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The 25 best action games on PCPunching above their weight
Punching above their weight
Everyone loves a good action game. It’s the driving force behind so many of our favourite PC games, but only a few can lay claim to being the best action games of all time. That’s why we’ve compiled this list - to sort the pulled punches from the bestest biffs that PC has to offer. Whether it’s the joy of pulling off a perfect combo, riding the wave of an explosive set-piece or the hair-raising thrill of dodging enemy attacks in slow-motion that gets you going, there’s an action game here for you.
Best action games
As usual, we’re keeping our definition of ‘action’ fairly broad, but there are a few hard and fast rules we’re sticking to here. We’re not including anyFPS gamesin this list, but third-person shooters are fair game, as are actionRPGs. You won’t find anyplatformersin here, though, or anyMetroidvanias, as we already have dedicated lists for both of those.
We’ve also focused on action games that we’d recommend you still playtoday. That’s partly because a lot of action games don’t tend to age very well, but the key thing we’re looking for is how they feel under your fingers and thumbs. A great action game, after all, isn’t just about looking handsome; it’s about having controls and systems that are just as fun to play today as they were when they first came out. So without further ado, here are our 25 best action game picks to play right now.
25. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
You might think thatMax Payne’s superpower is being able to slip into slow-motion, but really it’s his ability to repeatedly leap onto his sides without bruising his shoulders or jabbing the house keys in his pocket into his thigh. In any case, it’s these moves combined that make Max Payne a great action game. You’ll leap around corners, shift into slow motion as you sail through the air, and unload akimbo pistols into one mobster after another on the rain-soaked streets of New York.
The first Max Payne let you pull off these stunts first, but it’s Max Payne 2 we’d suggest you return to today. The first game is visually dated and lumbered with regrettable hallucinated platforming sequences, while the sequel still looks decent, is a tight six hours of leaping and blasting, and has the same dark comedy and purple prose. It also added a new technological marvel between the first game in 2001 and this 2003 successor: physics. It’s old hat now, but spraying bullets everywhere is undeniably more satisfying - and more reminiscent of the John Woo movies which inspired it - when there are cardboard boxes and old buckets to send spilling from shelves.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
24. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
7 Reasons Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Is A Messy Masterpiece | PC ReviewWatch on YouTube
7 Reasons Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Is A Messy Masterpiece | PC Review
Assassin’s Creed had got a bit samey over the years, so when the series got a bit of a reboot with Assassin’s Creed: Oranges, everyone felt invigorated. Ubisoft took the new template and improved upon it forAssassin’s Creed Odyssey, the story of a lone but preternaturally badass mercenary having jollies around Ancient Greece.
Importantly, Odyssey continued the trend of harder combat, gear mattering more and stealth being your best option, which makes it feel less like busy work and more like an actual challenge. Most importantly, Kassandra, the female player character, is the best thing to happen to games for actual years.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble,UPlay
23. Ape Out
There are some amongst you who will dispute thatApe Outis an action game, and to those I say, “Try saying that to a gorilla punching armed guards to death!” You couldn’t of course, because you’d only have time to open your mouth before it knuckled over and exploded you with its fists, too. Even if you could speak, gorillas famously do not understand the English language.
Ape Out is absolutely an action game, with the clarity of purpose and perfect design of a silverbacks noble fist. Played top down, Ape Out is vaguely reminiscent of other Devolver Digital favouriteHotline Miami, except instead of a man in an animal mask you are a giant furious ball of furry hominid, and instead of guns and bats and that you use your furious hominid limbs.
As the titular Ape who is trying to get Out, you speed through different floors of buildings (a science lab, a military base, an office block) to make your escape. The world is painted in vivid blocks of expressive colour: angry reds, cold unforgiving blues, bruised purples. Soldiers with different weapons try to stop you, but cannot. They have body armour, shotguns and explosives. But you are an ape.
