the ability to bear children, who will succeed your character should you die.

• These are the best multiplayer PC games

It’s been a relatively quiet year for PC gaming, but that in no way means it’s been a bad year. 

In the absence of the usual big-budget RPG sprawls and major franchise regurgitations, more experimental games have stepped into the spotlight.

So here’s to the weird and the alternative ones that have brightened up 2019. In an industry that can often feel relentlessly industrial and commercial, it’s refreshing to have a year in which the weird and inventive games have been allowed to flourish.

We've also listed the best PC games ever if you fancy playing older titles as well.

1. Disco Elysium

Old-school style RPG Disco Elysium creeps up out of nowhere to take our top spot. It’s an RPG in the purest sense of the word, with each of your actions feeling consequential, and a robust levelling system that lets you immerse yourself in the role of good cop, bad cop, or some kind of maverick in between.

You play a troubled detective working in a fictional city district overrun by vice. While investigating a dark conspiracy stemming from a murder, you’ll face tough choices that will affect your character’s mental state and future dialogue options - it’s even possible to drive him utterly mad! 

There’s minimal combat, but a great sense of gravitas to every player decision, making for one of the most weighty and oppressive RPGs ever made.

2. Resident Evil 2 REmake

Is this the greatest videogame remake ever made? Quite possibly. With Resident Evil2 REmake, Capcom wisely stayed true to the beats of the original story, which sees dual protagonists with divergent stories Leon and Claire try to escape the zombie-infested Raccoon City.

Beyond that, this remake reimagines everything else perfectly. Resources are scarce, basic zombies become a constant bullet-absorbent threat that can burst through doors between areas, and Mr X is a systemic menace, unstoppably stomping after you for half the game. 

There’s even something of that Souls-like level design as you steadily open up shortcuts to offer some respite from the horror.

3. Outer Wilds

Gamers have a fair amount of space exploration games to choose from today, but something that many of them lack is personality – a sense that the places you discover have their own cultures, architecture and people, places that are homes rather than just resource repositories to exploit.

Outer Wilds addresses that, treating us to a warm, welcoming adventure filled with cosmic mystery and puzzles. 

It’s a game for those who want to take their time, to explore every corner and learn about the diversity of planets they visit. You’ll die and be reborn many times, but it’s presented so elegantly that you’ll be smiling all the way instead of biting your controller in frustration (see: Sekiro).

4. Total War: Three Kingdoms

The Total War series has always been one of the finest exclusives on PC, but since its stabs at the Warhammer canon it’s reached new heights in terms of integrating great storytelling into its campaigns. 

With Three Kingdoms, diplomacy, quests and campaigns all feel rich and engaging, while the more immediate matter of the battles themselves continues to be unrivalled.

Ancient China is a  resplendent setting for the Total War formula, and fans of the Three Kingdoms saga will be delighted to lead great generals like Lu Bu, Cao Cao and Guan Yu into battle to the chimes of a beautiful musical score. From the sight of elegant Chinese forts burning in a night siege to the epic turn-based campaign, this is a spectacle worthy of its epic source material.

5. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

When Sekiro was announced, the assumption was that it would be ‘Dark Souls in feudal Japan’. Instead, it took the brave step of leaving behind much of the intricate Souls formula in favour of a flashier, more stylised and more linear Samurai adventure that owes more to the Ninja Gaiden series.

One crucial thing that Sekiro retains from Dark Souls is the head-pounding difficulty and subsequent satisfaction of mastering those precise parries, or of finally overcoming a gruelling boss who ground you to dust about 20 times. 

Once again, From Software reassert themselves as masters of unforgiving gameplay that rewards the most headstrong of players.

6. Control

From the nightmare sequences in Max Payne to the time-twisting Quantum Break, Finnish developer Remedy has always had a penchant for the paranormal. 

These brilliant ideas weren’t always matched by compelling mechanics, but with Control the developer seems to have finally found the right balance.

A big part of Control’s appeal is its open design. The game’s setting, a Brutalist security complex called the Oldest House, is a fascinating environment, where you try to make sense of the shifting surroundings and reanimated bodies possessed by some kind of dark forces of physics. The flowing gravity-free combat is excellent too.

• Buy Control from the Epic Games Store

7. Untitled Goose Game

Some games are just made to make you smile, and few in recent years have been as effective at doing that as Untitled Goose Game. The irreverent sort-of stealth game casts you as the titular waterfowl causing chaos in a quaint English village.

You steal vegetables, create diversions while committing mischief, and terrorise locals with your honking as you trot around the pastelly and pleasing environs of the village. 

It doesn’t last long, but it’s a couple of the cheeriest hours you’ll spend with a game all year.

8. Metro Exodus

The Metro series has always flown just under the mainstream radar, while offering some of the best linear FPS storytelling since Half-life 2. Exodus moves away from its predecessors’ murky subway settings into the overworld of post-apocalyptic Russia. This means a greater range of environs, and vast open levels that offer freedom of approach. 

Despite the trademark bleak ambience, it maintains a well-paced sense of adventure as you take a train across the Russian wasteland. It’s atmospheric and gritty, effortlessly flowing between survival-horror and impressive insights into civilisation on the surface.

9. The Outer Worlds

Obsidian are masters of storytelling, so when their latest RPG The Outer Worlds was announced there was a sense that it would be the spiritual successor to the beloved Fallout: New Vegas. And in some ways it is, as you bounce between space colonies, explore strange locales, and engage with a vibrant world that has distinctly Fallouty future-50s stylings.

Choose which factions to side with, make decisions that will affect the colony’s fate, and run around diverse worlds scavenging resources to improve your character. It’s not as content-packed or meaty as the biggest RPGs of recent years, but its colourfully consumerist world is a joy to explore for dozens of hours.

10. Mordhau

Medieval first-person fighting games can often feel shambolic; a whirlwind of iffy animations, even iffier ragdolls and unthinkably high bunnyhops that would be impossible in a 100lb suit of armour.

Mordhau polishes off many of those rough edges, sharpening the combat to make it feel brutal and crunchy and immediate. Limbs fly, weapons have impact, and its physics-based play means you can do things like block a throwing knife with a shield you grabbed off the ground, then stick it between your enemy’s ribs. 

Never has the expression ‘rough and ready’ felt more apt.

• Check out the best multiplayer PC games

As we prepare to enter the first decade of this millennium that doesn’t require awkward nomenclature like ‘noughties’ or ‘teenzies’, it’s time to reflect on the best of PC gaming from the last ten years.

What’s strange about this era is how contracted it feels, with many games from years ago remaining relevant through mods, expansions and resiliently high player counts. It’s been a decade of long shelf lives, expansive RPGs, and marrying off cousins to horses (and other cousins) in medieval grand strategy.

It’s been a great decade on PC, so as a thank you and ‘ta-ra’ to the teens, we’ve put together the best PC games to have come out since 2010.

10. Minecraft

You don’t need to have so much as dug a hole or mined a cube of ore in Minecraft to appreciate its impact on gaming. It’s the digital Lego that Lego itself could only dream of being, letting players of any age unleash their creativity on the now-iconic voxel-based world.

