Features archive
December 2024
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176 articles
- December 31
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- CES 2025: From next-gen Nvidia GPUs to gaming laptops galore, here's everything we expect to see at January's show
- 2024 was still the year of Baldur's Gate 3: Why we're all still playing Larian's once-in-a-decade RPG 16 months later
- Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals convinced me: Battle passes should never expire
- HeroQuest: First Light turns the classic board game into something I could actually imagine kids playing today
- After 2024, it feels like the games industry is poised for a vibe shift—or maybe a reckoning
- Next year I actually want more games willing to waste my time
- December 30
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- The biggest winners and losers of 2024: Nvidia won over Wall Street but what hardware won PC Gamer's heart?
- I played a whopping 23 city builders in 2024, and here are my 5 favorites
- Game of the Year 2024: Balatro
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: 2024's wild cards—the best of the rest
- The 20 best hidden gems from 2024 to grab before the end of the Steam Winter sale
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best graphics card of 2024
- December 29
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- PC Gamer's highest rated hardware favourites of 2024, plus five dishonorable mentions
- I've tested the best graphics cards and CPUs of the year, and yet it's this affordable, unassuming little gaming laptop that captured my heart in 2024
- Most of my favourite games of 2024 didn't come out in 2024
- I want Eric Barone to make his new game, but I get why he's still fixing Stardew bugs
- Dragon's Dogma 2 understands that fantasy's at its best when it knows how to revel in the mundane
- Best Multiplayer 2024: Helldivers 2
- Ultros took the feature I hate most about games and made me love it through the power of farming
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming headsets of 2024
- December 28
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- The NZXT Relay is a flawed set of speakers but it's also my favourite bit of hardware from 2024 thanks to its ingenious stand
- Amid a tidal wave of new games in 2024, these 10 must-play deep cuts are cheap and will run on almost anything
- PC Gamer's biggest hardware stories of 2024: Elon Musk, the rise and rise of AI, brilliant builds, the humbling of big tech giants, orb pondering aplenty, and much more
- Too many games released busted, broken, and basically in early access this year—it's time for it to stop
- Morels: The Hunt 2 is a great outdoors vibe when you're stuck indoors
- Best Expansion 2024: Elden Ring – Shadow of the Erdtree
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming mouse of 2024
- Sure, I'm scared of my own shadow, but that doesn't stop me from forcing my friends to play The Outlast Trials with me
- DoubleWe blends Guess Who with Hitman, and its demo is one of the best I've played in ages
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming keyboard of 2024
- December 27
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- Alan Wake 2 set such a high technical bar last year that few games in 2024 came anywhere near, but it wasn't all abject disappointment
- The Razer Wolverine V3 Pro has replaced my Xbox Wireless Controller in 2024 and I couldn't be happier about it
- MMOs had a great year in 2024, with the genre the liveliest it's been in years
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard is my third-favorite game of the year, and I don't care who knows
- Best RPG 2024: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming motherboard of 2024
- The early access for Fields of Mistria was better than every other farm sim this year by a country mile thanks to its cast of hot anime-inspired sweethearts and great dialogue
- After years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare
- Crashing servers, flame wars, and a 60-day path to redemption—the utterly chaotic first year of Helldivers 2 has been a democratic doozy
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming CPU of 2024
- December 26
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- Google being pushed to sell off Chrome is likely a good thing, but don't cheer on the decision just yet
- Out of all the new PC hardware in 2024, my top choice is technically over two years old. Even though it was new
- Gun of the Year 2024: Helldivers 2's AC-8 Autocannon
- Webfishing has captured the old-school chatroom MMO vibes to perfection, and somehow made it so much better than I remember as a kid
- DeathSprint 66 combines one of my favourite mods with one of my favourite movies
- Best Sandbox 2024: Satisfactory
- Ubisoft had an absolutely dire 2024 and desperately needs a win
- This year has proved yet again that horror games do best when devs keep it small-scale
- The biggest gaming controversies of 2024
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming SSD of 2024
- December 25
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- VR gaming was one of my favourite hobbies of 2024 and it's because I've noticed myself using it as a meditation exercise
- Helldivers 2 galactic war timeline: Every major event that's happened so far
- 2024 was the year I returned to earbuds after writing them off for nearly a decade thanks to the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds
- If 2024 proves anything, it's that mainstream success hasn't made PC gaming any less weird—and thank God for that
- Spirit of the PC 2024: Stalker 2
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is so authentically Indiana Jones it should probably be called Henry Jones Jr. and the Great Circle
- Best City Builder 2024: Manor Lords
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming monitor of 2024
- Depersonalization is an RPG out of China that feels like it never stops getting deeper, once you figure out how to set it to English
- December 24
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- 2024 felt like the year gaming laptops finally started to grow up, so roll on 2025 and the mega-smart lappys to come
- I played at least one retro game every week in 2024: Here are 10 I'd still recommend to everyone
- I saved myself and you $70 by simply modding Skyrim to be indistinguishable from Metaphor: ReFantazio, the year's best RPG
- It's been a bumper year for PCs but my pick for the best new hardware in 2024 is a chassis, surprising even myself
- PC Gamer's highest review scores of 2024
- Sorry Metaphor, but after playing 300 hours worth of Atlus RPGs in 2024, Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance is my favorite
- Best FPS 2024: STRAFTAT
- Black Myth: Wukong's care and attention to its setting made it one of my favorite gaming experiences of 2024
- It's been a big year for factory sims, but instead of getting a degree in engineering, I've decided to go back to where it all started for me: modded Minecraft
- The Spirit of the Samurai is an impressive work of stop-motion art paired with a dissatisfying, frustrating action game
- PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming laptop of 2024
- December 23
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- Playing Path of Exile 2 with WASD makes it feel like a true action game, and I'll never be able to go back to my mouse
- OK, I take it back, Marvel Rivals is not an aggressively bad, unsalvageable mess—it might even be good
- I was skeptical of Supergiant making a sequel, but Hades 2 has more than earned its place in the roguelike pantheon, and it's not even finished yet
- Against the Storm looks charming and cosy, but it's actually the best and most fiendish city builder I've played in years
- Best Comedy 2024: Thank Goodness You're Here!
