On the one hand, “score inflation” is a real concern we discuss. We think a game should have to be really special to receive a 90%, so when we start talking about a 94% or a 95%, the game in question ought to make us feel like the guy in the galaxy brain meme with light beams shooting out of his head. As a group, we’ve still never awarded a score higher than 98%, and the pages of PC Gamer’s UK edition have yet to see a score above 97%, which was only given last year to Baldur’s Gate 3. PC Gamer is 30 years old.

On the other hand, sometimes your reviewers come to you and say, look, I know this has the appearance of an ASCII game from the ’80s, but it’s amazing, incredible, fantastic, brilliant. 94%! And you ask them some questions, and ask other editors what they think, and play it for yourself a bit, and a little while later you’re doing a water ritual with a guy named Abbashaphat Mordecai which causes your reputation with “newly sentient beings” to decrease, and so you decide, alright: 94% it is.

Sometimes the games are just good. That was true a lot this year.

Of course, a score is just shorthand for how a reviewer felt about a game, and lots of games don’t get high scores from us even though plenty of people think they’re brilliant, including people at PC Gamer. Most games don’t get a score from us at all, because we can’t possibly review everything, and don’t typically score early access games. In other words, this is not a comprehensive list of the best games of the year, and in fact some of our 2024 GOTY Award winners aren’t on it. And yet it’s still a pretty big list. 2024 perhaps wasn’t the splashiest year for PC gaming, but bad? Definitely not.

Here are PC Gamer’s highest review scores of 2024:

89%

• Persona 3 Reload: “a highly-polished remake of the 2006 classic”
• Tekken 8: “The best Tekken game in years, let down only by its struggling netcode and aged customization”
• Dragon’s Dogma 2: “A magnificent adventure with impressive fights and some very rough edges”
• V Rising: “An even better version of one of the best Early Access survival games”
• Little Kitty, Big City: “an adorable, entertaining journey through a delightful world that’s just the right size”
• Lorelai and the Laser Eyes: “a thrilling mystery that asks players to rise to its challenges, and rewards them when they do”

90%

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: “fulfills the promise of being the most true-to-life and detailed game of its kind”
• Shogun Showdown: “This wonderfully clever strategy roguelike demands your best, and it deserves to get it”
• Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred: “Compelling characters to root for, creative loot to chase, and fiercely expressive action”
• Satisfactory: “a masterfully made game for crafters, builders, and factory managers of all kinds”
• Riven: “as impressive, immersive, and unmissable as it’s ever been”
• Animal Well: “a sleep-destroying puzzle metroidvania of baffling depth”
• Granblue Fantasy: Relink: “an essential ARPG”

91%

• Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake: “welcoming for newcomers, a fan’s dream, and a truly timeless classic”
• Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance: “combines the fresh, familiar, and the fiendish into one incredible RPG”
• Wild Bastards: “The roguelike and FPS genres haven’t been spliced so successfully since Deathloop”
• Balatro: “A roguelike deckbuilder debut already worthy of joining Slay the Spire and Monster Train at the King’s table. Essential”

92%

• Destiny 2: The Final Shape: “It’s simply the best Destiny 2 expansion—both a satisfying conclusion to the series’ first saga, and a compelling shooter packed full of stuff to do”
• Factorio: Space Age: “Blowing out Factorio’s scale and reinventing its factory systems multiple times over, Space Age is an immediate contender for the best expansion ever made”

94%

• Caves of Qud: “a genre-defining achievement in play, story, and roleplaying freedom”

95%

• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree: “not only complements the base game but expands its thematic and systemic scope even further.”
• Metaphor: ReFantazio: “a beautiful, 100-hour-long journey from beginning to end”