The 65 Best Games on Steam [March 2021]

Despite coming out in 2018, Among Us didn’t hit mainstream popularity for two full years, after being streamed on Twitch by popular streamer Sodapoppin. The concept is simple enough: you fill the role of a crewmate on either a spaceship, HQ, or a planet base, performing multiple tasks as you wander around the map with up to nine other players. However, there’s a twist: between one and three of the crewmates are actually imposters, alien invaders looking to kill the crewmates and cause chaos. While the crewmates work around the ship, fulfilling tasks and controlling the environment, imposters are able to control the ship’s central computer, teleporting around the map and slowly killing crewmates in privacy.

Once a dead body is found and reported by a crewmate, you’ll be forced into a chatroom to discuss which of the characters seems to be the imposter. As you chat amongst yourselves, you’ll need to determine who seems to be the imposter using clues and trusting your allies to align behind a person. Once you’ve reach a consensus, you can vote for the player you want to eject from the map. If the crew ejected the imposter, they’ll win (or be taken to the next round to find another imposter). If the crew injected another crewmate, they’ll be returned to the game for another round—with one less crewmate to keep them safe.

The most-recent release in the long-running Assassin’s Creed series from Ubisoft, Odyssey follows up 2017’s well-received Origins with a move firmly into role-playing territory. From full dialogue wheels to long-winding quests to waste hours and hours upon, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey goes a long way in offering you the Ancient Greece-RPG from BioWare you never knew you wanted. The game is set in the year 431 BC, following a Greek mercenary (either Alexios or Kassandra, depending on which gender you pick at the beginning of the game) as they fight in the war between Athens and Sparta. Having family on both side of the war, the hero tries to reconcile the differences between the two sides, discovering an evil cult along the way. Of course, the real gameplay in this comes not from the war between Athens and Sparta, but all the NPCs you’ll spend your time romancing. Note that, though available through Steam, you’ll need Uplay installed to properly run Odyssey.

If you’ve already finished Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is now available—just not on Steam, unfortunately.

One of the most popular genres we’ve seen burst in popularity throughout the 2010s (and largely thanks to Steam) is the roguelike, a subgenre of the RPG that features, among other tropes, randomized levels and permadeath. There’s no shortage of roguelikes on Steam, but one of our favorites to return to again and again is The Binding of Isaac, originally released in 2011 before being redesigned and re-released with all new graphics and a new engine powering the game in 2014. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is the version to get, containing all the fun of the original but in a sleeker, larger package. The twin-stick shooter gameplay is easy to learn, and there are hundreds of items to experiment with to change the gameplay.

In game, you’ll take control of Isaac (and other unlockable characters),guiding him through a series of dungeons in his house’s basement as he attempts to fight his way to his religious mother and defeat her from the inside. The game has serious themes of biblical allegory and comes from creator Edmund McMillan’s conflicted feelings on growing up with religion, along with his love for The Legend of Zelda.

A final DLC expansion for the game, The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, is planned for release on December 31st.

Nearly fourteen years on, BioShock continues to be one of the best games of the 21st century, and in the BioShock collection on Steam, you can get all three titles for the price of a single game. Both BioShock and BioShock 2 have been remastered with higher fidelity than ever before, while The Collection has brought Infinite to PC for the first time since its release. All three games are well worth playing, but if you can only choose one, you can also grab BioShock Remastered from Steam independently. That game follows Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Built by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, the city was intended to be an isolated utopia, but the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which can be used to grant superhuman powers, initiated the city’s turbulent decline. Jack tries to find a way to escape, fighting through hordes of ADAM-obsessed enemies, and the iconic, deadly Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and eventually learning of Rapture’s past.

If you miss Castlevania—classic, PS1-era Castlevania—then do we have good news for you. Led by former Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a brand-new game that takes what you loved about classic Castlevania games and mixes it with current graphics, updated RPG elements, and an all-new story. Set in 18th century England, the game follows Miriam, a human fused with demonically-charged crystals known as Shardbenders, who were once sacrificed by the Alchemy Guild in an attempt to scare demons from hell. Prior to her sacrificed, Miriam fell into an unnatural slumber, causing her to miss out on ten years of progress throughout England. Now awake, Miriam will explore a classic Metroidvania world as she fights monsters and bosses, and attempts to save England from Gebel, the only other Shardbender survivor. Unlike Mighty No. 9, which was revived on Kickstarter around the same time as Bloodstained, Ritual of the Night actually delivers everything fans wanted from this type of revival.

Fans were pretty disappointed to learn that Borderlands 3, the long-awaited sequel in the popular shooter-looter franchise, would be an Epic Store exclusive on PC at launch. Six months later, however, and Borderlands 3 finally arrived on Steam in March, ready for anyone unwilling to grab the Epic Game Store to start up a new co-op adventure on the world of Pandora. If you’ve played a previous Borderlands game, you know what you’re getting into here. You’ll be given a series of quests and side missions to tackle in either single, co-op, or online mulitplayer as one of four classes. Enemies drop a ton of loot, and you have more than a billion options for your weapons. This time around, you’re trying to stop Troy and Tyreen Calypso, twin cult-leaders who are trying to harness the power of Vaults spread around the galaxy.

With the Chapter 9 DLC now out, it’s a perfect time to head back and revisit Celeste. First released in January of 2018, this gorgeous retro-style platformer is as fun to play as it is to master. Developed by Matt Makes Games, the same team behind Towerfall Ascension, Celeste builds a single-player adventure platformer on top of the main gameplay aesthetic from Towerfall: the ability to dash in midair. With this new power comes a fully featured platformer, complete with collectables, secret levels, and all the challenge you could ever want in a modern platformer. Celeste follows a young woman named Madeline who climbs up the titular Celeste Mountain, a fictional location in Canada. The game isn’t just a great platformer, as Madeline grapples not just with the mountain in front of her, but her depression and unease as well.