- Here's 22 good games that cost $1 or less in the 2024 winter game sales
- Ready or Not's Dark Waters DLC has some cracking maps and scarily intelligent AI suspects that managed to outsmart me at almost every turn
- December 22
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- 2024 has been one of the most fragmented years for videogames and in hindsight I actually really liked that
- 2024 was the year gamers really started pushing back on the erosion of game ownership
- Halls of Torment feels like the brilliant lovechild of Vampire Survivors and Diablo, and the absolute pinnacle of autobattlers
- Abiotic Factor restored my faith in survival games
- Best Roguelike 2024: Caves of Qud
- December 21
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- Best Tactics 2024: Tactical Breach Wizards
- The Allmother is dead, long live the Allmother!: Why 1000XResist is the best sci-fi story I've experienced in years
- A part of my brain will always be dedicated to the time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager 2013
- Even without Hollow Knight: Silksong, these 10 games prove that 2024 might just be the best Metroidvania year ever
- Free games to grab over the holidays
- December 20
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- Why Rise of Nations is one of the hidden gems of PC Game Pass
- Bloober's Silent Hill 2 was more remix than remake and that's why it was great
- Best Survival Game 2024: Pacific Drive
- This finely-honed samurai strategy game deserves a place in the roguelike hall of fame this year just as much as Balatro
- December 19
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- 7 years after unique puzzle brawler Battle Chef Brigade, its creators are back with another offbeat genre mash-up: 'People like card games, hopefully they like card games that have really good characters'
- Path of Exile 2's huge passive skill tree used to scare me, but now I've started treating it as 'open-world character creation' I've fallen in love with the whole thing
- I've lost weekends to crushing dissenters and seals in Frostpunk 2 and that's why it's my personal pick for game of the year
- Sins of a Solar Empire 2 makes space exciting again—and it's a brilliant 4X RTS to boot
- Creative Achievement 2024: UFO 50
- Fallout 76's quest to becoming a ghoul couldn't be easier—unless you want to make friends along the way
- Playing as a ghoul in Fallout 76 is the new Wasteland experience everyone should indulge in
- The Universe Of You
- December 18
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- I played 27 new cozy games this year and my top 5 only includes 2 farm sims, I promise
- Creeper World IXE breaks the RTS mold and adds a dash of Noita's alchemy to the gooey war
- It's taken 30 years, but my PC has finally made it impossible for me to enjoy console gaming
- PC Gamer's Game of the Year Awards 2024
- If you love mystery novels and detective shows, The Rise of the Golden Idol is the perfect game for you
- Best Ongoing Game 2024: Stardew Valley
- The best community clips from The Finals Season 5
- Infinity Nikki has been the catalyst for healing my inner child who spent way too long suppressing their love for these games
- Raf Colantonio can’t stop making first-person immersive sims: 'Weird West was a sidestep'
- The Big Con is a charming, funny crime caper about scamming your way through the greatest era in human history: The 1990s
- December 17
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- Shiren the Wanderer's simple graphics disguise a systems-dense roguelike full of the emergent stories I love the genre for
- Revenge of the Savage Planet adds a new perspective and deeper satire to the sequel's 'optimistic yet funny dystopia'
- Path of Exile 2 makes buildcrafting more approachable than ever—but I'm glad I can still sleepwalk through screenfuls of skeletons in the original
- December 16
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- Borderlands 4: Everything we know about Gearbox's next co-op FPS
- Marvel Rivals does almost everything right, but boy does its progression suck
- Horror classic Clock Tower's Windows 95 port jabbed a giant pair of scissors through my rose-tinted glasses
- Things you need to know when buying an ASUS ROG OLED gaming monitor
- December 14
- December 13
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- WoW's newest raid will build on 20 years of large-group encounters, with new twists—and perhaps less help from mods
- 7 hardcore survival games that are great to play in peaceful mode
- Helldivers 2's Illuminate invasion is the cherry on top of one of the best first years a live service game has ever had
- Why Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is one of the hidden gems of PC Game Pass
- I finally built the mini PC I've been dreaming of and it made me realise we've come a long way from cramped cases and fiddly connectors
- Oh jeez, they weren't kidding, Helldivers 2's Illuminate are terrifying—and the best/worst of both worlds
