When compiling a year-end list like this, it’s easy to wonder whether or not PC gamers of decades past could have predicted what awaited them in 2019. Would they have believed that the internet would become enamored of a horrible goose? Could they have known that the creator of XCOM would go on to integrate procedural generation into his work? Would they have anticipated our will to revisit 1998’s terrifying Resident Evil 2, or our renewed obsession with World of Warcraft Classic, or our fascination with Disco Elysium, a tribute to the CRPGs of old?
The truth is that 2019 was a year full of surprises, even for the PC gamers of the present. Below are 20 of the games that surprised us over the year — mostly with how thought-provoking, well-designed, or fun they are.
Set during the Industrial Revolution, Anno 1800 is all about production: figuring out where your workers will sleep, which industry they’ll join, where their trade unions are. Anno 1800 provides well-adjusted tools and systems to make urban planning fun.
Apex Legends’ release at the beginning of this year signaled a new era for battle royales. The game’s emphasis on team composition-based strategy proved that the battle royale genre still has room to mature and stay fresh.
Good puzzle games guide the player to Earth-shattering epiphanies. Baba Is You does this nearly every other level, prompting the player to use its push-block word operators to establish new rules and bend them in increasingly mind-expanding ways.
Perusing archives of in-game collectibles is rarely as fun as it is in Control. Every single piece of lore scattered across the game — from text files to taped radio segments to episodes from a creepy puppet show — lends life to the game’s supernatural story. The high-flying combat and absorbing narrative don’t hurt, either.
This September, Destiny 2 finally did what fans of the game have been doing for a long time: they called the game an MMO. The new label was accompanied by a host of revamped systems designed to foster players’ self-expression, a move that has only done the game good since.
Within Disco Elysium’s first half hour, you can: renounce alcoholism; declare yourself a feminist; pursue a desire to sing karaoke; investigate the body hanging from a tree outside; or none of the above. It’s an RPG that constantly offers the player absurd and compelling choices.
In many ways, Imperator: Rome is as grand as grand strategy games get. Once you’ve chosen from the game’s hundreds of playable nations, you’re tasked with taxing populations, navigating smarmy politics, growing armies, and much, much more.
Mordhau’s melee combat demands finesse and perceptiveness; it isn’t a button-mashing affair. The careful rhythm of the game’s swordplay, from stabs to parries to blocks to dodges, results in a memorable twist on in-game combat.
Succeeding in fantasy RPG Outward means fending off diseases, anticipating the weather, and tossing your backpack everytime a battle starts. (You don’t want to fight while encumbered, do you?) It reimagines the survival genre, pitting the player against realistic challenges that make its fantasy world even more believable.
The most terrifying and most impressive thing about Phoenix Point’s AI enemies is that they can learn from your past actions. Rely too heavily on an enemy’s weakness and they’ll mutate themselves to counter your strategy, a process driven by procedural generation.
Red Dead Redemption 2’s main campaign is captivating on its own, but the moments that make the game shine are almost incidental: Arthur tumbling into an NPC’s vignette, or taking a break to camp by the water, or barking “Hello!” at a passerby. It’s a game that never runs out of tiny, remarkable details.
2019’s Resident Evil 2 is much more than a remake: It’s a reimagining of the original game’s ideas with a 2019 audience in mind. Redesigned levels with enhanced environmental effects make RE2’s zombies much more terrifying than they were in 1998.
Sekiro may be just as punishing as FromSoftware’s previous work (Dark Souls, Bloodborne), but it strikes a much more delicate balance between combat and traversal, between fight and flight. Sneaking your way through Sekiro’s sakura-rich levels makes you feel like a real shinobi.
Slay the Spire is a deck-building, roguelike dungeon crawler that produces new and rewarding card synergies every run. Arriving at an especially creative card combo or deck strategy can turn the tide of a run; improvising with the cards you’ve been dealt is the name of the game.
Outer Wilds’ solar system is varied, colorful, and dense with mystery — but the game only gives you 22 minutes to explore it before its sun succumbs to supernova. Yet within these limitations, Outer Wilds teaches you how to be a better explorer, rendering every new discovery joyful.
No moral decision is easy in The Outer Worlds. The game’s universe is riddled with obscene inequality, yet its nuanced questlines refuse to present obvious answers. Instead, it’s up to you to define your character’s moral compass, whether via diplomacy or with a plasma cutter.
Like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the text on which Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is based, the game elevates its warlords to a divine status. Wielding their mythical powers on the battlefield is a refreshing change of pace from Total War’s typical unit-based gameplay.
Who’d’ve thunk it: 2019’s gaming indie darling is a goose on a destructive bender through a peaceful English village. A true agent of chaos, the goose’s indifference to order is as liberating to experience as it is entertaining to witness.
Void Bastards is an FPS where being a smoker matters, as does being short, being a shallow breather, or being a plumber. Like everything else in Void Bastards, all of these traits have a dual mechanical and narrative purpose, imbuing the game with a distinct, humorous tone.
World of Warcraft Classic was so popular upon its release that players formed lines to complete quests. It makes sense: Vanilla WoW was as crucial to the formation of online communities as it was to the development of the MMORPG genre, and WoW Classic is the perfect homage.