The all-time depression-spec PC games
Looking for something new to play on your low end PC or laptop? You might exist surprised just how nifty some of the lower spec games await. While gaming laptops grow in power every year, non anybody has a fresh laptop with a GTX 2080 in it. Some people demand a lighter, smaller notebook for travel, and then often that will likewise mean existence unable to play the most demanding PC games. Fortunately for us—in this gilded age of gaming—there are tons of great low-spec PC games to choose between, whether its an indie or a true classic from Steam's rolls.
This is our gathering of the best games for laptops and low-spec rigs—games that can grab your attention without called-for up your system. We've rummaged through all sorts of genres, so you lot'll find quick choice-up-and-play games alongside deep RPGs that y'all can get lost in. At that place are choices y'all can latch onto all past themselves, and others that you can use to fill time betwixt meetings.
These are mostly newer games with attainable organization requirements, but of course in that location are tons of classic PC games, from Doom to Half-Life 2, that will run smooth as silk on any modern laptop. Check out GOG's sometime games or the Internet Archive's in-browser emulation library.
Looking for a new laptop to game on the get? Hither's our guide to the best gaming laptops.
Best laptop games: Multiplayer
Amid U.s.
Release engagement: 2018 | Developer: InnerSloth | Link: Steam
If you're up for a bit of subterfuge with friends, Among U.s. is 1 yous can be sure they'll be able to play almost no matter how erstwhile their machine is. It even has cross-play between PCs and phones if that'south all they have handy. Amidst Us is a familiar format to anyone who'south played Werewolf or other like group tabletop games. A crew of brightly-colored space engineers are stuck trying to repair a ship while discovering who amidst them (get it?) is the imposter trying to murder the rest. The fun is in how well you and your friends can fool one some other more than than fancy lighting furnishings, so it'southward an easy one to selection upwardly and play on a low-spec machine.
Old School Runescape
Release date: 2013 | Developer: Jagex| Link: Steam
This oldie hails from the era when today's depression end PCs were hot stuff. Runescape has been around for a long time and there's definitely a reason why. This MMO hails from the days when online games didn't ever guide you down a paved path of quests and leveling opportunities. The Erstwhile School version of Runescape takes you back to those early days of its online earth. You lot may struggle to get started in this ane without the wiki handy, just at least it won't put your PC to the test.
Untitled Goose Game
Release date: 2019 | Programmer: Business firm House | Link: Official site
The not titled goose game is enough short and and so are its required system specs. If yous somehow went dark on the internet in the weeks post-obit the Goose Game's launch, y'all may have missed how many goose memes it birthed into the unsuspecting mainstream social media sphere. The Goose Game is a mannerly little stealth puzzler about being a terribly foul goose on the loose in a quaint trivial British village. In our Untitled Goose Game review, Luke Kemp says "I can't remember the last game that made me laugh and so loudly and then oft while I was playing it."
Portal 2
Release appointment: 2011 | Developer: Valve | Link: Steam page
We could accept included pretty much any Source engine game here, such is the impressive style it scales to lower-spec hardware. (Admittedly, that might exist because it'due south getting on a bit.) While Half-Life 2 shines these days with visual mods and at higher resolutions, Portal 2 remains one of the funniest, smartest puzzle games effectually, even if you had cause to play information technology at 800x600 with all the settings turned to 'Low'. You're not playing this i to be wowed by fancy graphical effects—you're playing for Stephen Merchant's, J.K. Simmons', and Ellen McLain'due south terrific voice interim, and of course for that bit with the potato.
Minecraft
Release engagement: 2011 | Developer: Mojang | Link: Official site
One of the primary questions you lot see asked online about laptops is "Will it run Minecraft?", to which the answer, for future reference, is "Yeah probably". Mojang's space block-'em-upwards isn't terribly demanding specs-wise, and it's the perfect game to mess around with on a laptop when you lot're supposed to be writing features for PC Gamer about low-spec games. While it's often played on a tablet, phone or panel these days, you lot're getting the latest updates and modern support if y'all cull to build stuff with your PC. Hither's our often updated list of the best Minecraft mods.