- It's not the Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 2 I'd hoped for, but Elden Ring: Nightreign might just sate my insatiable hunger for FromSoftware to pick up the pace
- Windows 10's end is coming: here's what you should do about it
- The Game Awards were stacked with even more big reveals than we expected this year
- Thick as Thieves is instantly one of my most-anticipated games, and every Thief fan should be backstabbing that wishlist button
- Elden Ring: Nightreign hands-on: 6 hours with FromSoftware's wild new co-op roguelike action RPG remix
- FromSoftware's next game is an Elden Ring spin-off called Nightreign, and it's coming next year
- December 12
- December 11
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- Ballistic, Fortnite's new tactical FPS mode, is a deeply unserious Counter-Strike clone that's going to be huge anyway
- Path of Exile 2's character customisation can't compete with Diablo 4's hellishly good drip, but the good news is you'll barely notice
- Omens of Destruction is a meaty DLC that adds one of my all time favorite Total War: Warhammer 3 mechanics—and no, it isn't goblins riding other goblins
- Marvel Rivals is blissful chaos, which makes me worry that—like Overwatch—it'll have all the fun drained out of it once the balancing wars begin
- Galacticare is a Theme Hospital-like that does the hardest thing a game can do: Make me laugh
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024's career mode is buggy and frustrating and I can't stop playing it
- December 10
- December 9
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- Delta Force's large scale combat reminds me of Battlefield's very best
- Steampunk CRPG New Arc Line turned me into a murderous, drug-addled inventor with a giant assistant, and despite its rough edges it won me over
- Path of Exile 2 is great but it can't match the dopamine hit of a good Diablo 4 loot drop
- Game Pass games are looking good at this year's Game Awards
- Don't sleep on Infinity Nikki's stylist battles like I did—they're secretly one of the coolest parts of the game
- Five new Steam games you probably missed (December 9, 2024)
- December 7
- December 6
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- Before Googling for a guide in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, give the in-game hint system a try: It's genuinely the best one I've ever seen in a game
- My number one piece of advice for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle players is to do each zone's main quest first to unlock game-changing upgraded disguises as early as possible
- I hate the cliche, but Path of Exile 2 really is the Dark Souls of isometric dungeon crawlers
- Anime tactics game Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium has landed on PC
- The Thing: Remastered is fun for all the wrong reasons, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy this blast from the past
- Delta Force is a decent Battlefield clone, but its monetization is like gazing into a bottomless void from which no light can escape
- Secret Level review: our take on every episode of Amazon's videogame anthology show
- December 5
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- Every game, trailer, and announcement in the 2024 PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted
- With Descenders Next, the primal videogame pleasure of going really fast down hills has been honed to near perfection
- EVE Frontier 'is not really a blockchain game, no more than EVE is a database game:' CCP hopes you'll give crypto a chance for a space sim with tactical combat 'bordering on survival horror'
- Citizen Sleeper 2 will be out in January and 'really emphasize the mechanical aspects of the roleplaying' as an android dealing with a constantly decaying body
- Enter here for a chance to win a free month of PC Game Pass
- Fill out a quick PC Gaming Show survey for a chance to win a powerful gaming PC
- Trend Watch: The 5 biggest gaming trends right now
- The best solo board games
- Microsoft says 64 GB is the 'ideal spec' for Flight Simulator 2024 but I've tested it with 96 GB, and it makes a big difference
- Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is gone but will Intel's chip fabs follow him out the door?
- December 4
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- Steam's background recording feature is the new gold standard of game clipping
- Ranking arachnophobia modes as someone who's been terrified of spiders for nearly 30 years
- The new subclasses coming in Baldur's Gate 3 are a powergamer's paradise, and I know because I've seen them do terrible work in D&D
- The Rewinder is a bit like that time-travelling Dishonored level turned into a point-and-click puzzler, and I'll never finish it because I can't do maths
- This sprawling RPG tries to blend Diablo with Baldur's Gate with Dark Souls, and does a pretty good job pulling it off
- December 3
- December 2
- December 1