2013’s SimCity was a mixed bag upon its release. According to pre-launch reviews, the game’s systems were excellent and easy to use, but the always-online status of the game caused the required servers to crash, leading to the game being broken for weeks following launch. Though the game eventually was up and running, plenty of people were burnt by the game enough times to give up altogether. If that sounds like you, allow us to introduce you to Cities: Skylines, an original city building game from acclaimed publisher Paradox. Originally greenlit following the failure of SimCity, the game launched in 2015 to rave reviews. A return to the classic style of city building, you’ll be impressed and surprised with how much can get done here. It’s absolutely a must-have for any simulation fans, and if you happen to own a Nintendo Switch alongside your PC, you can finally take your cities on the go.

Dungeon crawlers are a blast, but they’re so often played alone under the cover of your individual room. The major problem with trying to play a dungeon crawler with some friends is, at some point, you’re going to have to pass the controller off. Crawl takes the idea of a joint dungeon crawler and runs with it, choosing to have you and the other players compete with each other and making three of the four players villains instead of heroes. The game begins when you and the other players fight it out to see who starts the game. With three of the players dead, the remaining player begins exploring the dungeon, fighting their way through and collecting gold to upgrade their equipment. Meanwhile, the ghosts will set out as well, possessing the objects and monsters in the room and working to ensure that the crawler himself is murdered, only to take their place.

Though a long-running franchise, Crusader Kings has only seen three major releases since the launch of the first game in 2004. Crusader Kings II improved on the original in nearly every way, but the huge collection of DLC add-ons made it tough to get into. Thankfully, eight years after the release of Crusader Kings II comes a full new release, and it’s one for the ages. As a strategy-based dynasty simulator, you’ll take up the role of running a government set in the Middle Ages. As you manage to build relationships, you’ll need trust and alliances to run a successful nation, while avoiding threats from outside invaders—and from jealous political rivals.

You know it, you love it, you’ve likely played it—Dark Souls is the RPG of a generation, a game that popularized the type of play that was first seen in From Software’s predecessor Demon Souls, and if you’re a fan of difficult games, Metroidvania-style puzzle box levels, or just RPGs in general, you’ll need to play this game. Dark Souls as a trilogy is actually pretty solid, despite a controversial (with fans) second and third entries, but if we’re going to suggest one of the games, it’s Dark Souls. In the game, you’ll find yourself as an undead soldier making your way through a ruined and corrupted world, with minimal story and even less direction, fighting off enemies in challenges that will have you parrying and slicing away. There are two versions available to play on Steam: the original Prepare to Die PC release, and the newer Dark Souls Remastered from May of 2018. If you’re new to the series, we suggest that you pick up Remastered; despite mixed fan reception on PC, it’s the better version for newcomers to jump into.

The 2010s saw a major revival for Metroidvanias, a genre that had seen a dearth of releases in the decade prior. Though Dead Cells has been on PC for quite some time in early access, the official release in August 2018 saw the game praised for its excellent controls, gameplay, and mechanics. In Dead Cells, players are met with a combination of classic Metroidvania exploration with the difficulty and repetition of roguelikes. In the game, the player must fight their way out of a dungeon while collecting weapons and treasure throughout the environment. If Dark Souls-meets-Hollow Knight-meets-The Binding of Isaac seems like your cup of tea, you’ll fall in love with what’s offered by Dead Cells.

Plus, if you’ve already beaten Dead Cells into the ground, it might be time to go back. Motion Twin’s first paid DLC package for Dead Cells is now available, and it finds you exploring all new areas right from the start of each run. The Bad Seed costs just $4.99, and critics have already praised it as being a fantastic expansion. A second DLC expansion launches in 2021.

Dead Space is the most prominent game from now-defunct developer Visceral Games. Then known as EA Redwood Shores Studios, Dead Space was the start of a brand-new IP for EA, at a time where the company was trying to hard to innovate after years of criticism from gamers. Dead Space was a major hit, both critically and commercially, praised for its sci-fi aesthetics and its horrifying atmosphere. In Dead Space, you play Isaac Clarke (yes, our second protagonist named Isaac on this list), a mechanic sent to respond to the USG Ishimura after a distress call is received. When you arrive, your entire crew is slaughtered by monsters and mutants that have invaded and destroyed the ship. You must repair the ship while working to fight off these Necromorphs, using your gun to slice and dismember the mutants in order to kill them once and for all. If you love third-person shooters or horror titles, Dead Space is a must-play game.

Destiny 2 arrived in style on Steam, alongside the Shadowkeep expansion, so if you’ve always wanted to check out Destiny 2, we have good news. With the game’s relaunch in 2019, it’s never been so welcoming for newcomers. Although now four expansions deep, Bungie has gone ahead and made the original base game free-to-play under a new title: Destiny 2: New Light. In addition to all of the content from vanilla Destiny 2, you’ll also find every activity from Curse of Osiris and Warmind included for free. That’s an exciting venture for any video game, and it means players can get a ton of game for absolutely free. Once you’re caught up, you can start jumping into Beyond Light, the newest expansion, which sees you returning to the Moon for the first time since Destiny.

In 2001, Capcom produced Devil May Cry, an action hack-and-slash for the PS2 that was originally intended to become Resident Evil 4. Instead, the game became a series in its own right, spinning off into numerous sequels and an HD remake collection in 2012. The series was rebooted in 2013 by Ninja Theory, a different developer that offered their own spin on the series with a game called DmC: Devil May Cry. Despite positive reviews from critics and many newcomers to the series, veterans saw the game as lackluster, no longer offering what they wanted in the original collection. Finally, after years of silence and a full decade after Devil May Cry 4, the fifth game in the primary series was announced, bringing back Dante and Nero as playable characters, alongside a brand-new character named V. If you’re ready to return to the world of defeating demons from hell, DMC5 is the game for you.

Terry Cavanagh is one of our favorite indie developers working today. Though he’s made a number of smaller titles available for free around the web, his two major commercial releases, VVVVVV and Super Hexagon, were some of the best games of the years they were released. Likewise, Terry’s Flappy Bird-inspired Maverick Bird was one of the best takes on the genre when that game was all the rage in 2014. Needless to say, we pay attention when he releases a new game, and after years of waiting, Dicey Dungeons has finally arrived on Steam. Combining elements of roguelikes and deck-building games, you’ll have to challenge Lady Luck herself as you complete dungeons within a game show. The odds aren’t in your favor as you move through each arena, battling monsters, collecting treasure, and upgrading your stats. Keep in mind that this game is built around RNG—you’re bound to have some bad runs while running through each session.