Stardew Valley
Release date: 2016 | Developer: ConcernedApe | Link: Humble Store
An indie awareness that brought the idyllic subcontract life of Harvest Moon to PC. Build your farm into a vegetable empire, go exploring, acquire about the lives of your neighbors, autumn in love and settle down. Uncomplicated graphics ensure this one will run similar a dream on your laptop, and it'll make long flights laissez passer by in a snap. Stardew Valley has officially supported co-op farming for a couple years now, which is undoubtedly a great manner to go back to Pelican Town.
Best laptop games: Strategy
Loop Hero
Release: 2021 | Developer: Four Quarters | Link: Steam
This tiny strategy game was one of our early favorites in 2021. "From the moment the 16-colour title screen fades in alongside dramatic chiptunes, yous feel like you're playing some forgotten, VGA-era fantasy RPG, a game that still contains some of the mystery and difficulty of 1991, but gently modernized to 2021," Evan says in our Loop Hero review. Most importantly, all that classically-inspired goodness comes in a tiny installation that shouldn't challenge your PC nearly as much as your strategy skills.
Slay the Spire
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 Run a risk of Rain, where finding random "relics" can change how you play. Or, if you lot become a lucky combination, turn you lot into a murderous menu god. Similar the best roguelikes and deckbuilders, Slay the Spire feeds you that immense satisfaction when you find a combo that absolutely wrecks. Enemies that were in one case intimidating fall earlier you like flies. It's a fun one to replay once more and once again, thanks to unlockables similar more than powerful cards for each deck blazon, and protagonists that play wholly differently from ane some other.
Into The Breach
Release date: 2018 | Developer: Subset Games | Link: Humble Store
A phenomenal, bite-sized plough-based strategy game from the makers of FTL, and hands i of PC Gamer'due south favorite games of 2018. It's incredibly replayable, with different mech squads and tactics to master. Every bit we said in our Into The Breach review: "Exacting, agonising, challenging, and intensely rewarding, Into the Alienation delivers in the tiniest package the most perfectly formed tactics around."
Civilization 5
Release appointment: 2010 | Developer: Firaxis Games | Link: Apprehensive Store
Civ is commonly a safe bet when information technology comes to depression-finish machines, and y'all won't need too beefy a PC in club to play the second newest entry in the series. Only don't go blaming united states of america when you forget to slumber, then embroiled are yous in your quest to wipe the warmongering Gandhi from the face of the Earth. 4Xs in full general tend to be quite kind to laptops, so if you meet the (slightly less pocket-sized) requirements, it'due south worth casting your middle over Aamplitude Studios' fantasy-themed Endless Legend, and Triumph's Age of Wonders III as well.
Magic: The Gathering Arena
Release engagement: 2018 | Developer: Wizards of the Coast | Link: Official site
Finally, the digital adaptation Magic deserves. The eternal collectible card game has gotten enough of bite-size videogames over the years, and limped along with the bigger, messier Magic: The Gathering Online, just this one is finally the real Magic feel, and it's even so a lot of fun. And its recommended system specs belong to 2011 hardware—whatever modernistic laptop will handle information technology no problem.
"Information technology'southward free-to-play and generous," we wrote in our Magic: The Gathering Arena review. "When you buy a booster pack, whether with greenbacks or gilt earned in-game, y'all earn wildcards which can exist traded for any carte of an equivalent rarity (replacing the typical dusting and crafting systems of other digital CCGs). It is much more generous than tabletop Magic. You'll still need to driblet money for whatsoever perfect deck'due south dominating the meta, or if you tin't be bothered grinding daily quests for gilt. Just if you climbed out of the money hole of collecting Magic cards in a book total of plastic sleeves back in the day, this is a safe manner of re-experiencing that without going broke."
