The best laptop games

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(Image credit: Capcom)

As a PC gamer overburdened with gadgets, I have as much trouble choosing how to play a game as I do what I want to play in general. Am I in the mood to sit at my desk? Time for a shooter, then. If I'm in full lazy mode on the couch, out comes the Steam Deck. But if I'm traveling and only opted to bring my laptop with me, I need to pick a different sort of game—a game best suited to playing on a laptop.

Sometime it's nice or even vital to have a keyboard, mouse or full-size trackpad for a PC game, even if the performance requirements are pretty modest. Those are the games where the laptop truly shines.

The best laptop games can run on pretty much any low-end PC today, even though today's gaming laptops aren't necessarily weak. But even if you have a beefy gaming laptop with an RTX 4000 series GPU, you're constantly balancing heat and battery life when laptop gaming, so the best laptop games skew towards lighter system requirements. And most of our favorite laptop games can run on systems that don't have dedicated GPUs at all.

Best of the best

Baldur's Gate 3 - Jaheira with a glowing green sword looks ready for battle

(Image credit: Larian Studios)

2024 games: Upcoming releases
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best MMOs: Massive worlds
Best RPGs: Grand adventures

The games selected here won't set your fans going full blast, and are also ideal for playing with a trackpad or in relatively short chunks. They work well on a compact 12-inch screen or a bigger desktop replacement. We also recognize that for plenty of PC gamers, a laptop is your only gaming system—that's why we've included a few faves that are better with a controller or a mouse for those laptops that stay anchored at a desk. Those games have been highlighted with 🖱 and 🎮 icons.

The best laptop games have a lot in common with the best Steam Deck games, but without as much concern for controller or Linux support. We also have a lot more screen space to work with, so we don't have to worry about text legibility on a handheld-size screen.

Below you'll find our favorite pick-up-and-play games for laptops as well as RPGs and strategy games that you can play for weeks. We've mostly stuck to recommending new-ish games that have modest system requirements, but of course just about anything from the early 2010s or prior will run on a new laptop with ease. Check out GOG's old games or the Internet Archive's in-browser emulation library for many, many more options.

And if reading about the best laptop games has you reconsidering the quality of your machine, here's our guide to the best gaming laptops

Best laptop games: Strategy

Cobalt Core

Cobalt Core deckbuilder

(Image credit: Rocket Rat Games)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Rocket Rat Games | Link: Steam

A blend of FTL's space journey with Slay the Spire's deckbuilding, Cobalt Core manages to not feel too derivative of either. You'll use cards to do more than attack: positioning your ship and dodging attacks are key to battles, and the meta progression will see you recruit new crew members and unlock new ships that change how you play. It may sound like standard roguelike stuff, but the way all the pieces come together makes Cobalt Core quite possibly the best one of 2023.

🖱 Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders 4 battle

(Image credit: Paradox)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Triumph Studios | Link: Steam

A new 4X favorite in 2023. Age of Wonders 4 resembles big strategy games like Civ, but with its own magical flavor. As Fraser wrote in our 87% review: "By selecting the physical form, traits, cultural leanings and societal quirks of your people, you're able to create all sorts of unusual empires, from sinister mole-people with a penchant for cannibalism to industrious goblins who just want to build epic cities and make new friends. Through these choices you'll determine your empire's starting bonuses, alignment and magical affinities, establishing how you'll influence the world ... every time, I return from my fantasy foray with a sack full of anecdotes, like when I resurrected a rival ruler who had been plaguing me all game as an undead minion, forced to serve me for eternity. Magic just makes everything more fun."

Crusader Kings 3

Crusader Kings 3 mod that adds new events.

(Image credit: Paradox Interactive/cybrxkhan)

Release: 2020| Developer: Paradox Interactive| Link: Steam

There's no series better at generating exciting, tragic, and hilarious stories than Crusader Kings, and there's no better version to jump into than Crusader Kings 3. It's just as complex as the original games, but it's also much more approachable and friendly to new players. The blend of sprawling grand strategy and incredibly personal decisions makes CK3 a game that's hard to quit playing, as you go from planning your conquest of Greece or your alliance with Moldavia to sweating out an assassination plot spearheaded by your own greedy spouse. The stakes always feel high, whether you're managing warfare, diplomacy, and finances on the world stage or slowly realizing that your once-darling children have grown into backstabbing traitors. 

Slay the Spire

Slay The Spire - The player on the left side of the screen battles two enemies on the right in a turn based battle. The card "Strike" is highlighted in the player's hand of cards.