Disco Elysium is one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2019, with reviewers and gamers alike praising the title for its writing, memorable characters, and its open-world storytelling. The game puts you in the shoes of a detective suffering from memory loss after a drinking binge fueled by an emotional breakdown. With no memory of who you are or what you’re doing, you’ll need to solve a murder case while also figuring out your own identity in the city of Revachol. Disco Elysium is an RPG that puts the emphasis on dialogue, with virtually no combat. Through your skill checks, you’ll need to use your four primary abilities—intellect, psyche, physique and motorics—to make your way through the world. Despite a late 2019 release, Disco Elysium won all four awards it was nominated for at The Game Awards, including Best RPG, and holds a 91 on Metacritic.

A sequel to 2014’s Divinity: Original Sin and, by extension, 2002’s Divine Divinity, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an improvement on its predecessor in every way. Set centuries after the last game and in the fantasy world of Rivellon, you begin the game as a Sourcerer who is captured by the Divine Order of the world, a group who have dedicated themselves to persecuting Voidwoken individuals. After being sent to an island fortress known as Fort Joy, a prison for Sourcerers (those who can use Source powers), you find yourself saved from a Kraken attack on the ship after hearing a mysterious voice calling you “Godwoken.” The game is a traditional top-down RPG, with a party of you and up to three other players, a leveling system, and the ability to play in single-player, online, or local co-op game modes. It’s been praised as one of the great RPGs of our time, so if you haven’t jumped on the Divinity train yet, you absolutely should.

If you already finished up Original Sin 2, you’ll be excited to know the dev team behind both recent Divinity games are hard at work on Baldur’s Gate 3, and you can jump into that game now in early access.

In Bethesda and id Software’s reboot of the classic first-person shooter, Doom takes players back to Hell for a fast-paced, action-packed FPS title that is everything you could ever want from the genre. The game begins on Mars, as the unnamed space marine works towards killing every demon summoned to the red planet. Unlike Doom 3, which put the action in a slower-paced horror title, Doom returns to a fast-moving shooter, a game designed around being as bloody and ruthless as possible. Everything you love is here, from the chainsaw mechanic to the classic shotgun players know and love, with a brand-new combat system that is designed around the player being as vicious and bloodthirsty as possible.

If you’ve already played 2016’s Doom, a sequel, Doom Eternal, is now available.

Dota 2 is the perfect game on Steam for anyone looking for a competitive title to sink hours into. Developed by Valve, Dota 2 is free-to-play without frustrating microtransactions, can be played endlessly online, runs on nearly any modern gaming computer, and is easy to learn but so incredibly difficult to master, giving players a reason to keep coming back again and again. As one of the leading MOBAs online, Dota 2 is no longer in the hottest competitive scene in gaming (a title that eventually moved to survival games, hero shooters, and most recently, battle royales). But if you haven’t tried Dota 2 or any other MOBA available online, you deserve it to yourself to give this genre a shot. From its ultra-high competitive scene to the diehard eSports arena that scene mega-large prize pools of cash for players looking to compete, Dota 2 is a must-have game on Steam.

Since the release of Dragon Ball FighterZ in 2018, the game has managed to rise up from the competition, going from a great-looking fighting game to one of the most popular and most competitive games on the scene to date. Developed by Arc System Works (best known for their own fighting franchises, Guilty Gear and BlazBlue), they’ve managed to take yet another popular anime or anime-inspired series (following their work on Persona 4 Arena) and turn it into something truly amazing. As you select your team of three characters, you’ll be forced to fight, switch, and use assist moves alongside traditional combos to battle your foes online and in a full story mode.

This list isn’t shy on RPGs, but by all accounts, the newest Dragon Quest adventure is one of the best you can buy. The first mainstream Dragon Quest game to come to consoles and PC since 2004’s Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Quest IX was on the DS; Dragon Quest X was an MMO exclusive to Japan), Dragon Quest XI follows the unnamed protagonist at 16 years old, a young man who grew up in a quiet town with an unassuming life. That all changes when he discovers his true fate: he’s the reincarnation of a hero that once saved the world, and must once again put in his efforts to become that hero once more. Setting off across the region of Erdrea, the hero you control will be joined by friends and faced down by foes as he makes his way through the world. This is a huge game, and a traditional RPG that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but sticks with the tried-and-true Dragon Quest formula.

Dragon Quest XI S, the definitive version once limited to Switch, will launch on PC this December, and you can play a free ten hour trial right now to get your feet wet.

Like Dark Souls, this pick is a no-brainer. You’ve probably played Skyrim if you own a gaming PC, or a console released since 2005; hell, the game is even on the Switch. If you’ve somehow missed out on an RPG that defined the last generation of consoles, however, you’ll want to pick it up on Steam, especially during any number of the sales that helps to make the game cheaper than ever. In Skyrim, you take up the role of a character destined for death, before a dragon attacks the city you’ve been imprisoned within. After escaping, you set out on a quest that slowly reveals your fate as a Dragonborn, a mortal born with the soul and power of a dragon. Skyrim is a wide-reaching RPG, where you can take up any number of quests, battingle monsters and demons, while wondering around the open-world of Skyrim. The game is currently only available as a remastered Special Edition version, which features new graphics and improved performance. A sequel, The Elder Scrolls VI, was teased at E3 2018, but don’t expect it to come out for years to come.