Darkest Dungeon
Release engagement: 2016 | Developer: Ruby Hook Studios | Link: Humble Store
A vivid, stressful strategy dungeon explorer that channels Lovecraft with brilliant narration and truly terrifying quests. Every bit your party encounters horrors in the dark, the stress piles on, and as well much stress causes them to take on new personality quirks that snowball into all the same more than stress and loss of sanity. This creates a constant tension. What if your plague doc is the most reliable member of your political party, but insults his comrades every few minutes, raising their stress levels? Permadeath is brutal in Darkest Dungeon, merely you'll notice it hard to quit even when an entire party of heroes gets wiped out.
Best laptop games: RPGs
Disco Elysium - The Last Cutting
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 manner, only its painterly second environments won't button your organisation. It's a detective RPG that feels quite a lot similar playing a classic adventure game or a visual novel. Wait to slow things down hither to detect clues and secrets in its detailed environments and read a lot of fantastic writing. It's sly, clever, and full of surprises, pregnant y'all tin become some of the best new RPG action without needing a GPU that handles ray-tracing.
Thanks to the Final Cutting version of the game that now comes standard, Disco Elysium's installation size is a fleck beefier than it used to exist. If yous've got the space to spare though, it should however run swell.
Sunless Skies
Release date: 2019 | Programmer: Failbetter Games | Link: Steam
Like Sunless Seas before information technology, Sunless Skies is part roguelike chance, role interactive fiction. Merely it does both meliorate than ever. It earned a ninety in our review, "because of how brilliantly its disparate elements combine to produce exciting stories, from scrapes yous survive past the skin of your teeth, to moments where your own hubris gets you killed. It helps that decease ways something, because that elevates the stakes when you're i straight hit from a yawning hole opening upwards in your hull and some hideous monstrosity is circling around for another attack... Beyond the changes y'all make, the sheer range of scenarios and potential outcomes means you'll find something new on every run."
For more than wonderful writing in a game that leans more heavily towards interactive fiction with fewer survival mechanics, check out the sublime fourscore Days, besides. A game almost traveling the earth is perfect when you're traveling the world with a laptop.
West of Loathing
Release date: 2017 | Developer: Asymmetric | Link: Steam
The funniest game of 2017, and maybe the funniest RPG we've e'er played. This is a game you explore for jokes, not loot. They're in every corner of the world, and even in the options menu, and it'southward a joy to discover them. West of Loathing is besides a genuinely fun and clever RPG, with classes like the Beanslinger and Cowpuncher instead of genre standards.
As nosotros wrote in our Due west of Loathing review: "Affluent a toilet for an XP gain, search a haystack for a needle or dig through a mine cart for a hunk of meat ore (W of Loathing has a meat-based economic system), and insult yourself in a mirror to gain a combat vitrify because you angered yourself so much. Most chiefly, sticking your nose in every corner of West of Loathing isn't but benign for improving your character'due south stats and filling your bottomless inventory with weapons, garments, nutrient, hooch, and hats (at that place are over l of them!). This is a funny game, and you'll want to root out every last shred of humour earlier you lot're done with it."
Undertale
Release engagement: 2015 | Developer: tobyfox | Link: Apprehensive Shop
2015's breakout RPG inversion might owe a bit of its widespread success to the fact that a toaster could run it. This isn't to say information technology's not a looker or fun. For those versed in RPG and pop video game tropes, Undertale is a colorful, mannerly, upsetting swan ride through your habits and behaviors. Date a skeleton, pet (or kill) some dogs, think manner too difficult virtually mice and cheese. As we explain in our Undertale review, it will brand you second guess every key press except the 'Buy' button.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Release date: 2017 | Developer: inXile Amusement | Link: Humble Store
A successor to Planescape: Torment? It seemed as well good to be truthful, and yet inXile took the engine Obsidian fabricated for Pillars of Eternity and managed to return to the earth of Torment in an RPG that recaptures much of what fabricated the original and so special. Lucky for laptop gamers, it tin can also run on depression-end hardware, which is fitting for a throwback RPG. In our Torment: Tides of Numenera review, we wrote that "a deadening showtime gives mode to a idea-provoking run a risk in a remarkable setting. A fitting follow-up to a beloved RPG."
