The definitive 100 greatest PC games to play in 2022 stretch out before you over the coming pages. Not the best of all time, or the most important, but the ones we think you should try right now—whether they’re modern hits or well-aged classics.
100 ZERO ESCAPE: THE NONARY GAMES
RELEASED 2007
LAST POSITION New entry
Jody: Puzzle dungeon visual novels of the “you wake in a room” variety, the Zero Escape games burst with gory deaths and narrow getaways. Nine people get trapped in mazes as twisty as the games’ jumbles of esoterica and hidden histories.
Phil: Satisfying puzzles and philosophical paradoxes, through an anime filter. It keeps you guessing as you navigate the timeline, unpicking a grand mystery.
Mollie: I’m still reeling from Virtue’s Last Reward years later. What a goddamn trip.
99 SHADOWRUN: HONG KONG
RELEASED 2015
LAST POSITION New entry
Jody: One recruitable companion in this cyberpunk-fantasy RPG is a Japanese ghoul samurai. Bringing him along on heists and infiltrations means fast-talking guards and civilians to convince them he’s an actor or a cosplayer. Your whole crew is made of misfits, including a rat-spirit shaman who treats garbage like gourmet.
Robin: The excellent Shadowrun: Dragonfall has been in our list for a few years now, but I definitely prefer Hong Kong for its brilliantly evocative setting.
98 SHADOW TACTICS: BLADES OF THE SHOGUN
RELEASED 2003
LAST POSITION 95
Lauren M: Shadow Tactics is the immaculate tactical stealth success that proved Mimimi Games had the chops to take up the Desperados series. Every mission is a lovely puzzle, and there’s an immense joy in meticulously setting up a simultaneous kill using all my party.
Phil: One of the most rewarding stealth games of recent years, embracing the unforgiving attitude of the genre but modernising it where it counts. The real pleasure here is being dropped into large maps full of guards, and slowly picking apart the puzzle of their intricate patrol routes as you work your way through. Your motley crew brings a variety of ways to distract, dispatch and disappear your foes, and it’s these asynchronous abilities that make the difficulty so satisfying to overcome. Some are nimble, able to navigate rooftops and tricky terrain. Others are stuck to the ground, but bring traps and tricks to help clear a path.
Shadow Mode, which lets you queue up moves for your team to execute at the same time, is inherently cool, as you painstakingly plan multiple takedowns, hit a button, and watch the action play out.
97 TEAMFIGHT TACTICS
RELEASED 2019
LAST POSITION New entry
Fraser: One of the last autobattlers left standing—the product of a short-lived trend that no doubt benefited from sharing a launcher with the rubbish but immensely popular League of Legends. I love the constant reinvention, but the real appeal is how easy it is to just hang out and shoot the shit with friends.
96 THE FORGOTTEN CITY
RELEASED 2021 LAST POSITION New entry
Jody: Ancient Roman Groundhog Day. Time loop games seem like a great idea, but turn out super frustrating. The Forgotten City gets around that with two inventions: an arguably anachronistic zipline, and the wonderful Galerius, who greets you each day, and just gets on with following your instructions to save lives.
95 THUMPER
RELEASED 2016 LAST POSITION Re-entry
Nat: Once, in Berlin, I played an early build of Thumper so hard my thumbs bled. Deep, violent bass throbbing through my skull, an assault of neon violets burning my eyes, desperately trying not to shed blood all over a shared gamepad, I embodied Thumper in its entirety—a pure rhythm hell.
94 TITANFALL 2
RELEASED 2016
LAST POSITION 88
Nat: Last year, Titanfall 2 was basically dead. While that campaign is still solid as hell, DDoS attacks had rendered multiplayer servers largely unplayable. But in December, Titanfall 2 got a Christmas pressie in the form of Northstar—a fan-run server browser that shot new life into the knackered old mech.
In 2022, Titanfall 2 isn’t just playable. It’s thriving.
93 NEWFALLOUT: VEGAS
RELEASED 2010
LAST POSITION 87
Jody: New Vegas blends the strengths of Fallout games old and new. It’s got some of the originals’ problem-solving variety, letting you talk round a fascist legionnaire or a brain in a jar, and the 3D world and VATS combat of modern Fallout, with the pleasant ding of XP earned and the foreboding rumble of new quests beginning.
92 COMMAND & CONQUER REMASTERED COLLECTION
RELEASED 2020
LAST POSITION No change
Phil: Two classic RTSes in one loving package makes this an easy recommendation despite the age of its source material. Red Alert, in particular, is practically timeless—an alternate history World War II where Einstein travels back in time to assassinate Hitler.
91 INSIDE
RELEASED 2016
LAST POSITION New entry
Rich: Inside may be bringing up the rear in this list but it’s one of the best experiences I’ve had in gaming. A contemporary re-casting of the Frankenstein myth, the environments are a near-seamless blend of clever puzzles and bleak suggestion about where you are. Horror, sci-fi, and for my money the best twist in games.
Sean: Inside is the perfect narrative sidescroller: it’s got atmosphere, a moody soundtrack, smart puzzles, and most important of all: tension. As you pilot the boy through rainswept ruins and enslaved cities towards whatever end, Inside does that rarest of things, making you consider the act of playing the game itself.
Nat: Inside is a game you only play once. But that one time is a masterclass in mood, in building up tension and dread as you push a small child further into a brutalist meat grinder. It’s playing in almost the exact same space as Limbo, a trial-and-error platformer more than a real puzzler, but the artistry on display is phenomenal, woods and barns and deeper, darker industrial places all painted in a dreary watercolour greyscale that pushes you towards hopelessness.
Has to be said, it’s got one of the best endings of any game. If it’s
