Reader asks "what is the #1 PC game"
There isn't one answer, because "top" doesn't mean the same thing from list to list. A ranking by critic score, a ranking by units sold, and a ranking by how many people are playing right now will each hand you a different winner, and none of them is wrong — they're just measuring different things.
- Critic score: aggregators like Metacritic's PC games browse page rank by review consensus, which favours polish, design, and how a game held up at launch and beyond.
- Units sold: Wikipedia's list of best-selling PC games ranks by copies moved, which rewards games that were cheap, bundled, free-to-play, or simply out for a very long time.
- Active playerbase: neither of the above tells you what's populated right now — that's a live concurrent-player question, and it changes week to week.
So before trusting a "top 10," decide what you're actually optimising for. If you want the best-made game regardless of age, start from critic aggregation. If you want cultural weight — the game everyone has played at some point — the sales list is closer to the truth. If you want a multiplayer game with people to actually queue against tonight, neither list answers that, and you need a current player-count source rather than a historical ranking.
Once you've picked the metric, filter by genre and by what your PC can actually run — a chart-topper in an RPG-heavy sales list is useless to someone who wants a racing game, and a critically loved game from a demanding engine is useless if the requirements outrun your GPU.
A title looks appealing in a roundup
Check the store page for an early access label before anything else. Early access means the game is still being built: content is often missing, builds can be unstable, and there's no guarantee the developer finishes what was promised. PC Gamer's ongoing coverage regularly tracks early access titles precisely because their state changes fast — a game praised in an early build can look very different a year later, for better or worse.
That's not a reason to avoid early access outright. It's a reason to treat it as a distinct purchase decision:
| Wait for 1.0 | Buy now | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | The finished vision, reviewed as a complete game | The current build, warts included |
| Risk | None from instability | Bugs, missing features, possible stall or abandonment |
| Price | Usually higher post-launch | Often discounted pre-launch |
| Best for | Readers who want a reviewed, stable product | Readers who want to follow development or support it early |
If you buy in early access, buy accepting the build you see that day, not the roadmap. A curated list such as PC Gamer's Steam curator page is a reasonable way to see which early access games are actually recommended in their current state, rather than judged on promised features.
Buying a game ties it to a storefront
Where you buy determines how the game is tied to your account and your machine, and that's worth deciding on purpose rather than by habit. Steam and the Microsoft Store's PC catalogue both require a launcher and an online account to install and, in most cases, to keep playing. GOG sells much of the same catalogue DRM-free, meaning the installer runs without a client or account check once you own it.
Neither approach is universally better:
- Choose Steam or the Microsoft Store if you want achievements, cloud saves, workshop mods, or a unified library across a PC and a console ecosystem.
- Choose GOG if you want offline installers you can keep on a drive, no launcher requirement, and long-term certainty that a game will still install even if a storefront changes its policies.
Whichever store fits, resist buying at list price. Sales are frequent enough on all of these platforms that patience is usually rewarded — check price history before assuming a "50% off" banner is actually the lowest that game has been.
A game runs badly or refuses to launch
Check the stated hardware requirements against your GPU, CPU, and RAM before assuming the game itself is broken. A "top 10" recommendation is written for an average or aspirational PC, not necessarily yours, and a game that's a smooth 60fps on a review outlet's test bench can be a slideshow — or simply refuse to launch — on older or budget hardware.
If your machine sits below the stated spec:
- Lower resolution and settings first — shadows, reflections, and draw distance cost the most for the least visual return.
- Turn off or reduce upscaling and frame-generation features that assume a newer GPU generation than yours.
- If it still won't run acceptably, look for a lighter game in the same genre rather than forcing a demanding one — review coverage such as PC Gamer's reviews section usually notes performance behaviour and recommended specs alongside the verdict, which is a faster check than trial and error.
Match the recommendation to the machine you actually own, then decide where to buy it, and only then wait for the sale that makes it worth the money.