Over the years, the Top 100 has been created using a variety of methods—in recent years it’s just been a big argument. This year, we’ve created a system designed to capture the nuance of the things we consider most the important for a Top 100 game. We want to recognize historical importance, how well it plays today, and also to give space for the newer games we can’t put down. Most importantly, we need to just really love each game we pick.
1 PC Gamer’s writers vote for their favourite games across four categories.
2 The total score for each category is divided by the number of people who voted, to create an average score.
3 The four averages are split according to our special weighting.
4 The scores are then combined into an official Top 100 score, using maths and secrets.
5 The final scores are put in order to give us our provisional top 100 games list.
6 Writers can then demote or promote one game each, using arguments and democracy.
100 FOOTBALL MANAGER 2023
RELEASED Nov 8, 2022 | TOP 100 SCORE 203.18 | PROMOTED BY Dave James
Quality 6.30 Importance 7.65 Hotness 8.10 Playability 6.30
Dave James: It’s very easy to dismiss the Football Manager games as just spreadsheets for soccer nerds, but it remains one of the most influential PC games in the platform’s history. Not because it’s launched a thousand clones—indeed there is literally no genuine competition—but because it’s had a direct influence on the sporting industry it is simulating. There’s no other game that’s had such a lasting real-world impact as Football Manager. Plus, it’s addictive.
99 DIABLO IV
RELEASED June 5, 2023 | TOP 100 SCORE 207.43
Tim Clark: That Diablo 4 placed so low despite being one of the biggest PC releases of the year is, I guess, testament to how high the ARPG bar has been set. While I appreciate there are serious issues, my Necro has been having a lovely old time mooching around the lower World Tiers, trailed by a platoon of skellies, delivering justice on the tip of a bone spear.
98 HOLLOW KNIGHT
RELEASED Feb 24, 2017 | TOP 100 SCORE 212.35
Robin Valentine: Hollow Knight’s world strikes this amazing balance between hostility and wonder—you’re always simultaneously excited and terrified to see what’s around the next corner. It’s got some of that Dark Souls magic—which so many indie metroidvanias try and fail to capture—in its beautiful horror, intricate geography, and tragic fragments of history.
97 DESTINY 2
TOP 100 SCORE 212.89
Jacob Ridley: I just can’t quit Destiny. I go through peaks and valleys in playtime, but I’m always keeping one eye on what’s going on and finding time to shoot stuff with fantastical weaponry. It has that replayable quality that few games manage, let alone master, even for those moments when it doesn’t feel at its best.
96 DEATH STRANDING
TOP 100 SCORE 214.49
Rich Stanton: Kojima’s outsize personality can sometimes overshadow the fact that he’s one of the great designers. Death Stranding sticks with me years later, and it’s not the pompous though oft-hilarious cutscenes, but the dogged journeys it sends you on and its total commitment to the act of traversal.
95 TEARDOWN
TOP 100 SCORE 216.90
Morgan Park: Teardown is as fun as it is original: a sandbox puzzler powered by the best destruction engine since Red Faction Guerilla. I adore that Teardown establishes an elastic set of goals and gives me infinite time to decide how to do it. It’s the perfect bait for people who love playing with Lego.
94 MARVEL’S MIDNIGHT SUNS
TOP 100 SCORE 216.95
Evan Lahti: It’s the best game about superheroes on PC and the best Mass Effect game since ME2. Midnight Suns puts Firaxis’ pedigrees on display: unit animation, the board game-ness of it all, its understanding of how to unfold a campaign. But it is also a heartfelt game about friendship and more.
93 POWERWASH SIMULATOR
TOP 100 SCORE 220.65
Sarah James: This is one of those games where you just want to laugh at its existence, then you play it and 50 hours later, you’re trying to figure out why you can’t put it down. Powerwash Simulator works by appealing to that part of your brain that likes neatness and order in the most soothing way possible.
92 DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS
TOP 100 SCORE 219.09
Robert Jones: The importance of Dragon Age: Origins to PC gaming still, even now almost 14 years after its release, cannot be overstated enough. The BioWare masterpiece proved that big, complex, narratively epic RPGs could not only still be made for PC, but could be critical and commercial smash hits.
91 AMNESIA: THE BUNKER
RELEASED June 6, 2023 | TOP 100 SCORE 217.93
One of the most stressful games I’ve ever played. You’re in a sealed French bunker on the Western Front in 1916, and there is something in the walls. This beast’s emergent, unpredictable AI, coupled with hardcore resource management, help make a horror triumph. It’s short, but randomized items and codes make this a replayable nightmare.