All-time laptop games: Puzzle & Adventure
Opus Magnum
Release date: 2017 | Developer: Zachtronics | Link: Steam
We have just good things to say about Opus Magnum, only this endorsement could really be swapped out for any of Zachtronics' insidiously deep and clever puzzle games. If cyberpunk's your jam, try out Exapunks instead. But why Opus Magnum? The joy of expression that comes from building simple (or ridiculously circuitous) machines to solve a item problem, then sitting back and watching it all work.
Nosotros scored information technology a 91 in our Opus Magnum review, writing "the magic to Opus Magnum is that while there are theoretical perfect machines, the space in which you construct your solution is then wide open that you feel like you're piecing it all together entirely yourself, and the restrictions are entirely mutual sense, so frustrations are usually down to your own inability rather than arbitrary rules... You'll run across how your Steam friends rated and a histogram showing where your ratings lie beyond all players; I challenge you not to feel tempted to go correct back again to make your machine better, and to wonder, how on Earth was information technology possible to make it *that* quick?"
Baba Is Yous
Release appointment: 2019 | Developer: Hempuli Oy | Link: Steam
The all-time puzzle game of 2019? Certainly the one with the catchiest name. It's about pushing blocks, but also pushing words, which so become commands. And from those elementary combinations, wild varieties of puzzles unfold. It's hard to draw but easy to understand once yous play information technology, and in our Baba Is Y'all review we dig into why it's so fun to play:
"[One] solution is to make use of the blocks which determine your avatar—they read 'Baba is y'all' in a vertical line. Don't disconnect them, otherwise 'you' no longer exist in the level and cannot interact with it. But yous tin use 'Baba' every bit the start of a horizontal command, a bit like a programming crossword puzzle. Write 'Baba is win' and it makes you (Baba) the win condition of the level. There's so much potential and it'southward so satisfying!"
Unavowed
Release date: 2018 | Developer: Wadjet Centre | Link: Steam
The latest adventure game from Blackwell creators Wadjet Eye is one of its best, bringing in demons, exorcisms, and some light roleplaying elements that affect how the story plays out. Take it from our Unavowed review: "Unavowed is another fantastic take a chance from Wadjet Eye, and it'due south great to see studio founder Dave Gilbert back in the saddle. The humour didn't always land for me and some of the vocalisation acting is a little iffy, simply otherwise this is a fine example of a modern point-and-click chance. The addition of character customisation and companions doesn't sound like much, merely information technology massively changes the feel of the game, even if other aspects, such equally the puzzles, are withal steeped in the by."
Gorogoa
Release date: 2017 | Developer: Buried Betoken | Link: Steam
An ingenious puzzle game years in the making, hand-drawn by creator Jason Roberts. Gorogoa tells a story with its puzzles, rather than but placing puzzles in a thematic wrapping. This is part of what makes it something special, and particularly engrossing, as nosotros wrote in our Gorogoa review: "The story itself is an interesting, ambiguous framework through which to explore the thought of repeating patterns. Y'all aren't quite seeing the underpinnings of the game's universe so much as you're tuning into refrains that recur beyond time and scale—coherence rather than transparency... A fantastic feat of interlocking storytelling and design."
All-time laptop games: Activity & Platformers
Terraria
Release: 2011 | Developer: Re-Logic | Link: Steam
Terraria is a huge game in a very tiny package. Even if you originally wrote it off equally a second Minecraft clone, information technology's grown far across that label in the years since. Terraria is a crafting hazard with heaps of updates to its name with new bosses, biomes, line-fishing, and too many other things to proper name. Information technology was however getting updates in 2020. Bluntly, Wes thinks it's ludicrous that it nevertheless costs simply $10. It'south also wild how lilliputian this huge game demands from your calculator with its tiny install size and modest organization requirements.
