The perfect PC video games of 2022 (that don’t want a graphics card)

2022 was a incredible 12 months for PC gaming, particularly since graphics playing cards are lastly reasonably priced once more (kind of). However video games like Elden Ring and God of Warfare aren’t precisely out there in case you aren’t rocking some critical GPU wattage. That’s okay: the PC recreation market is huge sufficient that there are nonetheless tons of incredible new titles that may run on even on the rustiest, dustiest, and crustiest Home windows pc.

In case you use a low-power laptop computer or desktop, you may nonetheless play an enormous assortment of video games from Steam, the Epic Video games Retailer, and others. As I’ve completed for the final 5 years working, I’ve picked out one of the best and brightest video games that may run even on low-power machines. (Oh, and it’s a pleasant bonus that the majority of those video games are available properly beneath the “new regular” $70 price ticket—particularly with the legendary Steam Winter Sale working proper as we publish this.)

Listed below are my picks, in no explicit order. Not sufficient? Take a look at the 2021 roundup too!

Railbound

Railbound is a train-themed puzzle recreation that stars two heckin’ good puppers. (That’s canines, for individuals who aren’t terminally on-line.) It’s your job to put tracks, throw switches, and get automobiles hooked up to the engine in the correct order. You’ll should strategically lay the tracks and switches round environmental obstacles to make the whole lot run on time.

Initially launched on cell, Raolbound’s cute cartoon graphics cover a devilishly intelligent puzzle system. And with over 150 levels within the PC model of the sport, you’ll have loads of head-scratching challenges to get by way of. And sure, you may pet the canines (due to a current recreation patch).

Railbound is $13 on Steam.

Cult of the Lamb

Someplace between Animal Crossing and Jonestown sits Cult of the Lamb, a mix city manager-dugeon crawler. Construct up your cult of cuddly critters and your compound to get higher at combating, then exit and combat to assemble assets and defeat rival religions. The juxtaposition of sweetie-pie artwork type and darkish subject material harkens again to video games like Hole Knight, however the mixture of roguelite fight and city administration is a novel one even with out the creepy spiritualism.

Reviewers say that managing your resurrected lamb’s cult takes up the lion’s share of the sport, so in case you don’t like interacting with each member of your little insane village day by day, this isn’t the sport for you. After all, you possibly can simply sacrifice them to your darkish god to extra effectively homicide your cult competitors — hooray for participant decisions!

Cult of the Lamb is $25 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on GoG.com.

Return to Monkey Island

For over 30 years, the Monkey Island sequence has been the gold commonplace in point-and-click journey video games. So when the unique designer and author staff stated they have been making a brand new one for the primary time since Monkey Island 2 waaaaaay again in 1991, it was type of a giant deal. Virtually as large a deal because the controversial new artwork type, which is a little more avante garde than when pixels have been nearly as large because the floppy disks the video games got here on.

Followers of the unique received’t thoughts, particularly in the event that they haven’t been impressed with LucasArts’ makes an attempt to keep up the sequence past the scope of the primary two video games. Make no mistake, Return to Monkey Island is, in each sense, a return to the traditional point-and-click pirate comedy. In case you’re anticipating a couple of many years of recreation design to have modified issues, suppose once more. That makes the sport a deal with for purists, and probably a little bit of a chore in case you’re extra used to Telltale-style journey video games.

Return to Monkey Island is $25 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on GoG.com.

Vampire Survivors

Think about the straightforward graphics and monster-slaying gameplay of an early Castlevania, mixed with the large battlefields and thousand-unit armies of Dynasty Warriors. That’s Vampire Survivors, an addictive little bullet hell shooter that permits you to slay a fully ludicrous variety of pestilent pixelated poltergeists. The sport is so small it truly began on-line at Itch.io, the place you may nonetheless play the free model.

Gameplay is astonishingly easy — you don’t even hearth, your little monster slayer will do that every one on their very own. However the roguelike setup and incremental upgrades after your inevitable dying give the sport that only one extra run earlier than mattress feeling. Discovering the correct combos of weapons and powerups is the important thing to surviving lengthy sufficient to make progress.