Your controls are move, hit, and grab, so while you technically don’t have any weapons, you also very much do. You can hold on to a man with a machine gun and aim him at your buddies! A lad with dynamite is basically a grenade the size of a person! All this is without even mentioning the soundtrack, a masterpiece of procedural jazz drumming that matches pace with your orgy or destruction. Ape Out is so much one whole, perfect thing that isn’t like playing a game so much as it is like having a profoundly beautiful, violent, synaesthetic thought.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble,Epic,Itch
22. Yakuza 0
Sega’s open-world brawler RPG series about the Tokyo underworld finally branched out onto PC in 2018, and its prequelYakuza 0remains both the best entry in the series, and the best starting-point for wannabe crime dads. Its two protagonists Kiryu and Majima are quite different in tone and style, but they’re both absolutely delightful. What good boys, and what excellent thugs.
Yakuza 0 has something for everyone. It’s like a smaller scale GTA set in the backstreets of Tokyo (its beautifully detailed city of Kamurocho is modeled after Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district) where you can thunk punks with your fists, bicycles, baseball bats or whatever manner of destructible street furniture you can lay your hands on, while also busting out dance moves, play arcade mini-games, help a floundering dominatrix believe in herself, befriend Michael Jackson, hire a chicken to be a property manager at your real estate business, and loads more. It’s melodrama in video game form, and it fully commits to turning you into both Japan’s meanest, toughest mob man and its nicest uncle.
It’s just such a lovely place to be, too. It’s warm and funny yet still an interesting crime drama, and its cities are chock full of diversions that make them feel like real, living places. Outside of its raucous brawls, its action is pretty low-key compared to other games on this list, including designer Toshihiro Nagoshi’s other big work, Binary Domain (which we’ve put next door to this entry), but it’s also something we’ll never get bored of. More please.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
21. Binary Domain
On paper, this doesn’t sound great. It’s called Binary Domain, for starters, features a hero whose design brief was “draw a man with muscles” and attempts a misjudged voice system that sees you bellowing ignored orders at belligerent companions like an angry dog-owner in the park. But! Binary Domain might be the greatest 7/10 of all time. A 7/10 so potent, that it becomes a 9/10, purely on the sheer force of its seven-out-of-ten-ness.
Binary Domain is what happened when the Yakuza team attempted to muscle in on the cover shooter craze of the early 2010s: leaving behind Kamurocho, albeit for a different, futuristic Tokyo, and flooding it with hostile robots. And giant robot animals. And a friendly French robot who wears a trendy scarf. It feels like a cynical bid for a western audience, but one that can’t stop the teams bizarro energy bubbling up.
And if sticky cover mechanics and dubious AI allies speak to the team’s lack of experience in the genre, they get the most important bit right: shooting things feels great. This is down to the nature of the enemy: armoured robots that shatter like ceramics as you chew through their outer layers and eventually sever limbs and heads. A decapitated robot will go haywire and blast its pals in the perfect payoff for your accuracy; legless droids pull themselves along the floor, creating hectic action where the damn things never stop coming.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
20. Red Dead Redemption 2
It is an enormous playground in which to be a cowboy, where you can hunt, gamble, gunfight, camp, bean-chug, fish, rustle, mosey, bank-rob, train-rob, blackjack, horse-groom, bird-burst and swamp-trudge to your heart’s content. If you could feasibly imagine a cowboy doing it, it’s probably possible to do in the game. You can even go to a crap late-Victorian cinema, or just have a relaxing bath.
For what it’s worth, the game has a much more engrossing story than it needs to, as well. In fact, we rate the characters pretty highly - not least the main lad Arthur Morgan, who is a genuinely thoughtful take on the classic ‘morally ambiguous outlaw’ trope. He’s a bruiser who’s not afraid to talk about his feelings, even though he doesn’t always know what his feelings are. He’s a killer, but his heart isn’t entirely in it. It’s a big heart, is Arthur’s. But it’s got stubble all over it.
It’s a bit of a shame, in fact, that to make his story play out, you have no choice but to constantly make him do massacres. There’s only ever one way through any given mission, and since that way usually takes Arthur through a lake of spilled blood, you often feel completely at odds with the impression you’ve built of him in your head. So take him off on an endless, aimless odyssey of vague Cowboy activities instead - as with the best ofopen-world games, there’s so much in this digital West that you’ll never find yourself short of something to do, even if you abandon the narrative completely.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble,Epic
19. Rise of the Tomb Raider
Following on from the 2013 reboot, Rise Of The Tomb Raider felt like the new series of Lara Croft’s ruff, tuff survival adventures really found its footing. While 2018’s Shadow Of The Tomb Raider had some good puzzle-and-platforming tombs, Rise combines the traditional Croftian theft of ancient artefacts with some really splendid survival and action bits, which is why it’s our pick of the bunch.