For some, this pick is a no-brainer; for others, picking New Vegas over Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 is an insult to the series. In all seriousness, we found New Vegas to be the best of the FPS-era of Fallout, the closest to the original titles and the best of the bunch, Fallout 2. Developed by legendary RPG maker Obsidian, a company founded by ex-Black Isle Studios devs after the closure of that studio (the original team behind Fallout). There are plenty of things to love (and hate) about New Vegas, but a lot of it comes down to the writing. Obsidian is known as an excellent RPG maker, partly for their writing team led by Chris Avellone (who has now left the company), and the writing shines here. From quests to improved gameplay, there’s plenty for any lover of the series, from Fallout diehards to RPG fanatics, to enjoy. As a bonus, the game regularly goes on sale for just a couple bucks.

For years, fans have asked Square Enix to rerelease Final Fantasy VIII on multiple platforms. Despite Square Enix recently releasing games like Final Fantasy VII, IX, X/X-2, and even Final Fantasy XII, VIII always seemed to get the short end of the stick. As a divisive game with both hardcore fans and detractors, the rumors surrounding Square’s silence on FFVIII mostly stated that many of the game’s original files had been lost. So when the game was finally announced for a modern remastering at E3 2019, it was a complete shock and delight. Final Fantasy VIII follows Squall, a young mercenary who leads a team of fighters in a fantasy land. Drawn into a conflict sparked by a sorceress looking to destroy the fabric of time, Squall must fight in a battle to save the world while simultaneously growing up along the way. The game has been remastered from its original release and has, frankly, never looked better.

For some, recommending Final Fantasy XV over other, older games in the legendary JRPG series is bordering on blasphemous. But to us, Final Fantasy XV is not just a great entry in the series following the lackluster XIII-series, it’s also a perfect way to show off your gaming PC’s high-end hardware. Final Fantasy XV ditches the turn-based combat of the series for a brand-new real-time action combat setup, one inspired by the likes of Kingdom Hearts but with a much more refined feel. The story is more straightforward than the last several iterations as well, placing you in the role of Prince Noctis, a young man whose life takes a turn for the worst after his city is attacked by an enemy army. From cruising along the roadside with your friends to fighting off evil soldiers, there’s plenty to do in Final Fantasy XV, and the game looks phenomenal while you do it. If you’re looking for a more retro-feeling Final Fantasy, tryout Final Fantasy X | X-2 Remastered or Final Fantasy VII.

Rockstar Games have a legendary status among gamers, from Red Dead Redemption to the underrated Bully. But no series of theirs has earned the same reputation as Grand Theft Auto, and Grand Theft Auto V on the PC is the perfect way to play. Despite mixed user reviews (largely due to 2K Games’ decision to force popular modding tool OpenIV to shut down before the modding tool was once again allowed to be distributed weeks later, as well as recent reports of unheeded bans online), Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best games in the series, elevating the story and the gameplay over 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV. If there’s one reason to play the game on PC instead of on the PS4 or Xbox One, it comes down to the online community: unlike on consoles, you won’t have to pay to take your gameplay online.

Supergiant Games is no stranger to critical praise. In the last decade, all three games released by the indie team—Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre—have all gained the attention of press and gamers alike. At the Game Awards in 2018, Supergiant announced their fourth game in early-access, titled Hades, but unfortunately, the game remained an Epic Games Store exclusive for a year. Thankfully, the game has finally arrived on Steam, and it was well worth the wait: Hades become one of the most acclaimed games of 2020 after launching version 1.0. If you haven’t checked out Hades yet, the game plays similarly to Diablo crossed with roguelike elements, seeing you pick up the mantle of Zagreus, the prince of the Underworld who tries to escape the realm from his father Hades. Repetition is the key, as you work your way through the underworld one run at a time, all to accomplish a goal that may seem more complex than meets the eye.

It’s taken years, but Halo is finally coming back to PC. Though Microsoft chose to release the entire Master Chief Collection on Steam over a full year, the company chose to kick things off by launching one of the most acclaimed games in the series. In fact, Halo: Reach is important for anyone looking to start the series from scratch; despite being the last Halo game developed by Bungie, Halo: Reach is a prequel to the original trilogy of games, set shortly before the events of the first Halo game. The game can now be played in up to 4K at 60FPS, and with a full multiplayer mode attached, it’s finally time to return to the world of Halo on PC. If you’ve already finished Reach, all the remaining games in The Master Chief Collection, including Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3 ODST are now available, either individually or as a package.

If you’re like many of the writers here at TechJunkie, you grew up playing dozens of earlier 3D platformers. From the genre-standard that is Super Mario 64 to collectathons like Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, to third-party games like Spyro the Dragon, the 3D platformer was one of our favorite genres in gaming, only to be put out to dry by every company but Nintendo in the 2000s. Through the power of nostalgia, however, these games have made something of a comeback. Sure, Yooka-Laylee was a bit of a mess in certain terms, but when it came to the release of A Hat in Time—an ode to the GameCube era of gaming, with direct nods to Super Mario Sunshine and Psychonauts—we were impressed with just how great the game looks and plays. If you’re ready to jump into a nostalgia-fueled platforming experience, A Hat in Time is the best way to do it.

After the polarized reception for 2012’s Hitman: Absolution, developer IO Interactive went back to the drawing board for the 2016 reboot and prequel, Hitman. Designed as a game set before the original Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman is a third-person stealth game where your main goal is to hunt targets without being caught. Each mission finds you in a new location, assuming a new identity and granting you tools, weapons, and explosions to build your traps and distractions before accomplishing your goal. Released episodically throughout 2016, the game is now available in a full season pack with bonus campaigns and DLC for the standard $59.99 price tag.

If you’re looking for more Hitman action, 2018 saw the release of a sequel in Hitman 2, and owning a copy of both games grants you access to upgraded versions of the original levels from the first game. Hitman 3, the second sequel, releases in January.

Everything you’ve heard about Hollow Knight since its 2017 release is absolutely true. First launched on PC back in February 2017, the game largely went uncovered by many gamers and critics alike, all while developers Team Cherry continued to roll out updates and patches, building the game out and making it better than ever. When the game was released on the Switch in June 2018, the game exploded in popularity, becoming a massive success and is now considered one of the best Metroidvanias of all time. As you control a knight making his way through Hollownest, you’ll uncover dark secrets and other hidden truths about the surrounding world. A sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, was announced in 2019 for a future release on PC and Switch. If you haven’t played the game yet, it’s one of the best ways to spend $15 on Steam today—and especially when you wait for sales.

