Nominees for Destructoid’s Best PC game of 2023

When it comes to grand strategy titles, not many others can do it as well as the game franchise by Creative Assembly. Melding together aspects of political intrigue, economic development, and real-time strategy, is a chess match that relies on tactics and strategic thinking. Though the franchise has touched on a variety of different time periods, cultures, and conflicts for the 20+ years it's been going, many are wondering what the next game will be.

Well, it’s finally over. The year of our lord, 2023, has been, gone, and will never return. We now stare down the barrel of 2024, and honestly, it’s looking pretty swanky in the gaming space. Grim everywhere else, granted, but the games look cool. Before we say goodbye once and for all, I thought it would be swell if I had a glance at some games that didn’t get much attention in 2023 and give them their time in the sun. 

When it comes to figuring out a formula for a hit game that keeps players coming back year after year, Saxs Persson would know. Now at Epic Games overseeing the Fortnite ecosystem, Persson previously spent 12 years at Mojang building Minecraft into the stratospheric success it is today.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Valve has unveiled its annual ‘Best of 2023' list on Steam, revealing which titles dominated sales on PC. The titles haven't been numerically ranked, but have been grouped into tiers — Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze — based on data collected from January 1 through December 15, 2023. The Top 12 category is populated by both free-to-play multiplayer games and the biggest launches, with the award-winning Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, and Hogwarts Legacy emerging as the best-selling titles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was disliked by both fans and critics alike, also made it to higher echelons, thanks to a dedicated fanbase wanting to experience its multiplayer segment.

Valve has released their annual Best of Steam 2023, a showcase of what was played most and made the most money broken down into roughly grouped tiers: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. In a year of absolutely great games, some of these chart-toppers aren't surprises, but dang I'd never have guessed that Half-Life, the 1998 classic, would make the top tier of the most-played Steam Deck games by daily active players.

Steam has released its annual end-of-year charts, ranking the games that have generated the most cold-hard cash on the digital PC storefront. Frequent chart-toppers this year include the obvious subjects (Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield), as well as the games that silently crushed it (Sons of the Forest, Goose Goose Duck.)

Valve have put together their "Best Of 2023" lists on Steam. This is different from the Steam Awards, voting for which is ongoing, and instead is built from Steam data like revenue, peak concurrent players, and so on. It's interesting every year as older games or indie obscurities do better than you expect.

Theannual Steam Best of the Year list is now live, showing the top games by revenue, player count and more this year. And, as per usual, we're interested in what MMOs and MMO-adjacent titles made Steam's list. Looks like quite a few.

Even though the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 or GTA 6 is almost two years away, it has already started shattering records. The GTA 6 trailer amassed a staggering 93 million views in the first 24 hours, breaking the record for most views in the initial 24-hour period for a non-music video, overtaking the previous record of YouTuber Mr. Beast. Although it did give away the game's setting as well as the protagonists, the GTA 6 trailer did not reveal much about the likely mechanics, missions, and such. However, leaks have already given us a glimpse into the world of GTA 6. Check out the top 5 GTA 6 rumours.

Alan Wake 2 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 may not have much in common on the surface. One is a dark mystery thriller with a story that unfolds alongside its protagonists minds, while the other is a fast-paced and exhilarating action game about bright and colourful superheroes.

I think almost every gamer would agree that how a game feels to play is absolutely the most important factor in whether it’s fun or not. Given how many fan-created ‘demakes’ there are of contemporary blockbusters, the proliferation of pixel art (which while it can be pretty is hardly pushing graphical limits), and hilariously shonky nonsense of a game like Vampire Survivors, it’s pretty clear that gameplay is king.