Perhaps the feeling of danger and isolation is enhanced because it’s so bloody cold. For much of Rise, Lara is on the back foot and stranded in Siberia, so scavenging and hunting to enhance your gear feels extra essential. Those moments where she can warm herself next to a pitiful little fire seem like an actual reprieve for Lara.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
18. Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow
It’s as broad and cliched as they come, but it’s also deliciously retro-feeling in its style and structure, drawing on the DNA of Super Castlevania IV and re-shaping it into the grand 3D adventure you’ve always dreamed of. Indeed, with developers Mercurysteam going all in on the type of wild creature design you might expect from a Guillermo del Toro film, Lords of Shadow continues to have a wonderfully ethereal kind of beauty about it even today.
Of course, thanks to Gabriel’s lethal Combat Cross, it’s not long before those cooing ‘ahhhh’s turn into ghoulish ‘uhhhh’s. This retractable chain whip swishes and slashes with deadly precision, and it’s probably the closest thing PC has to God of War’s Blades of Chaos, which, let’s not forget, is arguably one of the most satisfying hack and slash weapons of all time. The Combat Cross isn’t just good for skewering demons and doing your best “GET OVER HERE!” impression from Mortal Kombat, though. It also doubles up as a grappling hook, letting Gabriel soar to ever greater heights as he heads towards Dracula’s castle looming forever on the horizon, whether it’s taking down the game’s Shadow of the Colossus-style Titan bosses or sniffing out secret areas in the world around him.
Lords of Shadow can be a bit serious at times, and there are other games on this list that do the whole ‘evil, screen-hogging demon’ thing with a bit more style and sense of playfulness. In terms of epic scale and thrilling set-pieces, though, Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow still holds up as one of today’s action greats. Plus, you’ve got Sir Patrick Stewart hamming it up as both the game’s narrator and Gabriel’s mate Zobek, which way more enjoyable than anything you’ll hear in Rise Of The Tomb Raider. Just a shame about the sequel, eh?
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
17. Nuclear Throne
Nuclear Throne is crunchier than a box of cornflakes. Nothing dies in its wasteland without going splat, no gun fires without a reverberating thud. Of all the things to praise about Vlambeer’s roguelike, the noises come out on top.
There’s the twang of the crossbow, the thwump of the wrench. The deep wailing of the big robotic dog, moments before it vapourises you. Every enemy is a joy to disintegrate, providing they don’t disintegrate you first. Disaster lurks behind a moment’s hesitation, or a split-second misjudgement. Then you’re right back at the start, clawing your way towards the throne once more.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble,Epic,Itch
16. Control
Control has been compared to things like Twin Peaks, because of the general tone. The Oldest House, the building the FBC is in, moves around Jesse. Walls shift. New areas reveal option extras, like a kind of pan-dimensional fungus. You don’t have a mini-map, but you do have a map you can bring up sometimes, and cross reference with the helpful signs on the walls. It’s like having a telekinetic firefight in an NHS hospital, but if the hospital was a concrete brutalist beauty, and it absolutely owns.
Where can I buy it:Epic
15. Katana Zero
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble
14. Hades
On one run, Aphrodite might imbue that dash with a charm effect, weakening the blows of your enemies. Dionysis might make them drunk, or Zeus might help you call down lightning blasts. Those buffs build up and over each other, changing the fundamentals of your attacks, twirling you towards a different strategy for every escape. It’s a fractal of firepower, branching out from five different starting weapons. You can play for dozens of hours and Hades will still feel fresh.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Epic
13. Grand Theft Auto V
On the one end of that scale, you’ve got the scripted story missions. There’s an early mission in which have you to catch your son on the hood of your car as he hangs from the back of a boat careening down a freeway, which is pure Michael Bay. There’s also the bank heists, which are pure Michael Mann. They are the highlight of the story, and each requires you to sync the actions of the game’s three protagonists in order to break in, complete your objective, and make a messy getaway.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
12. Nier Automata
Nier: Automata is a game of many faces. One minute it’s a bullet hell shmup, the next you’re riding around on the back of a moose in an open world RPG smashing in the faces of sentient tin cans. It’s a hard game to boil down, but at the core of this action-packed sci-fi story about reclaiming the earth from destructive robots (or is it?) lies a pure, PlatinumGames spectacle fighter in the same vein as Vanquish and Bayonetta.