It inadvertently pioneered the survival genre too, and it’s hard to imagine games like Rust or DayZ (and subsequently PUBG and Fortnite) existing without Minecraft’s deceptively challenging survival mode, where you need to eat, build and fend off those insufferable monsters.

• The history of Minecraft – the best selling PC game ever

9. Sid Meier’s Civilization V

It’s strange to think that the elder of the two currently played Civilization games came out nearly 10 years ago, what with it still being the 25th most actively played game on Steam at the time of writing.

Its longevity can be attributed partly to the fact that it remains the most accessible game in the series, with elegant systems for religion, diplomacy and strategic one-unit-per-tile warfare. 

Yes, the AI is shonky in the vanilla game, but that’s where Vox Populi comes in - an expansive community mod that adds tons of great mechanics from Civs gone by, and fixes many of the base game issues. It’s arguably the deepest Civilization experience across the entire series. 

8. Crusader Kings 2

Treachery, greed, duplicity and Machiavellianism are just some of the conniving qualities you’ll be calling on when playing Crusader Kings 2. It’s a game where the pen is often mightier than the sword, but a poisoned chalice at a feast or a lie about the legitimacy of your bastard child can be more powerful still.

This medieval strategic sandbox puts you in charge of a noble dynasty - be that a lowly duke in Dorset or the caliph of a middle-eastern kingdom. You preserve your bloodline across generations, through historical events like crusades and plagues as well as endless emergent challenges that arise over the years. 

Its breadth of possibilities makes it one of the best story generators in all gaming, and it’ll be fascinating to see if the recently announced sequel can rule the next decade as harmoniously as its predecessor did this one.

7. Rocket League

Low gravity rocket-fuelled cars and football may seem like strange bedfellows, and utterly banal if you’re interested in neither racing or football. But Rocket League is a gestalt of these two things, creating a new sport altogether that’s been a phenomenon since it came out in 2015.

Rocket League is completely physics-based, and takes full advantage of that through polished mechanics that make for an infinitely high skill ceiling.

Whether you’re scrapping around with friends in local 2-v-2 matches or expertly air-dribbling the ball across the pitch in the upper online leagues, Rocket League is a game that can is as shambolic or as balletic as the amount of effort you put into mastering it. It’s the most deserving surprise hit of the decade.

6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The game that never dies, having been resurrected on every major console since its initial launch in 2011. But few will dispute the idea that this majestic RPG, set in one of the most atmospheric open worlds in gaming, is at its best on PC.

Because while the base game is a classic in its own right, letting you become a hero or simply embrace the life of an adventurer (until you take an arrow to the knee, that is), the game lives on through its modding community. 

It’s here that you can make Skyrim look, feel and play like it was released yesterday, and it’s what makes the game an ever ongoing improvement over what it was back in 2011.

5. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Few developers have benefitted from Kickstarter - itself a distinctly ‘teens’ phenomenon - like Larian Studios. While previous games in the series were always hampered by publisher and budgetary problems, Kickstarter crowdfunding let Larian off the leash, setting them free to make two of the deepest, most rewarding RPGs of all time.

Original Sin 2 builds on the already impressive original, expanding the tactical combat, increasing the impact of your decisions on the world, and offering unthinkable amounts of whimsically written quests. The multiplayer is quite possibly the best that’s ever been integrated into a full-blooded RPG too.

4. Dishonored 2

Sneaking high into our list, then blinking over and sticking a blade into the bemused face of the many people who haven’t played this game (it didn’t sell well), Dishonored 2 takes its place among the decade’s aristocracy. Arkane Studios’ immersive sim builds on the spirit of the old Thief games, casting you as a preternaturally gifted assassin in a beautifully imagined steampunk world.

The sequel takes us to the sunny climes of Karnaca, where you play as either Corvo or deposed empress Emily Kaldwin to try and restore the latter to the throne. From the varied and multi-layered levels to the spectacular combos of deadly skills you can string together to dismember your enemies, Dishonored 2 is a treat for the senses and a technical marvel.

3. Portal 2

No one expected much of the original Portal when it was first bundled with the Orange Box, but it says a lot about the puzzler’s brilliance that we were all holding our breath for the sequel. 

And it didn’t disappoint. Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle game where you use one of the greatest guns in gaming - the portal gun - to progress through a series of increasingly difficult and mind-bending obstacles. This already compelling game is bolstered by a brilliantly written story, which casts the voice of Stephen Merchant as a megalomaniacal AI trying to destroy your plucky little robot protagonist.

It’s one of the best ever on-rails narrative experiences, with nary a human character in sight.

2. Dark Souls

If we judge influence by the number of imitators that came in a game’s wake and the rise of a whole genre in its name (Souls-like), then Dark Souls is the most influential game of the last decade.

A hostile world where death is both frequent and consequential, a contiguous kingdom ingeniously interconnected by shortcuts, and an enigmatic story that’s scattered among the drifting characters and dark corners of the forlorn keeps, caves and villages.

These are the traits of a Soulslike, but nine years on none of them - including its own sequels - execute them as precisely as the original Dark Souls. It’s a game that dared to be formidable and uncompromising, and rewarded those of us who persevered through its initial obscurity with an inimitable sense of suspense and satisfaction.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

There’s something comforting about the fact that the best RPG and game of the decade wasn’t a high-fantasy outing from a long-established publisher, but one inspired by the little known fables of eastern European folklore, and released by a Polish developer.

The Witcher 3 is a multifarious triumph. It pulls you into endless memorable moments -  from the struggles of villagers contending with war and monsters lurking in the surrounding woods, to the understated compassion of its maligned hero Geralt of Rivia as he searches for his protegee Ciri. 

It’s one of the biggest, most detailed and intimate open worlds created - a haunting yet beautiful zenith of gaming that’s a barometer of how much the medium has progressed over the last nine years.

• These are the best multiplayer PC games right now

As we say goodbye to this past year (and decade) of PC gaming, it’s time to take a look in the rearview mirror and reflect on what our beloved platform has been through in 2019. 

It’s been a year refreshingly free of big controversies and studio closures, while subscription services and streaming have begun offering intriguing new ways for us to play some of the best PC games ever made.

Here are the highs and lows of PC gaming in 2019.

The GPU drought is over 

In 2018, surging demand for cryptocurrency caused investors to buy out GPUs on an unprecedented scale. 

Crypto-miners would buy multiple copies of the same GPU, before installing them in gritty unloved rigs designed for the sole purpose of mining cryptocurrency (pretty much the PC hardware equivalent of a battery chicken farm). GPU stocks ran dry, prices skyrocketed, and PC gamers lost out.

Thankfully, with the demand for crypto subsiding in 2019, we can once again get the latest gaming hardware at sensible prices, and you’d hope that Nvidia and AMD will be better prepared should there be another GPU sales spike in the future.

Epic Game Store plays rough to attract gamers

The reception to Epic’s new game store has been as tumultuous and unpredictable as recent general elections in the UK. People swing one way on it when it dishes out high-quality free games, then the other way when Epic poaches major titles initially slated for a Steam launch right from under our noses.

No one is arguing that a bit of competition for Steam is a bad thing, but beyond throwing bags of money at developers Epic hasn’t added any features to make its platform a pleasing service to use. 

Store and search features are threadbare, there’s no family sharing, or streaming, or any of the other features that make Steam the dominant force in PC gaming. 

