Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 2
The White March Part 2 brings this multi-part expansion to a satisfying, and typically well-constructed, conclusion; solidifying Pillars of Eternity as one of the best CRPG titles of recent years.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
A solid, lengthy, entertaining romp across both tombs and not-tombs, with a quality PC port. If you want more Tomb Raider 2013, this offers improvements on most of that game’s mechanics and is unlikely to disappoint.
Stardew Valley
Ostensibly, Stardew Valley is a cutesy little game about running a farm with the cluck-clucks and the moo-cows and the rows of corn and potatoes. This is one part of it. The other part is dealing with village life: forming relationships with the local townsfolk, getting married, maybe exploring the mines and upgrading your tools and taking on quests.
Stellaris
The masters of grand strategy take to the stars in Stellaris. All the galactic flavour and themes of a 4X space title, married to the mechanics of Paradox’s recent grand strategy offerings. Stellaris has a space opera tale of gene manipulation, Federation politics, or colonial slavery for everyone.
Raw Data
Suvios’ first VR game proved a hit with owners of the HTC Vive and combines shooting with swordplay against robots from the Evil Eden Corp.
SUPERHOT
This time-stopping action title caused a stir this year when it was finally released. SUPERHOT is a concise central mechanic, framed by a clever, form-twisting premise and outstanding design in art and sound. Other games wish they could be this cool.
The Solus Project
The Solus Project takes you on an adventure stranded on an alien planet. It’s a fight for survival as you struggle to find a way back home. The game features great puzzles and visuals in this mysterious world.
Titanfall 2
Titanfall 2 offers the complete package: a solid, inventive single-player campaign that manages to avoid being yet another cover shooter with respawning enemies, combined with a frenetic and unique multiplayer mode.
Total War: Warhammer
Total War: Warhammer combined two of our favourite things. Directing hordes of soldier men around fields in neat formations, and fantasy realms that are one third Tolkien, one third generic heavy metal album cover, and one third British designers being weird for the sake of weirdness. Creative Assembly actually did a terrific job translating the unique (and sometimes uniquely silly) factions from Warhammer into a coherent set of Total War systems
Tyranny
Judicial administrator for the Court of an all-powerful Imperial Overlord is one hell of a premise and driving force for an RPG. Tyranny pulls it off, thanks to Obsidian’s reliable attention to world design and a dedication to ambitious, branching choices.
XCOM 2
XCOM 2 successfully straddles the line between being familiar and being new. A few design choices will divide people, and there are bugs and issues that will need patching or modding, but for the most part it’s a sterling return to the gruelling decision-making of its predecessor.
These are theBest PC Games of 2016 as compiled by PC Invasion staff from our play sessions, reviews, and also picked by the PC Invasion Readers.