(Image credit: Mega Crit Games)

Release date: 2019 | Developer: Mega Crit Games | Link: Steam

An instantly addictive card combat roguelike, which takes the strategic fun of deckbuilding board games and marries it with the sensibilities of games like The Binding of Isaac and Risk of Rain, where finding random "relics" can change how you play. Or, if you get a lucky combination, turn you into a murderous card god. Like the best roguelikes and deckbuilders, Slay the Spire feeds you that immense satisfaction when you find a combo that absolutely wrecks. Enemies that were once intimidating fall before you like flies. It's a fun one to replay again and again, thanks to unlockables like more powerful cards for each deck type, and protagonists that play wholly differently from one another.

Civilization 6

Civilization 6

(Image credit: 2K)

Release date: 2016 | Developer: Firaxis Games | Link: Steam

Civ is usually a safe bet when it comes to low-end machines, and you won't need a beefy PC in order to play the newest entry in the series in 2023. Just don't go blaming us when you forget to sleep, so embroiled are you in your quest to wipe the warmongering Gandhi from the face of the Earth. While past Civ games have grown through larger expansions, Civ 6 has opted for the seasonal update model instead, and since 2016 has amassed dozens of new leaders on top of two expansions and smaller bits of DLC.

Best laptop games: RPGs

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

Disco Elysium - The player character and Lt Kim Kitsuragi stand in the Whirling In Rags cafe.

(Image credit: ZA/UM)

Release: 2019 | Developer: ZA/UM | Link: Steam

This is one of our favorite RPGs of all time, and our Game Of The Year in 2019. Disco Elysium is gorgeous in a sad, gritty way, but its painterly 2D environments won't push your system. It's a detective RPG that feels quite a lot like playing a classic adventure game or a visual novel. Expect to slow things down here to discover clues and secrets in its detailed environments and read a lot of fantastic writing. It's sly, clever, and full of surprises, meaning you can get some of the best new RPG action without needing a GPU that handles ray-tracing. 

Thanks to the Final Cut version of the game that now comes standard, Disco Elysium's installation size is a bit beefier than it used to be. If you've got the space to spare though, it should still run swell.

Honkai Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail tier list - Trailblazer on the Xianzhou Luofu

(Image credit: miHoYo)

Release: 2023 | Developer: MiHoYo | Link: Official site

The studio behind Genshin Impact released another hit in 2023, trading fantasy for sci-fi and action-based battles for a turn-based system. Despite the gacha mechanics, it's a great RPG, as laid out in our 90% review:

"When Star Rail hits, it hits. A climactic boss fight at the end of the first planet is a battle against a god in the middle of a snow storm where electric guitars wail and drums build. As she holds up a black vortex of cosmic energy and threatens your team, the music simmers in the background ... Star Rail's unrestrained commitment to its characters, world, and systems, earns it the right to have a glorious anime battle set to a rock anthem. It's a tonal chameleon that switches modes so deftly that it had me cheering it on. It's alive and imaginative in a way the fantasy world of Genshin has never been able to pull off."

Best laptop games: Puzzle & Adventure

Chants of Sennaar

(Image credit: Rundisc)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Rundisc | Link: Steam

A deeply thoughtful and clever puzzle game about language, deciphering the writing on a mysterious tower as you explore your way across it. Chants of Sennaar was a late 2023 sleeper hit, becoming one of our favorites of the year. "Chants of Sennaar has made me feel like a kid again, eking out my play sessions over a month as if I'm a grade schooler waiting for my weekly computer lab visit, literally giddy with excitement about solving each of its vocabulary-based riddles," wrote editor Lauren Morton in our GOTY 2023 awards.

Dave the Diver

Dave the Diver relaxing with a book.

(Image credit: MINTROCKET)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Mintrocket | Link: Steam

An "adventure RPG" that sort of defies genre; Dave the Diver has you managing a sushi restaurant and diving in the sea as an explorer, with many more activities layered on top. Like, many more, as described in our 91% review: "Nearly every time I sat down to play Dave the Diver it threw a new feature or activity at me. Night fishing opens up the pursuit of new species and turns the once comforting ocean spooky, and new gear like tranquilizers and submersibles give you new ways to catch fish. A staff management system for the restaurant lets you hire and train workers to help out... There's a farm to breed fish so you don't have to rely entirely on daily dives, and a farm to grow rice and vegetables for new recipes, and eventually even an underwater farm to grow different types of seaweed. As soon as you've gotten comfortable with one system, the game throws a new one on top."