Like all of Platinum’s games, Nier: Automata’s stylish combat is simple to execute but tricky to master. The important thing, though, is that every button tap makes you feel like a seasoned badass, whether you’re slicing and dicing your way to victory or hacking and slashing through the robotic hordes. It’s also the glue that holds this thousand-ideas-a-minute game together, uniting its ambitious story-telling with its deep role-playing elements. There’s simply nothing else like it.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
11. Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter is one of the best action games, and it contains maybe the bestsingleaction of any game on this list. It’s not the sword swipes or freezing blasts or any of the other enemy-popping actions you can perform in this beautiful hack-and-slash Zelda-like. It’s the simple, short distance dash you use to dodge those enemies and to chain your attacking flurries together.
Dash once and you’ll think: ooh. Dash again and you realise that you need never take another ordinary step again - walking is for chumps. Dash a few more times and you realise that the world is designed to encourage your newfound haste, with frequent secret areas only reachable via speculative dashes beyond the edges of the floor. Dash your way through a portion of the game and you realise the best thing of all: there’s an update that allows you, with the correct timing, to chain your dashes together, accelerate and maintain top speed forevermore.
Hyper Light Drifter contains mainly delights, and its mixture of action, exploration and story is never less than satisfying. You should dash, not walk, to play it.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble,Epic
10. TowerFall: Ascension
Or you’ll work together with friends in the fabulous cooperative campaign, in which you fight through progressively more difficult waves of enemies in progressively more difficult levels. The same satisfying combat carries over and enemy movements and AI are a fair replacement for most humans, but what’s new is that you and your friend(s) will naturally take roles within each challenge: one person handling the top of the screen, the other handling the bottom; or both sticking close together, covering each other’s backs and trying not to fall victim to friendly fire.
In whatever mode you play, TowerFall is a delight. It’s an action game that makes you feel precise even when you’re a fool like us, and that alone is a marvel.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble,Epic,Itch
9. Resident Evil 2 (2019)
When Capcom gave the first Resident Evil a fresh lick of paint back in 2015, a lot of its old survival DNA was left in tact. We assumed they’d do the same when it came to re-animating the dead corpse of Resident Evil 2, but this 2019 remake ended up being far more substantial - and was all the better for it. Instead of sticking doggedly to its ageing source material, Capcom had the guts to completely turn everything on its head, merely using the events of the game as a stage for its own, fresh brand of horror.
Resident Evil 2 didn’t have to be as ambitious as it was, but the end result has clearly paid off - so much so that Capcom are giving their upcoming Resident Evil 3 remake the same treatment. Only time will tell which one gives worse nightmares.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
8. Vanquish
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
7. Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter: World is part action game, part dinosaur hat-making sim. Or should that be monster pants-crafting sim, or scaley kneepad-assembler? Whatever bit of gear you’ve got your eye on, all of it involves tracking down gargantuan beasts through huge open jungles, whacking them with swords, hammers, axes and rudimentary guns before feasting upon their corpses for bones, teeth and scales so you can craft even stronger, more fashionable bits of kit and do it all over again, only this time so you can hunt down the fire-breathing T-Rex instead of the poison-belching lizard rhino.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
6. Devil May Cry 5
Nobody is as good at swords as Dante. Nor are they as good at spikey gloves, boots, motorcycle maces or hats that fire XP. He’s one of the most versatile fighters to ever grace a video game, and his appearance in Devil May Cry 5 is one of his best. You could celebrate the world of Devil May Cry, with its outlandish demons and plot points that revolve around people turning into swords. It’s how you use those swords that really matters, though. The cutscenes are a chance to down popcorn between fights.