It’s not yet a platform that feels worthy of the big-name games it hosts, yet PC gamers are forced to settle for it if they want to play them.

Xbox Game Pass is exceptional

This year, Ubisoft and Microsoft joined the fray of subscription-based PC gaming services, following on from EA’s solid Origin Access offering that’s been around for a few years now. But of those two, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass for PC has stolen the show with its bargain introductory subscription and games collection.

What makes Game Pass stand out is the element of pleasant surprise. Yes, you get Microsoft’s top first-party games, but also a wonderfully curated mix of indie and mainstream games from recent years. 

Top games of 2019 like Metro: Exodus, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Outer Worlds are here, as well as indie hits like Hollow Knight, Slay the Spire and Void Bastards.

Xbox Game Pass has emerged from nowhere to become the best-value game subscription service on PC. 

Google Stadia not ready for the big-time

It happened with Amazon before and now it looks like it’s happening to Google. You can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t understand the business of gaming then it’s not going to help you.

Google Stadia is a great concept, and perhaps it should have had more time in the oven before launching with a weak games catalog, confusing (and not cheap) pricing, and performance issues. It’s an awkward, multilayered service that shows the streaming revolution isn’t ready yet. Or maybe that Google isn’t the company to lead it.

Of course, it’s early days for the service, and there are more than likely better days to come as Google finds its feet, But in its current half-baked state it just doesn’t justify the price tag.

Weird alternative games find success

2019 hasn’t seen the same splurge of big-name IPs and obligatory open-world RPGs we’re used to seeing. It’s been a strangely quiet year, but that’s allowed for more experimental games to step up and rank among the year’s finest.

Dour detective RPG Disco Elysium is arguably the best of them, while Outer Wilds proves that you don’t need an endless cosmos and huge budgets to make a beautiful space exploration game. The most mainstream RPG out this year was Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, and even that retains a certain personal, low-key charm reflective of its not-quite triple-A budget.

Other notable titles in this year of refreshing oddities are the likes of Untitled Goose Game, Sunless Skies and the inimitably weird Hypnospace Outlaw, which sees you doing detective work on a trippy 90s-style interwebs.

Loot boxes continue to plague PC gaming

In 2017, the EU and other governments around the world cracked down on loot boxes, with EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II at the crux of the debate around the randomised bundles of in-game items that players (often children) spend real-world money on. 

Belgium outright banned loot boxes, the Netherlands brought in heavy restrictions, while other countries - including the UK - continue to debate whether it’s in fact a form of gambling.

While the practice has died down in mainstream premium games since then, a recent study by the University of York found that the presence of loot boxes continues to rise. In 2019, 71% of the 463 most played Steam games studied contained loot boxes, up from 4% back in 2010.

They may not be garnering the headlines like before, but loot boxes continue to be common practice in 2019, which leaves a lot of young people at the mercy of this morally dubious monetisation system.

Oculus Link makes the Quest a PC headset 

Virtual Reality is the most technologically mind-blowing niche in gaming. Anyone who dons the headset comes away impressed, and yet uptake continues to remain fairly low.

Enter the Oculus Quest, a deceptively powerful headset that plays many of the best VR games using its internal hardware. The Quest recently received an ‘Oculus Link’ update that lets you use it to also play PC VR games using a USB 3.0 cable. The update is still in beta, but already makes the Quest work largely like a PC headset, making it the most versatile VR headset around.

Quest sales figures have been impressive, and in the last quarter were “nearly double the combined sales figures of the Oculus Rift S and Oculus Go”, according to research company SuperData. The wireless Quest seems to be just what people have been waiting for, but its PC compatibility makes it hands-down the best value VR proposition to date. 

Red Dead Redemption 2 launch problems

Easily the most anticipated game release making its way over from consoles in 2019, Rockstar’s formidable western epic has been an absolute disaster on PC. 

From the time-limited exclusivity on the Epic Game Store reminding us that PC is now an open corporate battleground over consumers, to a buggy launcher that’s prevented countless people from playing the game, Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC is one of the worst triple-A game launches in recent memory.

Yes, the inherent diversity of hardware and software between different PCs is a major consideration developers don’t need to deal with on consoles, but the shambolic launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 shows that PC still too often remains an afterthought for publishers.

Half-life: Alyx could be a watershed moment in VR

OK, so it may not quite be the unconditional Half-life 3 confirmation we’ve all been meming about, but given that the development team is bigger than has worked on any previous Valve title, Half-life: Alyx is clearly a game that the studio is taking seriously.

It will be a fully VR game, and prequel to Half-life 2, casting you as freedom fighter Alyx Vance as she tries to survive the streets of City 17, an eastern European city taken over by an intergalactic empire called the Combine. This is no tech demo either, but a full game that’s set to be longer than Half-life 2.

While VR has been relying on semi-successful conversions of games like Skyrim as its landmark titles until now, this is set to be among the first truly dedicated VR titles from a big-name IP. It could be a watershed moment for VR, and the PC gets the privilege of hosting it

• These are the best multiplayer PC games

Take your pick of the best co-op PC games 2019 has on offer. They’re proof that there are few PC gaming experiences quite as giddy as playing alongside a friend. 

Whether you’re navigating an RPG that will take months to complete or anxiously creeping through a permadeath rogue-like, playing together pulls the game out of the screen and brings it into reality as you laugh, scream and bicker together.

The PC is very well-catered for co-op games these days, and here are our picks for the best co-op PC games that will cause no end of bonding experiences and rifts between you and your friends.

Also, make sure you check out our list of the very best PC games you can play in 2019.

1.  Grand Theft Auto V Online

What began as a barebones online mode some six years ago has grown into one of the best co-op PC games. While playing with strangers tends to be shambolic, gather a crew of friends and you’ll have all the madness of San Andreas at your fingertips.

You can run around the world freely causing general mayhem or take on competing crews in dedicated missions. The best co-op experiences, however, are in the bank heists. There’s nothing like robbing a bank and running out to an alley where your driver screeches up right on cue, then fleeing for the hills with police klaxons in your rear-view mirror.

2. Path of Exile

What better way to get your attention than with a freebie? Path of Exile is a free-to-play action-RPG with one of the most complex and robust character development systems around. What’s more, the game becomes a whole lot more entertaining when played cooperatively, as monsters scale up and you need to coordinate your attacks with your pals.

If you’ve played Diablo, then you’ll settle right into the click-heavy mouse-controlled groove of Path of Exile. It’s a similarly dark theme, though Path of Exile is slower, with a deeper combat system and a challenging endgame. There are plenty of leagues to compete in too, and it’s great fun to jump into one of these at the start and compete against millions of other players for the top stashes.

3. Rocket League

The mass hysteria and weekly highlight reels on gaming sites may have died down, but the incomparable physics-based rocket-car footy game remains to be one of the most popular online games – not to mention, among the best co-op PC games right now.

Matches range from 1-v-1 to 4-v-4, so there’s a lot of flexibility when it comes to gathering your friends for co-op play. It’s a game that requires ceaseless communication, as you try to coordinate your team into a speeding carousel of goalkeeping, defending and attacking. There’s a league-based system online, so you get a nice sense of progression as your team grows from a fumbling mess into a well-oiled machine.

4. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 

Bring Left 4 Dead 2 into the present generation, then swap the guns and zombies in for warhammers, magic and anthropomorphic rat-people, and you have Vermintide 2. It’s one of the greatest games at making first-person melee combat feel weighty and impactful, as you crush, dismember and magically disembowel the streams of Skaven running you down.

Vermintide 2 works best as a co-op game – one of the best co-op PC games, in fact – letting you and up to three friends pick from three characters, each of whom has three distinct ‘careers’ to develop into. It’s dark, funny, and you can get a good sense of progression whether you play in short, vicious bursts or multi-hour mayhem marathons.

5. Sea of Thieves

A stirring example of a game that hit the ground stumbling but really caught the wind in its sails over the years. Sea of Thieves tasks up to four players with manning a ship, and sailing around a vibrant, cartoon Caribbean in search of plunder, adventure and notoriety.

Where the game used to feel loose and a little purposeless, it’s filled out to become an ever-evolving world of possibilities. You follow maps to skeleton-infested coves, fight mythical sea creatures, and even take on other player-controlled ships and crews.

Sea of Thieves is the ultimate freewheeling pirate fantasy, designed purposely to be played alongside a motley crew of scurvy-infested sea rats you call your friends. Is it a wonder that this is among the best co-op PC games to play in 2019.

6. Dying Light: Enhanced Edition

It’s a few years old now, but Dying Light still does a whole bunch of co-op-friendly things that other games can learn from. Yes, the story is weak, but parkouring through the zombie-infested streets of Harran alongside your daredevil pals is a thrill unlike any other.

You can play the entire campaign and every mission cooperatively, but what makes it special is the unique challenges that pop up when playing with others. Running to a mission start-point can become a race with XP on the line, or a mission can get some competitive edge as you try to kill more zombies than your buddy.

It’s a distinctive competitive-within-co-op structure that adds a whole new layer to online play.

7.  Monster Hunter: World

The long-running oddball series finally grabbed the attention of the whole world with its latest installment, refining many of the more awkward bits while doubling-down on making its primordial Jurassic world a hostile joy to explore and one of the best co-op PC games in 2019.

Although perhaps a little fiddlier to set up than would be ideal, you can group up with your friends and hunt scaled-up versions of formidable dinosaur-like beasts together. The sheer variety of weapons offers many tactical opportunities; for instance, assign someone to buff the squad while one player shoots from afar and the others get stuck into the melee with their swords and spears.

The dynamic world means that the unexpected can always happen; another monster may join the fray or the ground may collapse beneath your feet. It means that even with friends, it’s a world that never stops feeling wild and dangerous.

8. A Way Out

The high-risk decision to make this prison-break adventure an exclusively co-op game paid off for developer Hazelight. And as soon as you start playing, you’ll see that this was really the only way this game would ever have worked.

You can play this theatrical adventure split-screen or online, with you and a friend controlling two prisoners who slowly form a bond and plot their freedom. 

From playing Connect-4 to working out, all the way through to covering each other in life-and-death skirmishes, A Way Out is one of the weirdest, most endearing co-op games out there.

9. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Everyone who’s invested hundreds of hours into RPGs has at some point fantasized about playing through an entire campaign with a friend. Divinity: Original Sin 2 goes one better, and makes co-op arguably the best way to play the campaign.

Up to four players (two in split-screen) can freely roam around Divinity’s rich, story-filled game world. You can stick together as a unit, maximizing your chances during the deep turn-based combat, or split up to try to find your own ways of solving a given quest. In addition, there are in-game conversations between player-characters that shape their personality and ultimately how you play through the game.

Original Sin 2 isn’t just a well-crafted co-op RPG, but downright one of the deepest RPGs ever made.

10. Streets of Rogue

Whether you’re a zombie determined to turn every NPC on a level into the undead, a thief who lives for breaking into buildings unnoticed, or a tiny Shapeshifter capable of possessing any character on a level, Streets of Rogue, one of the best co-op PC games, is a joyous mish-mash of endless and evolving possibilities.

This cutesy rogue-lite is both procedurally-generated and permadeath, raising the stakes as you and up to three friends bumble, sneak, smash and blast your way through the bustling urban levels. It’s hysterical in its chaos and unpredictability, and immensely fulfilling should you somehow manage to organise your team of misfits.

11. Crawl

Rather than blurring the line between competitive and co-op multiplayer, Crawl abuses it, violently throwing you into brief alliances in a game where there can only be one champion.

It’s a dungeon crawler, in essence, but one in which one player is the ‘hero’, while the other 1-3 players are ghosts who summon demonic creatures and possess traps in a bid to stop you. 

Whoever lands the killing blow then becomes the hero, and this cycle continues as the hero progresses through randomly generated dungeons with the aim of defeating the final boss (also controlled by the other players). 

The hero levels up, but so do other players’ monsters, making each 15-minute-or-so game feel like a deliciously dark dance of death that quickly increases in intensity.

12. Overcooked 

From Crawl’s depraved subterranean misadventures, you can cleanse your palette with this clean and cheery kitchen sim. One to four players control cooks in a kitchen, delegating responsibilities as they try to cook and serve progressively complex orders to the contiguous restaurant. 

It’s typical co-op, though as the pace and stress ratchets up, you begin to understand how Gordon Ramsey came to rely on such a profanity-filled vocabulary to get things done in the kitchen.

The beauty of Overcooked is that it leaves all organisation to the players; who’s frying the steaks? Who’s chopping the veg? Why is the onion soup on fire?!? Who the HELL is doing the washing up because we’ve run out of plates to serve food on? 

Kitchens in later levels shift and change too, which can quickly disintegrate your clockwork-like kitchen into a hysterical omnishambles of rolling foodstuffs, dirty dishes and spreading fires.

13. Towerfall: Ascension 

An old-timer as indies go, Towerfall: Ascension continues to be one of the most engrossing, mechanically precise combat arenas around. 

Set across a number of pixel-pretty single-screen levels (which crucially wrap around the sides, top and bottom), you and your friends take each other on in one-shot-kill bow-and-arrow combat. 

A panoply of powerups - from wings to an edible that turns everything slow-motion - inject some chaos into the mix, but matches always feel like precise affairs, in part thanks to the limited number of shots in your quiver, and the fact that opponents can swipe your wayward arrows. 

While it is accessible, there is still a level of mastery to Towerfall, such as the dodge move that lets you catch arrows or using the wrap-around screen to fire an arrow off the left side of the screen to kill an enemy on the right.

The instant replays after each round are an inspired addition too, because nothing stirs up competition like the round winner gloating and forcing you to rewatch their moment of victory in slow motion.

14. Sonic & All-Star Racing Transformed 

Any mention of couch multiplayer will almost certainly bring up wistful memories of playing Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing using a trident controller, or perhaps Crash Team Racing for those on the Sony side of the fence in the '90s.

The PC, scattered platform that it is, never had its own IPs or mascots to turn into kart racers, but it’s benefited from Sega’s cross-platform diaspora with this overlooked gem. Beyond Sonic and pals, the Sega character roster may not be as recognisable as Nintendo’s (‘Football Manager’ from Football Manager, anyone?), but that matters little when the game itself is so vibrant and accessible.