Cocoon

(Image credit: Geometric Interactive)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Geometric Interactive | Link: Steam

One of the standout puzzle games of the year, we awarded Cocoon a 90% in our review. It's essentially a game about rolling around little orbs and putting things in their proper place, but there's a lot going on with those orbs, it turns out. Each contains a world of its own that you can hop between, as expressed by reviewer Jon Bailes: "What really makes the globe jumping fascinating is not simply that the puzzles are ingenious and neat and tidy—it's the extraordinary sense of relativity it evokes. Your entire world in one breath becomes a mere object in the next. It's a playful representation of cosmic scale."

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Ghost Trick

(Image credit: Capcom)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Capcom | Link: Steam

A long-awaited remaster and PC version of a Nintendo DS game that didn't quite get its due, Ghost Trick is a very funny, very clever puzzler about possessing objects as a ghost to eventually solve your own murder. As described in our review: "This is the gaming equivalent of an unmissable crime novel, a gripping mystery where every answer leads to three more questions and connects 10 seemingly unrelated people or places together in a way you'd never imagined. I honestly couldn't stop until I'd seen it through to the end and when I did all I wanted to do was dive back in again."

Viewfinder

A battery plinth duplicated in two different visual styles in Viewfinder.

(Image credit: Sad Owl Studios)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Sad Owl Studios | Link: Steam

Videogame concepts don't get much more galaxy brain than Viewfinder, a puzzle game in which you snap photos of the environment, then "insert" those photos into the world where they become three dimensional reality. As described in our review, the effect is incredibly impressive: "Discovering the ins and outs of Viewfinder's unique logic is very reminiscent of the first time we all learned to "think with portals" in Portal. It's an obvious comparison to make, but it's not one I make lightly—Viewfinder's tricks really do feel as revelatory to play with as Portal's did then."

The Case of the Golden Idol

Mystery game

(Image credit: Color Gray Games)

Release: 2022 | Developer: Color Gray Games | Link: Steam

Investigate a dozen baffling and gruesome murders, all involving the same mysterious artifact, in one of the most inventive and satisfying detective games in years. In The Case of The Golden Idol you're shown the moment someone has been killed, a grisly tableau frozen in time. Investigate by clicking on anything that seems suspicious or interesting—you can go through the pockets of the victim and bystanders, learn the names of everyone involved, and slowly collect clues, in the form of words, needed to solve the crime. Place the words into blanks on incomplete scroll to solve the murders and the motives behind them, each more puzzling than the last.

Alongside the individual mysteries there's a sprawling story spanning decades centered around the powerful and bizarre idol itself and the horrifying things people will do to possess it. The murders are fun to solve, and the story behind them is fascinating. I don't say this often (or ever) but this is one videogame that would make an outstanding mystery novel.

Best laptop games: Action & Platformers

🎮 Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk boombox guys

(Image credit: Team Reptile)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Team Reptile | Link: Steam

The long-awaited heir to Jet Grind Radio; we loved Cyberfunk's punk roller skating, awarding it an 85% in our review and calling it "a futuristic time capsule that bursts with sonic and ocular swag." This is the kind of game that sinks or soars on style, and we thought it soared thanks to the soundtrack and the "buttery" feeling of skating through each dense cityscape, finding secrets and bits of the environment to tag or do tricks off of. It's a late '90s / early '00s throwback that should run nicely on even an aging Windows 7 laptop.

Psychonauts 2

Psychonauts 2

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Release: 2021 | Developer: Double Fine | Link: Steam

This sequel took its time arriving, but Double Fine made it worth it. Psychonauts 2 is a hoot, and the rare example of a big budget 3D platformer in this day and age, bursting with creative levels set inside its characters' troubled minds. Go inside a brain casino, explore your '60s spy movie-style secret base, dig into a shockingly long conversation about pancakes... there's a lot to do here, and it all feels designed with real love.

Terraria

Terraria - Two players fly kites next to one another.

(Image credit: Re-Logic)

Release: 2011 | Developer: Re-Logic | Link: Steam

Terraria is a huge game in a very tiny package. Even if you originally wrote it off as a 2D Minecraft clone, it's grown far beyond that label in the years since. Terraria is a crafting adventure with heaps of updates to its name with new bosses, biomes, fishing, and too many other things to name, and it's still seeing updates as of 2023. It's also wild how little this huge game demands from your computer with its tiny install size and modest system requirements.