You’re given so much to think about at once. As Dante, you flow between four different stances, chaining teleports into blocks into gun-tricks into extra-snazzy strikes. Survival is secondary to your score, a giant blazing grade that gets bigger and fierier with every blow. It’s a performance, an arena where your enemies are set up to fall, and your job is to ensure they fall with style. It’s a bit contrived to compare combat to dancing, but Dante leaves me no choice. He channels disco with every strike. So do the two other characters, though they’re never quite as vibrant. You’ll enjoy yourself until the halfway mark in DMC 5, but when Dante appears you’ll want to sing.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
5. Hotline Miami
You start as if it’s astealth game. You’re infiltrating a guard-packed building, you’re unarmed, and a single stab or bullet kills and spins you back to the beginning. So you start slow, you hide around corners, you nip between patrol routes. And you die and you die and you die. Somewhere between the fifth and fifteenth death the pounding, electronic music seeps into your brain. You loosen up. You lunge recklessly at the nearest guard, time your punch to knock them to the ground, grab their spilled baseball bat and use it to burst their head in a bloody explosion.
It’s horrible but you’ve been bolted into the brain of this silent, terrible man committing senseless, violent crimes in a scuzzy, neon 1980s. You speed through levels. Kill then dead then more then again, kill then dead then more then again.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble
4. Batman Arkham City
It’s another opportunity for you to take down all your favourite Batman villains, but with more gadgets and in a much bigger playground. Yet, although Arkham City is sized up from Arkham Asylum, it’s small enough that it retains some of the claustrophobia of Asylum. You find yourself criss-crossing areas and seeing buildings change as different events occur and different gangs take over.
Arkham City also made improvements to the combat and detection modes, giving an all around improved Batsperience without growing too bloated or becoming just another open-world action RPG.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
3. Bayonetta
Bayonetta may have begun life on consoles, but its 2018 re-release on PC is where its titular time witch shines brightest. With the frame rate raised to a smooth 60fps and support for gorgeous 4K visuals, kicking the face off angels and demi-gods the size of skyscrapers with fists and high heels made from your own hair has never looked or felt lovelier under the thumbs.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble
2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Who knew that giving a FromSoftware game a dedicated jump button that actually works properly would make such a big difference? While the intricately designed Dark Souls games do a lot without it, Sekiro takes things to far greater heights. Speaking of greater heights, it also gives you a grappling hook, and who doesn’t love grappling hooks?
Sekiro is just as punishing as Dark Souls, but it wallops you in different ways. For starters, Sekiro opts for a more offensive stance when it comes to action. It’s a game about reflexes more than anything else, with so much of the challenge coming from learning when to parry an attack. As you venture further in, the attacks become more unorthodox, wilder, and, of course, deadlier, and nowhere is this more apparent than its larger-than-life bosses.
Bosses are the lifeblood of any FromSoft game, and Sekiro might be home to some of the best they’ve ever designed. We won’t spoil any of these fights, as they’re true tests of skill and the reward for beating them, no matter what’s thrown at you, is a feeling worth fighting for.
In many ways, Sekiro is the Tenchu/Dark Souls hybrid we never got. You can stride up to a samurai lad and shank him from behind like the greatest ninja in all the land. There’s also plenty of stuff to read, potentially giving you clues to the secrets hidden within. If you found the combat in Dark Souls too slow, this ninja power-trip might be for you.
Where can I buy it:Steam
1. Dead Cells
Dead Cells is a masterclass of game feel. Every button press sends swords and arrows whirling into enemy horrors and returns glorious, nerve-tingling feedback. What places it at the top of this list is that it doesn’t do this while focusing on just a single weapon type like TowerFall, or a tight hit list of enemies like Hotline Miami. Dead Cells is game design maximalism, and yet consistently excellent in every element.
If you want a game that will delight and exhilarate, which will surprise and engross for dozens of hours, and which will challenge your reflexes, awareness and perseverance, then what are you still doing reading this. Dead Cells awaits.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble,Itch
