Today, too many games are built for small-scale explosions: short encounters, designed for a world where there is too little time of the day and too much digital interference. It's ok! Blasting through a few rounds of Valorant or Rocket League matches is a great way to kill time.
But sometimes, you want more things-richer things. Whether you are looking for a fun way to spend a long time at home, or just want to surround your mind in a satisfying and complex experience, these 20 deep, complex and simple great PC games will all Let you play for hours, hours and hours to end. They are the best long-term PC games you can play, and they are better in an era when it is difficult to get a new graphics card. Many of these games can also be streamed through the cloud of GeForce Now or Xbox Game Pass-no GPU required.
After so many years, "Age of Empires 2" is still the gold standard of the real-time strategy genre, and it has become stronger with the additional attention to the recent release of Definite Edition-but it is not the only way to solve the AoE problem. Age of Empires IV is faithful to the classic formula (sometimes almost too real), offering four campaigns (each campaign has a branch of civilization-specific milestone options that change the direction of your empire in different ways) and eight different empires In skirmishes or multiplayer conflicts. Each civilization has its own quirks and advantages. As always, you can win the game in many different ways, from winning religious victories to building and maintaining the miracles in the late game.
It's not as deep as AoE 2-the game has been launched and adjusted for more than 20 years-but "Age of Empires 4" is still interesting and in-depth. Even better, it lays a solid foundation for the upcoming update, and you can play it "for free" as part of a monthly Xbox Games Pass subscription, which is the most cost-effective deal in PC games.
Forza Horizonn is still the best pure arcade racing car, and Forza Horizonn 5 completes the series' exaggerated open-world action. It’s never boring to chase vehicles hidden throughout Mexican barns, especially when new races or goodies seem to be hidden in every corner. Simply changing the car level can change the feel of almost every race (even before you adjust your vehicle), and you can even create your own racing challenge, or play challenges made by others. If you are a completionist who wants to cross every box and collect all over 500 cars, you will blow up the streets for a long, long time and enjoy every second of them.
Like Age of Empires IV, you can purchase Forza Horizon 5 on Steam, but it can also be provided as part of a $10 monthly PC subscription Xbox game pass.
Come on, this is Mass Effect-no, not just the first, but all three games in the iconic sci-fi space epic, plus all the DLC and expansions. More than 100 hours of game time. If you have never played a trilogy, then you should finally do it (this is indeed legendary). Even if you have battled the Reaper and wooed your crew as Captain Shepard, it is still worth trying these years due to the legendary graphics upgrades, enhanced technical touch-ups, and ME1's re-adjustment mechanism.
Following "Horizon Zero Dawn", the former PlayStation exclusive Days Gone jumped to PC in early 2021. This game is not as popular as HZD, but a large part of it is due to its slow opening-Days Gone takes several hours to really push it to a climax, and some people get exhausted at the beginning. But if you stick to it, you will find a lot of favorites in this gritty post-apocalyptic open world zombie game, including a sick motorcycle and some truly terrifying tribes, like the ocean of death to you Struck. (After thousands of comments, it currently has a "very positive" rating on Steam.) If you complete the main story easily, you will complete it in about 50 hours, but "How long to beat?" Say that the game can last about 100 hours, if you wander around and track all the extras in your free time. The days are gone, indeed.
We don't usually consider using early access games for such lists-you know, because they are not finished yet-but Wallheim should have an exception. Not only was this game incredibly beautiful and feature-rich because of its state, it also caused a real sensation, selling more than 6 million copies in its first month on the street. it's too hot.
If you haven’t heard of Valheim, it’s a cooperative survival RPG where you and up to 10 other players control Vikings in a “procedurally generated purgatory” to fight against nature and monsters while trying to pass impressive The base establishes a foothold in the world-building mechanics. (You can also play solo.) Slowly acquire skills and materials so that you can start exploring more huge open worlds, never disappointing. After you kill the boss in each biome, various events will happen-for example, killing the frost dragon will make the mountain young dragons angry and anger them to attack your camp.
There is still a lot of room for improvement, but considering its low price tag of $20, Valheim has provided a deep and rich adventure with an amazing price/performance ratio. This is a unique social experience. Hey, you can go fishing!
The series has been dormant for many years, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is worth the wait. The scale and scope of the game-you can explore the whole world! -Shocking, and by using the real-time weather provided by Microsoft's Azure service, it has become even more impressive. Soon after the game was launched, a hurricane hit the United States. You can fly into it in a flight simulator while the storm hits the coastline. This makes it possible to revisit previously visited places time and time again, especially since each available aircraft is handled very differently. Get rid of the dust on that flying pole and be ready to be fascinated for a long, long time.
Agent 47 The last chapter of modern adventure, Hitman 3 is not long in the traditional sense. If you know what you are doing, each of the six levels can be cleared in about an hour, and a new player may complete the entire battle in about a dozen hours.