Sonic & All-Star Racing is fun and forgiving, with tight controls and well-designed tracks that seamlessly transition between land, sea and air segments. PC gamers aren’t exactly spoiled for choice with kart racers, so it’s just as well that this is one of the best around.

15. Broforce

Swathed in comical American patriotism and starring the great Hollywood action icons of the 80s and 90s, this 2D blaster gets so extraordinarily explosive that entire levels crumble beneath your feet, as the entire screen becomes obscured by a cocktail of body chunklets and fire.

One of the more brilliant touches in Broforce (aside from skirting around copyright by giving each action icon a ‘Bro’ variant of their name - The Brominator, Rambro, Ellen Ripbro etc.) is that you’re assigned a random character each time, continually tickling your group’s nostalgia senses and switching up the action; one moment you’re whipping enemies to their doom as Indiana Brones, the next you’re swinging your sword and making guttural Arnie grunts as Bronan the Barbarian. 

The difficulty increases quickly, but simple controls and sheer character of Broforce will keep you and your friends at it until your thumb joints start chafing.

• Want to play solo? Here's our pick of the best single player PC games

Welcome to our pick of the best multiplayer PC games of 2019.  If videogames are defined by competition, then there’s nothing more gamey than drawing your controller from its holster and taking on other players.

Whether you’re rubbing shoulders with your frenemies on the couch or taking on the world, the best multiplayer PC games are the perfect way to satiate that thirst for competition, because there’s no victory sweeter than that over another human being.

If you'd rather play together than against each other, then check out our pick of the best co-op PC games of 2019. We also have the best single player PC games and the best PC games overall.

Here are the best multiplayer games to have graced the PC platform in recent years.

1. Battlefield 1

The debate about the best Battlefield game of all time will never end, but Battlefield 1 certainly strikes a strong balance of spectacular visuals, modern mechanics, and sprawling maps from the rarely charted battlefields of World War I.

It’s arguably better than its successor, Battlefield V, thanks to a slightly slower, more methodical pace and the bold way in which it exaggerates the almost-steampunk chaos of WWI. There are gas grenades, bayonet charges, formidable special units like flame troopers, and of course Behemoths - menacing vehicles that come in to balance out a battle if it’s too one-sided. 

Battlefield 1 is quite possibly the most atmospheric and spectacular online shooter ever made.

2. Rocket League 

The blisteringly fast-paced toy-car-football phenomenon powers on, as popular today as ever. If you’re worried that it’s a bit too reminiscent of actual football, then work through that worry, because it’s so much more.

The beauty of Rocket League is in its absolute subservience to physics. Ball control is completely manual, team moves require a high level of communication and coordination, and aerial play is a whole higher layer of game to master. 

Competitive play is divided up into leagues and seasons too, ensuring that whether you’re playing 1-v-1 or 3-v-3, you tend to be matched up fairly.

3. Dota 2

It may be more of a lifestyle choice and esport rather than a mere game - both insanely popular yet weirdly niche - but Dota 2 is a shining showcase of the MOBA at its finest. Get past the tough learning curve, and you’re in for a world of meticulously balanced heroes and 5-v-5 arena combat.

The aim is simple: destroy the enemy team’s ‘Ancient’ - essentially their base - using your heroes and a steady stream of ‘creeps’ that move towards the enemy base via three lanes. Think real-time strategy meets hack-n-slash. It’s deep, tactical, and free to play.

• How esports are taking over the world

4. Towerfall: Ascension 

After all these years, the simple charms of firing pinpoint pixel arrows at other people on a single screen remain just as compelling. Towerfall sees up to four players with a limited supply of arrows attempting to one-shot each other.

It’s accessible, but with plenty of clever tricks, such as a wraparound screen that lets you run and fire arrows between the left and right, and top and bottom of the screen. There’s also the ever-vital dodge button, with which you can catch inbound arrows and fire them right back into the silly face of your attackers.

To spice things up, you can experiment with the endless mashups of mutators - from non-homing arrows to angel wings and an ever-scrolling screen - which help keep the game fresh and surprising.

5. Overwatch

The garish hero-based shooter hit the ground at hyper-speed and never really stopped. With one of the most vibrant and varied character rosters ever seen in a game, you have a huge amount of freedom about how to play - whether it’s as a tanky hamster scampering around in a four-legged mech, or an angelic, airborne healer.

Overwatch manages to condense a lot of fun into snappy team-based game modes, making it viable for both lunch breaks or all-night blowouts. Despite the asymmetry of its characters, it’s brilliantly balanced, with just about every hero feeling both rewarding and distinctive to play as.

6. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege

Fans of the unforgiving tactical shooter series bemoaned its move into the multiplayer space, but none could have predicted the runaway success it’d become. Two teams of five face off against each other in attackers versus defenders games of bomb defusal, hostage rescues and asset protection.

The hook is that levels are partially destructible, and there’s a lengthy preparation phase during which defenders can build up their defences while attackers survey the map. No two games feel the same, and as you gain ‘Renown’ points, you can unlock new operators, each with distinctive abilities and play styles.

7. Worms W.M.D

It sometimes seems like there are a thousand variants of the classic invertebrate tactics game you can play today. The most recent iteration is Worms W.M.D, which has a bold new art style and weapons, but if you prefer a more vintage feel then Worms Reloaded or even Worms Armageddon could be for you, while 2012’s Worms Revolution dabbles in 3D graphics on a 2D plane.

Whichever you go for, the formula remains a zenith of multiplayer gaming. Up to four players control a team of worms each, taking turns on a timer to cross precarious levels and decimate enemy teams with bazookas, explosive sheep, banana bombs and cheeky melee punches. A bit like Chess, Worms is both ancient and eternal.

8. Mordhau

With so many competitive combat games revolving around guns, we figured we’d highlight a game that takes things back to basics. Building on the lineage of physics-based first-person slashers like Chivalry and Mount & Blade, Mordhau is a medieval battlefield where up to 64 players go at each other with swords, maces, throwing knives, and whatever they find lying on the ground. 

Mordhau thrives in improvisation, as even a disarmed player can unsheath a knife (or pull one out of a shield) and take out an incoming enemy with a well-placed throw. As well as team-based siege modes, there’s an excellent battle royale mode too.

9. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

Maybe a controversial representative of the battle royale genre in light of the runaway success of subsequent titles like Fortnite and Apex Legends, but if you’re after serious suspense and a distilled atmosphere where you’re perking your ears for every footstep and distant gunshot, then PUBG still hits the target.

It remains one of the most played games on Steam with good reason, and major updates (such as the overhaul of original map Erangel) show that the developers are serious about refining the experience, making it less buggy and more realistic than ever.

10. Overcooked 2

The sequel to the most freewheeling and frantic (and only) co-op cooking game ups the ante, chucking you and up to three friends into kitchens of ever-increasing chaos. As a rabble of cooks, you need to cook and serve up food for a restaurant before the timer runs out. Self-organisation is key, and you’ll be screaming at each other in delighted frustration over things like the dishes not being washed or the soup setting on fire.

In later levels the kitchens are set on everything from airships to underground temples, shifting and moving, forcing your team to adapt and constantly rejig your clockwork-like system. It’s a game that helps you empathise just a little with Gordon Ramsay and his infamous tirades.