Into the Breach is the first game in six years from development team Subset Games, best known for their work on space strategy roguelike FTL: Faster Than Light. While FTL is most certainly worth being picked up and added to your collection, we’ve chosen to highlight Into the Breach, a turn-based strategy game where you take the role of soldiers operating giant mechs in a far-future battle against monsters known as the Vek. The game presents you with a series of combat encounters and goals during every match, as you work to fight off the Vek and to be victorious in your conquest to save civilization. The game has been compared directly to chess, in that both games are more about maintaining control of your positions while sacrificing smaller pieces for larger victories. If you’re worried the game doesn’t have a strong story in addition to its pitch-perfect gameplay, think again: Chris Avallone, formerly of Black Isle and Obsidian, was the lead writer on the game.

The Jackbox Party Pack series is made up of some of our favorite local co-op games on Steam to date. Jackbox Games have been developing party titles for over two decades, but the Party Pack series are perhaps their best games as of yet. The concept is simple: The general concept is simple: you and some friends gather around the television, playing party games that involve trivia, art skills, creativity, word games, and other laugh-inducing hilarity, controlling input from your smartphone’s browser. The games are typically designed for up to eight people, though some games have a smaller limit on users and some games really only work if you have a large group of players. From games where you have to pick the liar in your friend group, to user-submitted  answers where you have to pick the funniest quote, there’s so much here that makes it easy to play a few rounds with you and your friends. Seven packs are now available; we recommend three and six as our favorites of the bunch.

Published by indie fan-favorite Devolver Digital and developed by Askiisoft, Katana Zero is a critically-acclaimed indie action platformer that’s guaranteed to thrill. The game is hard as nails, offering a satisfying experience for anyone who loves a good challenge. All combat is instant-death, since the game features no health bar, which means you’ll need to deflect gunfire, dodge melee attacks, and make your way through dangerous rooms as you navigate each sidescrolling level. Set in a neo-noir metropolis, the game follows a katana-wielding assasin called Subject Zero, as he completes various drug-fueled assassinations tasked to him by a psychiatrist, all on the backdrop of a foreign invasion.

While some of the titles on this list might be games you’re familiar with, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky might make your eyes glaze over. From the overly-long title to the anime-esque thumbnail, we wouldn’t blame some players for skipping right over this entry. You’d be doing yourself an injustice, however; Trails in the Sky is one of the best RPGs of the 2000s. Originally released on the PSP, Trails in the Sky is the first chapter in the Sky series of Trails, part of a wider RPG series developed by Nihon Falcom, the dev team behind the Ys games. From the strong original story to the fantastic grid and turn-based action combat, Trails in the Sky is a 100-hour RPG with some fantastic writing, great twists, and enjoyable combat. Trails in the Sky tells the story of Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua, two young adventurers who set out to find their father.

Originally released on the PS4 and Xbox One in January, Monster Hunter: World finally arrived on PC in August, fulfilling the months-long wait between the release as fans attempted to wait it out. A full reworking and revitalization of the original Monster Hunter franchise, World is perfect for returning veterans of the series and newcomers alike. Interested in learning the intricacies of hunting monsters? The layers and layers of systems, weapon choices, and armor upgrades that have kept players hunting for literally hundreds and thousands of hours on the 3DS and PSP releases has a fresh coat of paint, and with online hunting, a full story mode, and plenty of easy to learn tutorials, it’s time for anyone and everyone who wants to hunt to begin. A full expansion, Iceborne, is also available.

When No Man’s Sky launched in 2016, it was in a whirlwind of controversy. False promises and a sense that the game wasn’t complete made the launch a difficult sell for anyone looking to play a game that was set against some lofty goals. The game that was supposed to be endless felt like it came half-baked, leaving consumers and reviewers alike scratching their heads at what had happened. Years later, No Man’s Sky is a different game. Following a few major updates that added many of the missing portions of the game, Hello Games finished off their long trek to rescue No Man’s Sky by launching No Man’s Sky NEXT, a major update to the game that helped to turn the entire experience around. NEXT adds a graphical overhaul, multiplayer support, improved base building, and much more, all in addition to the content added through previous updates. If the earlier promises of No Man’s Sky sounded like your jam, but you were put off by the initial launch of the game, you should absolutely check this out.

In 2010, developer Cavia and publisher Square Enix released NieR, a spin-off from the Drakengard series following one of the endings from the first game. The reception for the title was mixed, with the story and characters praised but the gameplay was criticized for feeling loose and unconnected. Despite low sales at the time of release, the game slowly grew a cult following, and when a sequel was announced at E3 in 2015, fans were excited. Helping to make players even more ready for the sequel, however, was the involvement of PlatinumGames, a development team who knows their was around the combat. The result is one of the best games from 2017, a mix of RPG and action game that is destined to delight almost everyone who plays it. The story is the real gem here, with deep, meaningful consequences and thought-provoking ideas. You’ll want to make sure you get all the endings for this one.

If you enjoyed Automata, you’ll be thrilled to learn a remaster of the original game, Nier: Replicant, arrives in April.

Published by Microsoft Studios, Ori and the Blind Forest is a critically-acclaimed Metroidvania that manages to take what we love about the genre and make it not just affecting, but beautiful. The game follows Ori, a white guardian spirit, along with Sein, the “light and eyes” of the Nibel Forest’s Spirit Tree, who are on a mission to restore the forest after it’s lost to time. To do this, they’ll have to restore the three elements of balance: water, wind, and warmth. In the game, you control Ori as you move between platforms solving puzzles. Like most other Metroidvania games, Ori features an upgrade system where you strengthen Ori’s skills to progress through the game.

A sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, is now out on Steam as well, with most critics praising it as a worthy follow-up to one of the most beautiful games of all time.