However, you will not buy "Killer" to mainstream the event.
Just like the previous "Hitman" and "Hitman 2" games (I strongly recommend to play first), the levels of "Hitman 3" are huge, complex and unique causal murder sandboxes. There seem to be endless ways to neutralize you The goal. A big part of the fun is replaying the level not once, not twice, but dozens of times-looking for new areas, trying new disguise, and discovering pleasant alternative ways to secretly kill people-in search of new ones High scores, and hope, an elusive silent assassin rating. IO Interactive's modern killer trilogy has been one of the most compelling game successes in recent memory, a perfect blend of old and new, serious and stupid. If you put your heart and soul into it, you will find hours of creepy fun. If you want to experience the mechanics, you can play the tutorial level for free.
It's been a long time, but Yakuza games have finally appeared on PC, including the newer Yakuza 6 and the funny but touching spin-off Like A Dragon.
This is a journey worth going. Yakuza oscillates between stupidity and soap opera, more elegant than any other series, and makes you laugh before it hits you. This is a fascinating dichotomy. As time goes by, you will learn more and more about the huge cast of Kiryu Kazuma, Mashima and other gangsters, which will only become more interesting. The city itself is also a feature, and a small part of Tokyo where Kiryu is located has continued to develop over the course of several decades. New buildings appear, old buildings disappear, and occasionally Kiryu's behavior will leave scars that cannot be fully restored to the city. This is an incredible legend.
As the sequel to the beloved Elite in the Amiga era, Elite: Dangerous is huge. This huge game takes you into the center of a huge universe with more than 400 billion-yes, one billion-single star systems, each with its own planets, space stations, asteroids, and players and many more. With the help of the game's connection requirements, new things are being added all the time. A simple journey from the starting point of our reviewer to the home system of the earth takes about 30 hours.
Elite: Danger will be well served by better introductory tutorials. But in terms of its huge scale and scope, almost no game can beat this vibrant universe. It is constantly updated, adding gameplay enhancements, more stories, and even mature alien invasions. After years of focusing on car games, the game even added foot-based combat to the Odyssey expansion pack. Enjoy it, Star Citizen.
Wasteland 2 is our favorite game of 2014, heralding the glorious return of CRPG. "Wasteland 3" is better in every way, with a well-defined world construction, a more streamlined gameplay, and a story that fascinates you. Unlike the ending of Wasteland 2, the turn-based tactical game never feels stale, and the game responds very well to your choices. Crucially, it is also more refined.
Is there any innovation in Wasteland 3? Not really. But it performs very well. This is the true fallout successor that Bethesda has never delivered. Don't miss this stupid but serious post-apocalyptic excitement journey.
Managing a country is not easy, but Crusader King III is much easier for newcomers than its beloved but dense predecessor. The in-depth tutorial is a much-needed improvement, but Paradox also added a heavy touch to make the game feel more friendly. Of course, this sense of friendship will disappear the moment your nephew starts a conspiracy with a group of witches trying to ascend to your throne, but Crusader King III can easily become the best grand strategy game to date, due to its complexity, The degree of flexibility and madness is incredible political conspiracy.
The Crusader King II became a fanatical classic. The Crusader King III completely seized the crown. You can sink in it for hundreds of hours, but still barely scratch the surface.
As CD Projekt Red’s first 3A game after the legendary Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 was finally fired to an impossible level, and then when the game was launched in a terrible state on the previous generation console, its reputation was dragged. Into the quagmire. However, don't let it scare you on the PC. Of course, there are loopholes, but the night city of Cyberpunk 2077 does not feel as vibrant as other virtual metropolises, with dense streets and unprecedented verticality that opens up all kinds of roads. You will also discover secrets hidden anywhere. CD Projekt’s writing is still top-notch. The deep character construction provides great flexibility in the style of the game. Tasks usually have multiple results available. If you like this kind of thing, the powerful photo mode can provide hours of Extra entertainment.
If you insist on the main mission, the story of Cyberpunk 2077 can be completed in dozens of hours, but the real depth lies in the rich side missions and performances, as well as exploring every corner and crevice of the night city. Take your time and enjoy it-even though the character construction is so diverse and the missions provide so many results, you can jump back to a completely different game process immediately after completion.
This is not a specific game, but a comprehensive recommendation. Many years after PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was included on this list, it may be time for us to finally give the rest of the battle royale a chance. Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: War Zone, they all involve landing on an island with 100 other people and competing to be the last person to stand. But which one should you choose?
Really, the answer may be as simple as "whatever your friends play". In other words, PUBG is the grandfather, is the type of people who popularize it. It was slow and complicated, and it was almost surpassed by everything that followed. Fortnite is at the other end, cartoon and crazy, with unique production mechanisms and ambitious one-off events.