• The best gaming laptops to play these games on

Welcome to our best single player PC games list for 2019. In our humble opinion, single player PC games showcase gaming at its finest. 

Throw around all the numbers you want regarding the popularity of Fortnite, or how League of Legends fills out arenas all over the world, but a well thought-out and executed solo experience has the unequaled gift for sweeping you away to painstakingly shaped worlds and immerse you in unique forms of storytelling.

Even in the last few years, the best single player PC games have dominated with fresh narrative and technical frontiers, which is why we’ve rounded up 10 of the best single player PC games that you can play in 2019.

Be sure you check out our picks of the best PC games as well, for the very best single and multiplayer PC games from many different genres.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 

Four years after its release, millions of gamers are still carrying on their solemn journeys across the war-ravaged low-fantasy world of The Witcher 3. It remains to be the apex of video game storytelling. Everything – from side-quests with lowly peasants to political tinkering of lords and barons – seems to be treated to the same degree of love and attention from the writers.

This is the game that made surly, concrete-voiced hero Geralt of Rivia an icon (and soon to be star of a Witcher Netflix show). The world is not just astounding in terms of topographical scale and variety, but also impressive in its sense of history and life, as it seems that every village, castle ruins and cave has a story to tell. 

The fact that The Witcher 3 remains as remarkable an experience today as it was when it first came out is proof of its groundbreaking role in the medium.

2. Doom

There’s something audaciously old-school about a game that forgoes meaningful and compelling plot in favor of vicious, driving violence. In 2016’s Doom, you’re somewhere between a human battering ram and artillery cannon, tearing apart and annihilating a familiar but vividly redesigned army of demons in the most satisfying ways you can imagine.

A key thing here is that in order to gain health and ammo, you need to charge headfirst into the enemy and pull off brutal Glory Kills, putting you always right up in the faces of shrieking Revenants and obese Cacodemon heads. 

Everything in the game – from that forward momentum to the clanging tech-metal soundtrack – propels you, leaving you winded after each scuffle like no other game…

… except maybe for the impending sequel.

3. Resident Evil 2: REMake

A remake of one of the great survival horror games can be a poisoned chalice, but Capcom succeeded in creating a magnum opus both within the series and among all videogame remakes.

Like the original, RE2 REMake has two coinciding campaigns as Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. While it follows the narrative beats of the original game, it’s also an archetype of modern level design, as you solve puzzles and open up shortcuts around the maze-y Raccoon City Police Department. 

Each zombie is a bullet sponge and mortal threat, resources are hardly adequate, and an unkillable blue man dressed like a hard-boiled detective marches after you through much of the game. Remake or not, this is one of the best horror games to date.

4. Celeste

The makers of Towerfall, one of the greatest couch multiplayer games around, took some of the game’s best mechanics and transformed them into a winning 2D platformer about climbing a mountain. 

The core mechanic is the ability to rush in eight directions, but as you progress, you’ll find yourself confronting a constant and growing trickle of different obstacles and challenges. Ultimately, Celeste amounts to a tough old time.

Many levels can be played through in different iterations, and all that finger-cramping platforming is wrapped in a touching story about friendship and tribulation. Celeste feels as significant and seismic for the modern 2D platformer as Super Meat Boy was when it came out a decade ago.

5. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey 

Taking a year off in 2016 to rethink the Assassin’s Creed series was a clever move by Ubisoft, because with Odyssey that decision really paid off. Looking to RPGs for inspiration, it’s an inconceivably large open-world adventure set in the scorched azure idyll of the Hellenic peninsula.

It’s not just the backdrop and gloriously recreated Greek architecture that make Odyssey such a joy. It’s also in the way Alexios and Kassandra’s story weaves through history and myth, and in how it enhanced certain systems - like ship-sailing and level-based enemies - from earlier titles.

Some will balk that it’s no longer the cloak-and-dagger assassin game the series is known for, but the reality is, it’s now become so much more.

6. Total War: Warhammer 2

While the Total War series stagnated with Rome 2, Creative Assembly made up for it by taking on for its next project one of the most inspired possible fusions of videogame genre and IP: epic-scale strategy and Warhammer.

Total War: Warhammer 2 embraces the asymmetry of its source material, with each faction offering a distinctive tactical and narrative experience. If you also own Total War: Warhammer 1, all the major factions of the vibrant grimdark world are represented in the sequel. 

Skaven lurk in city ruins and skurry through an underworld, Vampire Coast pirates embark on treasure hunts, and Dwarves hunker down behind heavy armour, ready to fight any infantry charge.

Each campaign lasts dozens of hours, delivering endless clashes between the most well-crafted, inventive armies seen in a strategy game.

7. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Sekiro is a tense, tough, and visually striking samurai game set in a more mythical feudal Japan, and it's one of the best single player PC games you can buy.

If you’ve played Dark Souls or Bloodborne, you’ll know what awaits, and already have an idea of whether its unforgiving style is for you or not. Some see the severe combat as sadistic, others see it as a highly challenging, high rewarding experience that has no equal. Whichever way you lean, you can’t question the meticulousness of Sekiro’s mechanics.

Where Sekiro differs from its spiritual predecessors is that it’s less obtuse, with a linear, articulate narrative and the addition of more mainstream action-game elements. 

You leap around vertically oriented levels in quest of shortcuts and secrets, while combat is about finding the right angle and timing for that legendary killing katana blow. It’s never easy to land, but once you start doing so consistently, you begin to understand what all that suffering is for.

8. What Remains of Edith Finch

A breath of fresh air from the big-money behemoths that dominate this best single player PC games list, Edith Finch is so poignant and exquisitely crafted that it will soften the hearts of even the most resolute walking-simulator naysayers.

As the titular character, you meander about in her sizeable but recently abandoned family home set on a haunting, crepuscular island in Washington State. You explore the richly detailed house, visiting the still-furnished rooms of each family member where you get swept up in the dreamy haze of surreal vignettes that show you how they died.

It’s a meditative game about piecing together the story of a family that seems to be afflicted by a merciless curse.

Edith Finch is the kind of thematically heavy, highly curated experience that doesn’t seem to be quite done justice by the word ‘videogame’.

9. Hollow Knight

Of all the genres to have re-emerged since the indie revolution nine-odd years ago, Metroidvania has been the biggest benefactor. The kinds of games that have come out haven’t just been throwbacks to the good old days of the 90s, but profound evolutions in their own right.

Hollow Knight feels like the pinnacle of the last several years of Metroidvania design, and it's certainly earned its place in this list of the best single player PC games. You traverse an enchantingly forlorn subterranean kingdom as the titular knight, incrementally gaining abilities, which then let you go down deeper into the world.

It’s both cute and brooding, magical and daunting, filled with thoughtful touches like the fact that Hollow Knight physically pulls out a map whenever you look at the map screen. 

10.  Dishonored 2 

One of the tragedies of single-player gaming is that the immersive sim – sprung from cerebral first-person games like System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex – has seldom been a big seller. The future of masterpieces like Arkane’s Dishonored, therefore, has always seemed tenuous.