Published by Team17, the developers behind Worms, and developed by Ghost Town Games, Overcooked! 2 is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed couch co-op game Overcooked!. Acting as an expansion and a retooling of the original game, Overcooked! 2 keeps everything that worked about the original and adds new content and new ideas to the mix. Unlike most competitive co-op games Overcooked! 2 requires you to work together in order to win each game, as you and your friends work to prepare and cook orders of food in ridiculous scenarios. Whether you’re dealing with moving walkways, crashing hot air balloons, or some other crazy change in the environment that causes strife between you and your friends, you’ll have to work together to figure out how everything’s going to come together in the end.

In the blink of an eye, something that seemed impossible just a few weeks ago became a reality. For the first time in series history, a mainline Persona game has finally arrived on PC. While the series truly hit the mainstream with Persona 5, die-hard fans will be the first to tell you both Persona 3 and Persona 4 are among some of the best RPGs ever made. Persona 4 Golden is the enhanced version of the original PS2 game, and prior to Golden launching on Steam, it has been exclusive to the PlayStation Vita. While both Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal have a number of quality of life improvements over the fourth game in the series, Golden remains an incredible JRPG and one of the best games ever made.

Portal 2 first released for consoles and PCs in 2011, and it’s still the most-recent single player game released by Valve, who have focused their energies on titles like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike. A sequel to the original game released in the classic Orange Box, Portal 2 takes place in the Portal and Half-Life universe, picking up a long time after both Half-Life 2 and the first Portal. When Chell, the player character from the first game, wakes up in a motel, she’s slowly guided through a tutorial area before being put back asleep, waking up, and realizing she’s back in the Aperture Science complex, now overgrown with vegetation and on the verge of collapse. With her portal gun, Chell must once again escape from the building, all while being tortured by evil AI unit GLaDOS once more, now even more vindictive after Chell’s attempted murder of her in the first game. Come for the incredible puzzles and single-player campaign; stay for the excellent two-player co-op levels that can be played both online and in split-screen multiplayer.

What started with a soft thud has been nursed back to health, becoming one of the must-play multiplayer titles on Steam today. Rainbow Six Siege was first released two and a half years ago, to semi-positive reviews and initially-weak sales. Spawned from the cancelled Rainbow Six game Patriots, the Ubisoft-developed title has grown a massive fan base and turned itself into a major eSport, all thanks to the developer care and a series of updates that took the game from a solid base with imperfect playability, to a game that has potential, promise, and some excellent gameplay. In the game, you and other players work together as a team of counter-terrorists, playing through a series of game modes like Hostage, Bomb, Secure Area, and Tactical Realism. The game just recently surpassed 35 million registered players across all platforms, making what once seemed like a dud in the series into a full-fledged excellent game.

After middling fifth and sixth entries in the long-running series, Capcom took their most popular horror series and did something brand-new with it, for the first time since Resident Evil 4: they took it first-person, pushing the violence in your face and making the game scarier than it ever has been before. Resident Evil VII: Biohazard (the subtitle, of course, coming from the Japanese name for the series) is a first-person survival horror game where you play as Ethan Winters, a man who receives a mysterious letter from his wife Mia, a woman presumed dead for three years prior to the start of the game. When he arrives at the supplied address, a house owned by the Bakers, he finds much more than he bargained for: a family full of evil, mutated beings out for blood. After learning both Mia and the Bakers are infected with a disease, he works with a mysterious contact named Zoe to save his wife—and to make it out alive. Resident Evil VII is horrifying and a great return to the series’ roots.

A sequel, Resident Evil VIII: Village arrives in 2021.

We think Resident Evil VII is a fantastic original game in the series, but if you’re looking to revisit a classic from your childhood twenty years ago, you absolutely need to play Resident Evil 2. This full remake of the original horror classic uses the Resident Evil VII engine to completely rebuild the original title from the ground up, moving from a fixed isometric camera to a third-person action title similar to Resident Evil IV. The plot follows the original game, as police officer Leon Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield (the younger sister of Chris Redfield, one of the main characters of the series as a whole), as they attempt to escape from Raccoon City during the zombie apocalypse.

In 2013, Lucas Pope released Papers, Please, a critically-acclaimed puzzle game in which you worked as an immigration officer for a fictional country, as you worked to decide which documents were real or fake as quickly as possible, in order to ensure you earned enough money to care for your family. Pope returned in 2018 for his second game, Return of the Obra Dinn, another puzzle game feature improved fidelity while remaining a critically-praised game. In Obra Dinn, you take the role of an insurance adjuster for the London office East India Company in the early 19th century.

As the player, you’re tasked with determining the fate of the Obra Dinn, a ship washed up on shore after five years missing with none of its sixty-man crew alive. Played out in first person with a gorgeous monochromatic style, you’re given a log book and the “Memento Mortem,” a watch that allows you to play back the audio of a crew-member prior to their death, in order to help fill in the gaps of what happened on the ship.

We’re big fans of FromSoftware here, so any chance we get to recommend a new game from them on Steam we’ll gladly take. After completing the Dark Souls trilogy (with a quick break for Bloodborne in 2015), FromSoftware returns with a new IP and a new direction on their games. Sekiro is much more of an action game than an RPG, focused more on your ability to fight and dodge attacks from enemies both weak and powerful. Don’t let the lack of RPG elements fool you, though: there’s still a heavy sense of progression in this game, complete with quests and skill trees that you’ll need to follow to complete the game. Sekiro follows the titular character as he attempts to take revenge on a samurai clan who attacked him, left him for dead, and kidnapped his lord.

A new, free update to Sekiro arrived this fall with all-new features and a boss rush mode. It’s the perfect thing to play while waiting around for Elden Ring.

We already talked about the popularity of roguelikes above when discussing Dead Cells and The Binding of Isaac, and we’ve been forced to return to the genre once more with the launch of Slay the Spire on Steam. Though it had been in early access for sometime, January 2019 saw the official launch of Slay the Spire, and plenty of people have been unable to stop playing it since. Slay the Spire crosses roguelikes with deck-building card games like Hearthstone, and frankly, we think it’s really great. The start of the game finds you choosing between one of three characters, granting you health, gold, and abilities for your run. As you work through levels with each duel, you’ll have to fight your way through each spire to stay alive. Some cards work better with each other than you expect, and the same thing goes for your character’s abilities, making it a blast to play around with.