Amid Evil
Release: 2019 | Programmer: Indefatigable | Link: Steam
In the wake of 2016's Doom, we've seen a resurgence of new-but-old shooters that fully embrace the graphical styles and level design of 90s hallmarks similar Quake and Hexen. Amidst Evil may exist the best of them: it's the heavy metal album cover version of a 90s FPS, full of epic axes, swords that shoot green energy beams, and grenade launcher wands that fire miniaturized planets as weapons. Every area in the game has a unique artful and gear up of enemies, so it never overstays its welcome. And considering the blueprint is faithful to its 90s inspirations, it'll run on a toaster (a suitably hardcore toaster, anyway).
If Amidst Evil isn't quite your aesthetic, check out the also fantastic Dusk or Ion Fury.
Celeste
Release date: 2018 | Developer: Matt Makes Games | Link: Steam
The indie platformer darling of the past few years, and with adept reason: Celeste combines tight, instantly satisfying controls with wonderful music and a story that may speak to you, if y'all've ever battled your way through depression. If you're more into the jumping than the self-reflection, that'due south okay too—Celeste has the snappiness of Super Meat Boy, where trying a challenge over and over again takes only seconds, and nailing information technology at the cease leaves you lot pumping your fists. That air-nuance. *Chef'due south kiss*
Like many PC platformers, Celeste is perfectly playable with mouse and keyboard, but y'all might want to throw a controller with a good D-pad in your pocketbook if you're traveling.
Cuphead
Release date: 2017 | Developer:StudioMDHR | Link: Humble Shop
Quite perchance the prettiest game you tin can play on a laptop or low-cease system thanks to its mitt-fatigued, classically animated 2D graphics. Cuphead channels Gunstar Heroes and other 90s platformers with tough every bit nails multi-stage bosses, but learnable tells and patterns brand it conquerable if you keep a absurd head and stick with it. It'south worth playing for the phenomenal soundtrack and art solitary, but why non team up with Mugman and accept down a few bosses while y'all're admiring the craft?
Heat Signature
Release date: 2017 | Developer: Suspicious Developments | Link: Apprehensive Shop
Fabricated by onetime PC Gamer editor Tom Francis, creator of the also-first-class (and low-spec-friendly) Gunpoint, Heat Signature is a game near sneaking onto spaceships, braining guards with a wrench or using all kinds of gadgets to deport out a mission, and dealing with the chaos that ensues. In our review, nosotros wrote: "Heat Signature inspires creativity through emergent complexity similar any groovy immersive sim. I can't stop regaling friends with my stories of heists gone bad or boasting about my flashes of brilliance in the heat of the moment. Heat Signature is brilliant at teasing these anecdotal threads out of a procedural universe."
Best laptop games: Story games
Emily Is Away <3
Release engagement: 2021 | Developer: Kyle Seeley | Link: Steam
The entire Emily Is Away series looks similar information technology's running on a 15 year former machine, and it probably could. These imitation social media games are interactive stories about a group of loftier schoolers navigating all their interpersonal relationships. Emily Is Away and Emily Is Away As well are made to wait like AOL Instant Messenger while the third has moved along to the Facebook era. They're all excellent stories that will accept you back to the quondam internet days and they've got system requirements to match.
Her Story
Release date: 2015 | Developer: Sam Barlow | Link: Steam
Her story is an FMV game about watching video tapes from interviews with a adult female concerning a murder from 1994. Hunting through a database using keywords to find clips and solve the mystery has all sorts of twists and turns that go far an excellent story. "Her Story has all the drama and intrigue of the all-time TV offense shows, but plays to the interactive strengths of the medium in a daring, imaginative way, trusting you to make sense of the scattered jigsaw pieces at your ain pace," says our Her Story review.
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