Dishonored 2 casts you as a preternaturally skilled assassin on a revenge mission in the sun-kissed steampunk city of Karnaca. Each large area lets you explore apartments, shops and cluttered rooms from all angles before you swoop in on your objectives.

It’s both visceral in its black-magic-and-blades combat, and ingenious in its level design, with the ever-shifting Clockwork Mansion and the time-travelling Crack in the Slab giving you some of the most memorable gameplay sequences you’ve ever played.

• These are the best gaming laptops you'll want to play these games on

Epic’s creation of its own digital storefront have once again sparked contention that the PC gaming is too fragmented, with the surfeit of digital platforms required to play different games denying us the satisfaction of keeping everything in one tidy place.

The reality is that probably about 90% of the average gamer’s collection is on Steam, and it wouldn’t hurt to explore some of the alternatives. 

At a time when Epic seems to be getting all the attention, we’ve decided to shine a light on six other PC gaming platforms that are worth checking out, in our list of the best Steam alternatives of 2019.

Origin

Probably the most famous (or infamous, depending on how you feel about EA) Steam alternative, Origin has come a long way over the years, growing from something of a necessary evil to play Battlefield and FIFA to a well-polished platform in its own right.

Origin’s clean and elegant, and makes it easy to party up with friends for online gaming. It’s largely centred around EA games, of course, and it’s telling that many of the menus try to guide you towards the big EA IPs like The Sims, FIFA and Battlefield.

Beyond the shameless self-promotion however, you’ll find plenty of non-EA games like the Assassin’s Creed series, The Witcher 3, the Batman series, as well as some vintage titles like Theme Hospital and SimCity 2000.

Given the choice, we’d probably still opt for a Steam version of a game over an Origin one, but one feature that does make Origin pop is the Origin Access subscription. 

The ‘Basic’ version costs $4.99/£3.99/AU$6.99 a month (or $29.99/£19.99/AU$39.99 a year), and gives you access to over 170 EA games; pretty much the whole catalogue except for the most recent entries in its biggest IPs. 

The ‘Premier’ subscription costs $99.99/£89.99/$129.99 a year, and on top of the Basic subscription lets you play Battlefield V, FIFA 19, Anthem (when it comes out), and the very latest first-party EA games as and when they launch.

On the subscription service front, Origin is pretty much unrivalled.

Itch.io

The independent PC gaming platform, equivalent to the eccentric bric-a-brac shop selling obscurities from stuffed animals to crystal skulls. Itch.io is exclusively committed to indie games, and there’s a good chance that some of your favourite indie titles on Steam actually started life on Itch.io before growing to become fully-fledged commercial products. This makes it one of the best and most interesting Steam alternatives out there.

What’s nice about Itch.io is that it puts you right on the frontline of indie game development, helping devs along the tough road to success. Many games here are free at first, relying on feedback and donations before going commercial. 

There are tens of thousands of games to peruse, many of which were conceived in one of the many game jams organised by Itch.

The app works smoothly and keeps your games updated. It has a strong community focus, with plenty of discussions, devlogs, and a schedule of the endless gamejams where aspiring developers can jump in and make games in tight time periods. 

This really is a Steam alternative that deserves your support.

Epic Games Store

The new kid in town, though maybe ‘kid’ isn’t the right term for a veteran publisher that’s delivered us Unreal, the Unreal Engine and, lest we forget, Fortnite.

Hoping to harness the millions of people who use the Epic Launcher to play Fortnite, Epic has gone in hard on securing exclusivity deals for games ranging from anticipated indie titles like Hades, to big-money behemoths like Metro Exodus. 

The Epic Games Store even nabbed the beloved Sony-published PlayStation exclusive Journey, which just goes to show that even exclusivity can evaporate in the face of big money (can we have Bloodborne next, please?).

As we’ve already noted in our Epic Games Store vs Steam feature, the Epic Store doesn’t feel great to use yet, lacking in even basic features like cloud saves and a search bar. 

It is, however, the only digital platform with the audacity to secure exclusives like it were the Xbox 360 circa 2008. That, and the fact that it’s currently offering a very good game for free every two weeks, means that by brute financial force it’s worth taking a look at.

GOG Galaxy

One of the longest-running Steam alternatives has made it this far thanks to one particularly powerful selling point: everything you buy on GOG is DRM-free. 

So your games are well and truly yours; you can burn them to discs, you can keep their installers on external hard drives, you can do whatever you like with them. GOG has regular free game giveaways, and sometimes even runs a scheme where you can link your Steam account and get DRM-free versions of your Steam games at no extra cost.

Initially dedicated to reviving old games and making them work on modern PCs, GOG has come a long way, and today you’ll find DRM-free versions of top titles like The Witcher 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and No Man’s Sky, among many others.

GOG Galaxy is GOG’s desktop client, first released a couple of years ago. It essentially gives the scrappy DRM-free experience a platform, with all the bells and whistles like friends lists, cloud saves and automatic updates for your games. It’s convenient for library management and shopping, and even stores your owned games on virtual wooden bookshelves.

Uplay

Ubisoft’s official desktop gaming client and store doesn’t have the best reputation. One of its more notorious traits is that even if you buy the Steam version of an Ubisoft game, you still have to run it through Uplay. Basically, it’s Double DRM and it’s not great (so if picking between the Steam and Uplay version of a game, you may as well just pick Uplay to avoid this situation).

Uplay is a functional rather than flashy app, with the usual features you’d hope for such as cloud saves, library and store search functions, and a friends list. You can earn ‘XP’ by playing games through Uplay, but rewards are limited to badges and bragging rights among your friends - nothing more.

Its greatest strength is probably the actual store, which isn’t expansive but of course contains Ubisoft’s impressive repertoire of games from series like Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy games and Watch Dogs. 

Uplay tends to offer some of the best discounts on its own games, and is known for offering plenty of freebies too, with games like Assassin’s Creed 3, Far Cry: Blood Dragon and For Honor given away in limited-time deals in the past.

Microsoft Store

It’s no secret that Microsoft has always harboured ambitions of becoming the leading digital distribution platform on Windows. The problem is that during the years when Microsoft was embroiled in the Xbox and Xbox 360, Steam came along and pretty much took over the PC gaming market unopposed. That, and the fact that first Games for Windows Live, and later the Microsoft Store, were pretty awful for gaming.

But Microsoft has learned from its mistakes. Today, one of the star features of the Microsoft Store is Xbox Play Anywhere, whereby many games you buy for the Xbox One can be played on PC, and vice versa. 

Essentially, buying the Xbox or PC version of top games like Forza Horizon 4, Sea of Thieves and Gears of War 4 gets you a copy of the game for both platforms.

Another feature that complements Play Anywhere is the Xbox Game Pass, which lets you download and play a number of the latest first-party Microsoft games, including those mentioned above. Microsoft said it will expand Xbox Game Pass on PC to include all the third-party offerings available on the Xbox One version of the subscription (that’s over 200 games currently), though we’re yet to get confirmation about when this will happen.

At $10/£8.99/AU$10.95 a month (or as little as $70/£47 a year), the Game Pass is much better value for Xbox gamers as things stand. However, it drops in price regularly, and at the time of writing you can get a 14-day free trial of Xbox Game Pass, as well as a one-month pass for just $1/£1/AU$1. That’s a month-and-a-half of solid gaming right there!