The original Spyro the Dragon trilogy is one of the best series of 3D platformers the original PlayStation ever saw, and even if the series lost its way a bit in the PS2-era and beyond, revisiting the original three games is a great way to spend the afternoon. Thanks to the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, you can now revisit those games completely rebuilt from the ground up for PC, in gorgeous 4K and with uncapped framerates. Discover the adventures that got Spyro to video game fame in Spyro the Dragon, Spyro II: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. With collectables galore, side quests, and a ton of fun characters, this is one of the best 3D platformer packages you can get on Steam today.

It’s been a rough decade for Star Wars games. The promising Star Wars: 1313 got cancelled after Disney revived the series and sold the game rights to EA. Despite being the biggest publisher in gaming, EA was only able to create two Star Wars games since 2013. Both Battlefront games created under EA faced major backlash from fans in different ways, and the open-world Star Wars game that was being worked on by now-defunct Visceral Games was shut down in 2019. Thankfully, Respawn Entertainment—developers behind the acclaimed Titanfall series and Apex Legends—were able to provide fans with that long-awaited Jedi action we’ve been hoping for.

Fallen Order takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and sees players taking control of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi Padawan who managed to survive Order 66 by going into hiding. The game is inspired by the likes of Sekiro, Uncharted, and Metroid, and is well worth playing for any Star Wars fans.

On this list, we have fast-paced FPS games, difficult and grindy RPGs, and strategy games often compared to chess. If you want something to chill out with, instead of working hard towards goals or stressing your mind, we have the perfect game for you: Stardew Valley, a game developed by Eric Barone and published by Chucklefish. An homage to the early Harvest Moon games, Stardew Valley is a farming simulator game that follows a player character who takes over their grandfather’s farm in an attempt to get away from the hustle and bustle of their office job, to something a bit less dreadful.

Once in Stardew Valley, the player will have to manage and tend to their farm, while also interacting with and meeting dozens of NPCs in the town, becoming friends, meeting potential mates, and even getting married. The game has been praised for its laid-back sense of play, its ability to be both goal-focused and allow for various choices in play, and its gorgeous pixel art and music.

This might be another controversial choice on this list, as Steam reviews surrounding this collection have been mixed to say the least. There are plenty of Street Fighter games you can pick up on Steam, from the well-received Street Fighter IV to the controversial Street Fighter V. There are some serious critiques to offer about the 30th Anniversary Collection, but we’re recommending it for two reasons. First, you’re receiving twelve games here, and most of them are pretty enjoyable! The game’s been receiving strong reviews on other platform, and if you’re newer to Street Fighter, you’ll likely have no issues with some of the games using older arcade ROMs, the main complaint in Steam reviews. The second reason we’ve picked this title: Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is one of our favorite Street Fighter titles ever released, and now you can play it online through Steam with friends. If you aren’t convinced, just listen to this soundtrack.

Supraland was suggested to us a commenter, and we’ll be damned if the suggestion didn’t pay off. As one of the most interesting indie games of 2019, Supraland flew completely under our radar, a true shame considering just how great the game is. The basic pitch of the game is simple: Supraland combines elements of Zelda, Metroid, and Portal to create an open-world puzzle game unlike any other. You pick up the role of a plastic toy figure living in the garden of a young boy. Tasked with travelling from your side of the garden to the opposite, opposing side filled with blue figures, you’ll need to use an ever-expanding toolset to make your way across. As you combine your new puzzle-solving tools, you’ll also find yourself fending off creatures in a FPS style, inspired directly by Doom and Quake. Supraland is truly a surprise, one of the most underrated games of 2019.

If you’ve played Minecraft to death and you’re looking to switch up, Terraria might be the game for you. While comparisons to Minecraft have become a bit tired, it’s worth noting that the game’s aesthetics and general gameplay qualities are pretty similar, albeit in a side-view, 2D landscape like Super Mario Bros. The game uses 16-bit sprites in an open sandbox world, with a focus on exploration, crafting, and combat above all else. The worlds are procedurally generated, and the player character begins with a few tools for mining and combat. Terraria features NPCs that offer quests and goals to the player to complete, and doing so allows these NPCs to populate the player’s main base. There’s even an endgame in Terraria, with a final boss that involves summoning and completing a certain number of quests. Terraria is a solid title, preferred by many over Minecraft for its variation on the crafting and combat abilities, and is worth trying out from Steam—especially if you can get it on sale.

Creative Assembly has been around since the rise of gaming in the late 80s, making some of the best turn-based strategy/tactics games around, and with Total War: Three Kingdoms, they’ve brought back their most famous series for one of its best games in years. Total War: Three Kingdoms is, like the name implies, set in the Three Kingdoms era between 220 and 280, as players control one of the game’s twelve unique factions, attempting to eliminate other factions, unify China, and become the ultimate ruler. Led by warlords like Cao Cao, Lui Bei, and Sun Jian, the game has been praised for both is storytelling and its character-driven gameplay mechanics. If you’re an RTS fan, it’s absolutely worth diving into Total War one more time with its latest installment.

The first game from Celeste developer MattMakesGames, Towerfall Ascension was originally released as simply Towerfall on the doomed platform Ouya, before being ported to the PS4, Steam, and other platforms with the new name. Known as one of the few games worth playing on the Ouya before its demise, Towerfall Ascension is the perfect local multiplayer game for your PC, with a focus on 4-player combat and a similar style of gameplay to the likes of Super Smash Bros. or Nidhogg. In Towerfall, you and the other players are each given a bow with several arrows, along with items, power-ups, and special arrows spread throughout the arena. Your goal is to kill off the other players using your arrows by jumping and dashing around the map, with the latter ability used to catch other players’ arrows in the air as they fire. The game is a blast, and though a single-player option exists, the game truly shines in multiplayer mode.