In the middle you will find Warzone and Apex Legends. Both are faster than PUBG, but more grounded than Fortnite, Warzone is based on Call of Duty, and Apex is based on Titanfall. You can't go wrong with either, I usually think these two are the best options-excellent shooting, streamlined loot system, active community. Try it yourself, because everything except PUBG is free.
Rockstar's critically acclaimed and large-scale open world westerns finally landed on PC a year after the console debuted, but the wait is worth it. The PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best way to play. It has a wealth of options and gorgeous graphics. If you get all your eyes excited, you can even make the terrible GeForce RTX 2080 Ti give in.
This is also one of the longer games in recent memory, and all the transfers are more substantial. We are more fascinated by simply strolling through the vast landscape, hunting animals, buying pomade for Arthur Morgan's mustache, and taking care of our horses than actual stories. Rockstar has truly created a vivid world here, and you will want to be lost in it for a while-especially if the superb photo mode fascinates you.
Pokemon, despite its popularity, has never really had a great PC version-until now. Temtem is a "caring tribute", I mean it's as close as possible to Pokemon without being sued. This is an imitation Oreo of a video game.
However, I am not complaining. Of course, visiting Professor Konstantinos and picking from three introductory Temtems and capturing your first in a card instead of a ball is definitely not Pidgey. It is a bit confusing. But you are used to it. Temtem has even improved the source material in some ways, increasing the difficulty and depth through the two-on-two battle. I hope it's not that cumbersome, but hey, it's in early access and is as close to a competent Pokemon clone as we received on PC.
Disco Elysium is like Planescape Torment, if Planescape puts you in the shoes of an amnestic drug addict, recovering from a hellish bend in the middle of a murder investigation. And, uh, your party is made up of quarreling sounds and emotions in your head, not other people. And there is no fight.
This is the most transformative role-playing game we have played in a long time, and the best PC game of 2019. What's even better is that it will change around you, highly adaptable to the skills you choose, the voices in your head that you decide to listen to, and whether you decide to be straightforward or indulge in the wild impulses implied by those whispers. This is a wild thing-far more than we can enter here. Check out our review for more details. And it is beyond your imagination, as the developer said, the game lasted 60 to 90 hours, and it only screamed for repeated playback.
If you prefer an in-depth role-playing experience with a more radiant atmosphere than Disco Elysium’s strict CRPG roots, check out Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, also known as Fallout: The New Vegas Spiritual Successor You’ve Been Longing for. it's great.
The zoo planet is very dangerous. While writing this article, I thought "I think I will suddenly enter the Steam Workshop to see what people have been doing." Then it disappeared in almost an hour, when I dig the donation box cover and custom bouquets and different fences With the reptile house-wow, obviously someone made a McDonald's?
The builders of Frontier, including Planet Coaster and now Planet Zoo, are based on incredible architecture. If you want to design every detail of the exhibition, every plant, rock and water feature, then there is nothing better than Planet Zoo. If you just want to watch simulated performances and watch the lives of animals? Yes, this is also great.
This is one of the games I always feel sad about stopping playing-after tonight’s Steam Workshop tour, it looks like it’s time to start again.
Dark Souls is over, but From Software is not finished yet. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is From's first game in the post-soul era. It...well, it's very similar in many ways. Sekiro is still about the memory of the pattern, about the hard fighting skills, about passing dozens of small enemies but being crushed to death by the boss again. The project’s flavor text is still mostly nonsense, and there is a bonfire stand-in. Soul fans will recognize a common lineage.
But Sekiro is different in key aspects. This is a more vertical (and more mobile) game that allows you to jump and even use the grappling hook to get around. At this point, Sekiro also encourages stealth when possible, jumping from above or piercing through bushes to quietly reduce encounters. Otherwise, you'd better be good at parrying. "Dark Souls" is a rolling and dodging game, but doing so in Sekiro is a failed strategy. Stand on your ground, the sword is equal to the sword, I hope you will be among the best.
I can't believe we are here. Lest we forget: "Final Fantasy 14" was so bad when it was first released, Square Enix killed it. Bury it. Then they basically rebuilt the entire game from scratch and released Final Fantasy XIV: The Realm of Rebirth.
But from the shameful start, perhaps the best MMO in modern times. Maybe it's more than that. According to our own Leif Johnson, "Final Fantasy XIV no longer has any issues worthy of being included in the discussion of the best Final Fantasy game ever." The catch? You need to invest more than 100 hours to experience the best part of it, through the six years of story and the subsequent training. Again, this is perfect for this article, so what are you waiting for? It is best to create your own catwoman and give it a try.