Best laptop games: First-person shooters

🖱 Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2

(Image credit: Valve)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Valve | Link: Steam

After years of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive being the biggest FPS in the world, Valve has transformed it into Counter-Strike 2, a free shooter that is largely similar to its predecessor. Then again, in the grand scheme of things Counter-Strike hasn't changed that much since its very first iteration in the '90s. As a result the small details matter a lot, and CS2 does make some meaningful changes that will keep the competitive scene on its toes for the next year or so. Whether you've never played CS or haven't played in years, now is an ideal time to jump in: the game hasn't been this shiny and new for a decade.

🖱 Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun retro PC gaming boomer shooter like DOOM

(Image credit: Future)

Release: 2023 | Developer: Auroch Digital | Link: Steam

The most recent champion of the bloody good retro FPS revival, Boltgun is a fast-paced shooter with a fantastic pixelated aesthetic. It isn't exactly trying to look like Doom or Quake or some other '90s shooter, but it evokes that feel while still conveying the massive scale of the 40K universe. Our reviewer especially loved the chainsword's use as a movement mechanic: "Slashing with the chainsword can be done in mid-air, dash included, which allows for some gory free mobility as long as there's something heretical nearby."

Best laptop games: Multiplayer

Lethal Company

Scientists in a lab

(Image credit: Zeekerss)

Release: 2023 (early access) | Developer: Zeekerss | Link: Steam

A viral smash hit from 2023, this dirt cheap survival game features the rarest of all multiplayer coups: making voice chat essential. Also hilarious, as described by editor Jacob Ridley in our GOTY 2023 entry:

"What makes this game so absurdly entertaining is 1) the proximity-based chat and 2) the lack of polish and 3) the social mechanics. The game is scary, and it's going to make you jump at times, but it's fun for the massively overblown reactions it generates and way it always keeps you either talking to one another or talking about one another (when you're dead).

"You'll find yourself giggling as your pal creeps deeper into a dark room. Then laughing as a far-off scream turns to a sudden silence. Then as quickening footsteps approach the room you felt oh so safe inside, the laughing quickly subsides and you're the one screaming as you sprint towards the door."

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley - One player sits in a crafted chair in the sand while another player fishes in the water nearby.

(Image credit: Eric Barone)

Release date: 2016 | Developer: ConcernedApe | Link: Humble

An indie sensation that brought the idyllic farm life of Harvest Moon to PC. Build your farm into a vegetable empire, go exploring, learn about the lives of your neighbors, fall in love and settle down. Simple graphics ensure this one will run like a dream on your laptop, and it'll make long flights pass by in a snap. Stardew Valley has officially supported co-op farming for a couple years now, which is undoubtedly a great way to go back to Pelican Town.

🖱 Minecraft

Minecraft Nether Update key art - A player wearing Netherite armor walks through a stylized rendition of The Nether surrounded by Hoglins and Pigmen.

(Image credit: Mojang)

Release: 2011 | Developer: Mojang | Link: Official site

One of the main questions you see asked online about laptops is “Will it run Minecraft?”, to which the answer, for future reference, is “Yeah probably”. Mojang's infinite block-'em-up isn't terribly demanding specs-wise, and it's the perfect game to mess around with on a laptop when you're supposed to be writing features for PC Gamer about low-spec games. While it's often played on a tablet, phone or console these days, you're getting the latest updates and mod support if you choose to build stuff with your PC. Here's our frequently updated list of the best Minecraft mods.

🖱 Project Zomboid

Disco Elysium mod for Project Zomboid.

(Image credit: The Indie Stone)

Release date: 2013 (Early access) | Developer: The Indie Stone | Link: Steam

Despite technically being a decade old, we really just got into Project Zomboid in 2022; this multiplayer survival game has gone through some big updates in the last couple years. It's far deeper than it looks, with intricate systems for injuries, foraging for food, vehicle physics, and zombies with modeled vision and hearing. Multiplayer is a relatively recent addition that sent Project Zomboid rocketing into the most-played games on Steam where it's now carved out a comfy spot to call its own.

Lauren Morton
Associate Editor

Lauren started writing for PC Gamer as a freelancer in 2017 while chasing the Dark Souls fashion police and accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as the self-appointed chief cozy games enjoyer. She originally started her career in game development and is still fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long books, longer RPGs, has strong feelings about farmlife sims, and can't stop playing co-op crafting games.

With contributions from