A role-playing game design for those who love role-playing games, Undertale was a surprise hit when it released in 2015. Developed independently by Toby Fox, the music composer for the webcomic Homestuck, the game sees the player controlling a child as they explore a top-down world filled with caves, towns, and puzzles. Combat is handled by using a bullet hell-style game mechanic that requires the player to control a small heart as they avoid attacks. You can fight back, or befriend the enemy in question, choosing not to fight the enemy but to spare their life and talking your way out of combat. There are plenty of ways to play the game, from resisting combat to fighting back against the enemies who attack you, but you’ll have to choose carefully: each of your choices in this game have some effect on both the story and the enemy difficulty. Though the hype cycle for Undertale was extreme, six years have passed since its release, helping to push the game as a must-play RPG without overselling the promise.

The start of a new year is usually pretty quiet for games, but 2021 brought forth a juggernaut that has taken over the world of PC gaming. Valheim launched in early access on Steam in February, and managed to sell more than 5 million copies in its first month of release. Part sandbox, part survival, Valheim invites players into the Viking afterlife, where survival means building shelters, crafting tools, and destroying enemies that stand in your way. Online co-op with up to ten total players means teaming up with your friends is a must, and stylized 3D graphics help set the game apart from similar survival games on Steam. Valheim has been praised by critics and players alike, thanks to its wide variety of environments, simplified survival mechanics, and excellent bosses. Basically, in 2021, it’s a must-own.

Do you like Destiny? Feeling deflated because of the more controversial aspects surrounding Destiny 2? Looking for a free-to-play game that does a lot of the things Destiny does, but with a bit more honesty and polish? Warframe has been on the market for years now, and has slowly begun to draw a more active audience over the last several years thanks to lots of developer care and free patches. With both PvE and PvP options for your combat, a full story-based mission set, and fair, non-pay-to-win elements that make it an obvious download for anyone looking to try out a third-person MMO-esque shooter online. Warframe is all about the grind, which helps to keep you coming back to the game again and again to play just one more mission. Oh, and the fact that the combat is fast, smooth, and features a Vanquish-esque sliding mechanic helps too.

It’s not often that games get the chance to be truly funny, in a way that movies and television shows and books often are. Sure, games like Deadpool or Borderlines have nerd-centric jokes in them, either in their fourth-wall breaks or by appealing to very gamer-friendly senses of humor, but when it comes to meeting the standards of some of the funniest pieces of entertainment of all time, like early seasons of The Simpsons, or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or Ghostbusters (just to name a few acclaimed comedies), games almost never measure up. West of Loathing is an exception, a deeply-funny indie game, a slapstick comedy where you wander around the wild west as a stick person cowboy, exploring the 2D open world designed with gags coming a mile a minute. Any fans of RPGs, text-based adventures, or comedies like Airplane will find plenty to love here.

Skyrim was a game loved by many, but the lack of a definitive story and the lackluster combat disappointed and infuriated some of the people who bought into the hype cycle, only to find the game simply wasn’t for them after all. If you fall into the latter party, you might be best off giving The Witcher 3 a try. Often considered one of the best RPGs of all time, and the winner of numerous Game of the Year awards upon its release in 2015, CD Projekt Red’s concluding game in The Witcher trilogy is a game that you simply must play. In The Witcher 3, you play as Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter who has trained since childhood. After recovering from amnesia in the first game, he slowly recovers to become the monster hunter legends portray him as. In Wild Hunt, he must look for his long-lost daughter Ciri, currently on the run from a group known as the Wild Hunt, a force determined to use her powers for evil.

A sequel to 2012’s critical classic XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 picks up twenty years after the events of the last game, also developed by Firaxis Games, taking place in a scenario where humanity was defeated by the alien invaders. Following the surrender of the people of Earth, XCOM was betrayed by the council nations, forcing XCOM to become nothing more than a resistance force that continued to lose numbers as years went by. The gameplay of XCOM 2 follows the gameplay of the first one; they’re both tactical turn-based games, in which you play as the Commander, giving commands to your forces to move around the map and to fire at enemy invaders. New to the game are secondary objectives, which push the players to not just accomplish their primary goal, but to gain access to the secondary tasks as well. XCOM 2 was followed by War of the Chosen, a new expansion released in 2017 that added some additional variety to missions within the game.

Sega has been on a tear over the last few years, releasing plenty of cult classics once exclusive to consoles to PC through Steam. Games like Bayonetta and Vanquish were released on PC to high marks of praise, and slowly but surely, the company has been bringing the entire Yakuza series to the PC. If you’re looking to jump in, Yakuza 0 is the perfect starting place, featuring everything fans love about the games rolled into one ’80s-set game. Set in an open-world environment, players take on the roles of Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, alternating between the two characters. While the plot is interesting and gives you plenty of quests to take on—not to mention plenty of ways to beat up your opponents—the real star of the show here is the minigames that allow you to star in a remake of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video or play arcade games for fun. There’s plenty to do in Yakuza 0, and you can now dive into the world of Japan’s criminal underground on your PC.

The latest game in the series, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, is now available, and features an all-new battle system. If you’ve already played through Yakuza 0 and you’re looking for similar combat, you can also check out Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2, HD remakes of the original two games in the series.

If you’re looking for an action-RPG with time-tested battle systems and a surprisingly-good story, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is your game. Don’t let any part of the title turn you off: Ys (pronounced “eece” like fleece”) is Falcom’s long-running RPG series, dating back to the 1980s. Though this is the eighth mainline game, each story is self-contained, with only main protagonist Adol Christin carrying from game to game. Likewise, you can ignore the subtitle; though it eventually comes into play in the story as Dana becomes the secondary main character, it doesn’t matter for long stretches of the game. Ys VIII follows Adol as the boat he’s travelling on is attacked by a sea monster, he finds himself and the other passengers washed up on the cursed Isle of Sieren, a dangerous island filled with ancient monsters that should be long extinct. As an action-RPG filled with dungeons and exploration, any fans of Monster Hunter, The Legend of Zelda, or even Kingdom Hearts will find plenty to love here.

Got a favorite game on Steam? Let us know in the comments below, and check back here next month for additional games we love on Steam!