Epoch is a series about the supply chain, and Epoch 1800 has not changed. The only difference, really? Now you are doing this in the Victorian era, and in the process build a transatlantic empire. This adds all the complexity, slowly transporting steel to your colony, using it to build a winery, and then slowly transporting the rum back to the UK, hoping that this will be enough to appease your citizens.
I make it sound easier than it actually is, because "Anno 1800" has dozens of different products that you need to supply in the new world and the old world. A few farms, a factory—unknowingly, you have a metropolis of thousands, twelve fisheries, a dozen breweries, and somehow, you are short of cigars. It's time to build another or five tobacco farms. Oh, it's also 3 am, you should go to bed a few hours ago. However, there may still be time to pave another path, right?
The first "Divinity: Original Sin" is one of the best PC games of 2014, thanks to its in-depth systematic combat, it feels like isometric CRPGs if they flourish over the years instead of temporarily in the early 2000s Like death. "Divinity: Original Sin 2" is better in every aspect, and is tied with "The Witcher 3". It is one of the best role-playing games released in the past decade.
Original Sin 2 doubles the original XCOM-like mechanism, but the real improvement lies in the story. To say that the narrative is an afterthought in the original is an understatement. Divinity: Original Sin 2 strengthens it, weaving fascinating dialogue with Larian's iconic mechanism priority approach. Each task, dialogue, and interaction will be modified according to your character's unique characteristics (such as race and education)-even more so if you play one of the five preset "origin" characters.
The game lasted more than 80 hours. The ability to roll your own character, move around your party character, and even play the entire game in a four-player cooperation makes the game almost unlimited replayability. Play this!
"No Man's Sky" may never be the game that people want it to be pre-released, but in the past few years after a series of serious (free) upgrades, it has come very close. multiplayer game! Better craftsmanship! Base construction!
As I said when I re-evaluated the game, "If you still hope for a'wow' moment in some way and explore this'infinite' universe, I don't think you will find it." "No Man's Sky" It is still the best example of the failure of program generation, because you keep seeing the same plants and rock formations throughout the universe, watching the combination of ingredients and recombining them into a "new" combination, just like a video game version of a taco bell menu.
In other words, since its release, playing No Man's Sky has actually improved a lot. If you are looking for a light space simulator, Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen, you can leaning against the back of your chair to explore quietly, then it’s worth taking another look — especially if you bought it in 2016 and it’s still in your place Steam library. I believe this applies to some of you.
Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls entries are not on this list, because most gamers have now played or at least heard of Bethesda's off-road vehicle masterpieces. However, if you are a fan of open world Western-style RPG, please don't miss Kingdom Come Deliverance. This game is basically a realistic skyline with the Holy Roman Empire as the background, and it is difficult to be precise. You are the son of a blacksmith. In society around 1400 or so, promotion required real time and real effort. You will spend a day dragging the armor of a spoiled nobleman into the woods to hunt rabbits. It takes hours of story to win your first sword. Just reading requires skills.
It's deep, like Bethesda's game, a bit clumsy. But it is commendable that the incredible ambition and unique aesthetics of "Save the Kingdom" have made the rough edges of the game never so rough. Now, the kingdom is here: salvation is definitely a niche market, and it's better for it.
The final chapter of Geralt, the demon hunter of the Rivia trilogy, blends the grim, realistic atmosphere that the series is known for with an open world reminiscent of Skyrim-but oh, too different.
Rather than ruining the experience, I just want to say that "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" received a rare five-star rating, easily won the PCWorld 2015 Game of the Year award, and is my personal favorite game. If you are in a hurry, you will complete it in 60 to 80 hours. Feeling more exploratory? It is expected to spend more than 200 hours wandering around the world, killing monsters, and then entering the fantastic expansion.
XCOM 2 makes the tension even higher than the initial restart by putting you in an offensive state, because XCOM becomes the guerrilla in the aliens conquering the world. You command a group of soldiers to risk their lives to conquer the threat. This is no joke: if one of your commandos dies, he will die and take away his hard-earned experience. Too many wrong moves may make your team full of rookies instead of disgraced veterans, which may force you to restart the game.
The tactical turn-based combat in XCOM 2 is very difficult. The map and enemies in each battle are random, but the game gives you enough time to think about your actions. In the strategic phase between tasks, you deal with organizational tasks-managing finances, expanding the influence of XCOM, researching newly discovered alien technologies, and so on. You have to strike a balance between hitting the aliens' hurtful places and avoiding their counterattacks, while also taking into account scarce resources. It's great.
The game offers almost unlimited replayability, but if you are tired of the basic plan, then two additional modes can basically turn XCOM 2 into a brand new game. War of the Chosen is the official expansion pack of Firaxis. It adds a large number of new factions, enemies, storylines, weapons, etc., and the lofty Long War 2 total conversion module greatly extends the duration of the game and increases the importance of the game . Strategic map and resource planning. They are all great, full stop.
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