• Here's the best PC games you should be playing right now

Image credits: TechRadar

Epic made quite a few ripples when it opened its digital game store back in December. Tantalising developers with a generous 88% profit share (as opposed to Steam’s 70%), the Fortnite publisher nabbed exclusivity deals for some notable new games. Meanwhile, it’s reeling in droves of gamers by offering a free game every, ahem, fortnight to those who use the store.

But recently those ripples amassed into a full-on tidal wave when Epic announced that big-name shooter Metro Exodus would be exclusive to the Epic Game Store until 2020. Some called it a dirty trick, others called it good business. Either way it made using the Epic Store that less bit avoidable.

So with the Epic Store brute-forcing its way into our taskbars, we decided to compare it with Steam - the de facto platform of PC gaming. What works, what doesn’t, and what Epic needs to do to have a chance of competing.

Epic Games Store vs Steam: the storefronts

The Steam Store is a bit like a vast warehouse that just so happens to have a few of its most popular products in front of the shutters. Down the left side there’s a pane showing all the criteria you’ll realistically want to search for a game by - genre, category, tags, recommended by friends and so on.

In the center, you have the big flashy thumbnails for various games, most of which are tailored based on what you play. In truth, it’s pretty inaccurate. By the logic of us playing games as diverse as PUBG and Dead Cells, Steam combines their tags - ‘Shooter’, ‘Indie’ - together and shows us stuff like… this.

So there’s still room for refinement, but the wealth of categories - which include a ‘Discovery Queue’, curated game lists, and games that are trending among your friends - make it a comfortable store to browse. 

Early Access games are clearly labelled, with their store pages prioritising update info and community discussion. 

Steam has an automated 14-day refund policy, which lets you return games for whatever reason so long as you haven’t played them for more than two hours. 

Meanwhile, the Epic Games Store storefront starts strong. Across the top there is a banner featuring a free game and a notification saying that users will get another free game every two weeks. 

Beyond that though, it’s a bit sparse: a block of contiguous tiles streaming down the page in one long list. It feels too busy, with games failing to stand out from each other, and no way of finding a genre or specific game other than by scrolling down the page. 

If we were an indie developer with an exclusive game on the Epic Games Store - like Ashen or Hades - we'd be worried about a lack of exposure. 

Crass though it may seem, an ‘Only on Epic Store’ category on the storefront would be useful, giving those tied-in developers a bit more of a platform, and showing users the things Epic has that other stores don’t.

Another concern is that Early Access labelling is unclear. In the case of Hades, the only mention of it is in small writing in the game’s thumbnail, and a rather generic FAQ. An early access game should really foreground updates, news and dev diaries, none of which is there at the moment.

There’s no review system as yet, with Epic previously saying that it wants to avoid the toxicity of Steam reviews - with their review-bombing and other vendettas against developers. 

Users weren’t too happy about this, and Epic has now revised its stance, saying that it’s working on a review system that developers can choose to opt into. 

Like Steam, the Epic Games Store now has a 14-day, two-hours-played refund policy.

Epic Games Store vs Steam: DRM

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the method of copyright protection for digital games, helping to prevent people from playing games they haven't paid for.

On Steam, DRM is set in stone: you buy a game, and you need to have Steam open to run it. If you don’t have an internet connection, that’s fine, because Steam has an offline mode. 

One Steam DRM feature that doesn’t get enough credit is Steam Family Sharing, which lets you share your entire library with up to five other Steam users, and authorise up to 10 devices. The only caveat here is that if the game’s owner starts playing anything in their library, you have five minutes before you’re kicked from the game.

If you want to run a game through its executable file, or a Windows shortcut to it, it will automatically open Steam at the same time as opening the game.

However, at this point, there doesn’t seem to be a consistent DRM policy on the Epic Store. Of the three games we've tested - Fortnite, Subnautica and the Jackbox Collection - each one seems to play by its own rules.

The Jackbox Collection seems to be DRM-free, and can run irrespective of whether you have the Epic Store open or not. 

Subnautica is DRM-tied to the Epic Store, though we did find a neat workaround should you want to run it without the Epic Store (directly through the executable, say, or through Steam as a ‘non-Steam game’.). 

Just right-click Subnautica’s ‘exe’ file or entry in your Steam library, click Properties, then in the Target box enter "-EpicPortal" after the game’s directory. This will connect through the game through the Epic Portal without requiring the Epic app.

Fortnite, meanwhile, has the tightest DRM of the games we tested. It doesn’t allow the "-EpicPortal" workaround, and requires the Epic Launcher to be open in the background when you play.

There’s no problem with having a range of DRM levels on a digital platform, but each game’s DRM policy should be completely clear to avoid confusion. At this point, there’s just no way of knowing what kind of DRM a given game has until you work it out for yourself. 

Epic Games Store vs Steam: game management

Steam is built for a lot of games, and its no-nonsense default library view reflects that, showing a long list of your games in a pane. 

Select a given game, and you see news about it, some highlighted mods from the Steam Workshop, screenshots you’ve taken and so on. It’s practical, and distinctly ‘PC’ in its no-nonsense presentation.

Clicking the ‘List View’ in your library shows whether your saved game data is synced to the cloud, as well as the game’s Metascore (handy if you have more games than you know what to do with, and want to quickly find something new in your library to play). Custom categories let you organise games into as many different lists as you want.

In Steam’s settings, you can set multiple default install directories, so when the time comes to install you can quickly pick one from a dropdown menu.

But what about the Epic Games Store? For a storefront hoping to be ‘The Future’, game management here feels a little old-hat. There’s no way to change the default install directory through the Store’s settings. You can only change the install path on a per-game basis, which takes you to the Windows or Mac file explorer and lets you manually choose a directory.

Installed games don’t appear in the Apps & Features list in Windows 10, so the only way to uninstall them is through the Epic Store. And if you uninstall Epic Store before uninstalling any of the games you have on it? Well, you’ll need to go and manually delete the game folders in your OS like it’s 1995 again. Not great...

At this point, the games you own are simply displayed as tiles with no organisational options. That’s fine for now, but will need to change as Epic’s store takes on more games and your library fills up.

Epic Games Store vs Steam: which is the best?

It’s inevitable that at this point Steam offers a significantly better experience for gamers. Even so, the Epic Games Store is so threadbare that it barely feels fit to accommodate the games it’s secured with its Fortnite millions. 

Yes, Epic needs to be aggressive in the market to compete, but it also needs to create an appealing user experience in which it’s easy to find these much-touted exclusives it’s procured, and maximises the convenience for gamers once they’re installed (in-home streaming, cloud saves and community hubs should be a top priority in Epic’s roadmap). 

No doubt Epic will work on these features, but at this point it’s very likely that those exclusive games spearheading the store will suffer due to its rudimentary state. Epic has probably secured developers’ financial security for now, and we mustn’t forget about the 18% extra cut for developers, but if these games are getting into less gamers’ hands, then everyone loses.

The Epic Store is being hailed as a ‘developer-friendly’ platform, but for now it’s not very gamer-friendly. It needs to evolve, and fast, lest its shortcomings for gamers eventually hurt the developers it’s supposed to be supporting.

• Epic Games Store: exclusives, early access, and how it could take on Steam

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