Vampire Survivors is $5 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on Xbox Recreation Cross.

The Wandering Village

All through human historical past there have been many tribes and peoples who believed the world rested on the again of some big turtle or snake. The teeny-tiny folks of The Wandering Village don’t should consider it: they know they dwell on a large dinosaur factor’s again, and so they prefer it that approach. One other twist on the usual metropolis builder-manager, this recreation duties you to take care of your village actually strolling round in numerous environments and climate.

However the village isn’t the one factor it’s essential handle. The leviathan you’re driving on is simply as vital because the folks and the buildings, and also you’ll should preserve it completely satisfied and wholesome to verify everybody on this symbiotic relationship thrives. A surreal mix of 2D and 3D artwork mixed with chill tunes makes The Wandering Village an ideal recreation for winding down.

The Wandering Village is $25 on Steam.

Cursed to Golf

For a soccer fan like me, watching an eternity of Golf Community is a punishment much more terrifying than something Sisyphus or Tantalus needed to endure. The protagonist of Cursed to Golf would possibly agree, not less than after he’s needed to undergo eighteen hellish holes to flee a golf-themed purgatory. The sport is a sequence of physics puzzles, whereby it’s essential to put your strategy to freedom.

However that is “golf” within the Mario sense, although it’s in pixelated (and charming) 2D. You should utilize all types of wacky power-ups to get previous the underworld’s most fiendish traps and tough bosses. When you’re completed with the primary recreation you should use your Ace Playing cards in additional than 80 particular levels and climb your approach up the leaderboards.

Cursed to Golf is $20 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on GoG.com and the Epic Video games Retailer.

Signalis

Followers of the unique, fixed-camera survival horror classics like Alone within the Darkish and Resident Evil owe it to themselves to take a look at Signalis. The sport’s sci-fi setting and low-poly anime graphics supply such a definite type that it’s a pleasure to observe in movement, even when what you’re watching is supposed to terrify.

You play as an android, stranded on a crashed ship and a dull world, attempting to find her associate and her reminiscences. However as you may in all probability guess, not the whole lot is because it appears. Remedy puzzles, protect ammo and assets, and attempt to keep alive (in case you ever have been to start with) as you clear up a dystopian thriller that reaches past the photo voltaic system.

Signalis is $20 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on Xbox Recreation Cross.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

Rising up is difficult sufficient with out having to take care of the complications of oxygen administration and the occasional bug-eyed alien. However such is the case in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, a recreation that mixes traditional JRPG components with fashionable fight and completely beautiful 2D artwork. Along with protecting your self and your fellow colonists alive, you’re searching for love in all of the extrasolar locations.

The sport is a mixture of role-playing and visible novel — you is perhaps tempted to name it a courting sim, however there’s much more occurring beneath the floor than simply flirting. (By the way, this one may be very a lot not for youths). You’ve obtained ten years to avoid wasting the colony and set your self up for maturity through card-based fight and battle decision. In case you can’t, begin once more and goal for one more of the story’s 29 completely different endings.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is $25 on Steam.

Pentiment

A pentiment is a hidden picture beneath the highest layer of a portray. It’s applicable, since Obsidian, the AAA developer behind Fallout: New Vegas, Grounded, and The Outer Worlds, is hiding amongst all these indie builders. However this homicide thriller set in a Sixteenth-century German village, and illustrated like one of many manuscripts you would possibly discover in an historic monastery, is about as far-off as you may get from the mainstream.

Whereas Pentiment is basically a point-and-click journey recreation, it boasts a narrative that spans 25 years, with choices and penalties simply as elongated. If Monkey Island is an excessive amount of of a throwback on your journey gaming tastes, that is certain to ship one thing somewhat extra contemporary.

Pentiment is $20 on Steam. It’s additionally out there on Xbox Recreation Cross.

Triangle Technique

The traditional tactical RPG is seeing one thing of a renaissance this 12 months, with video games like Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Techniques Ogre Reborn. However if you need one thing each old style and authentic, give Triangle Technique a strive. Coming from the identical Sq. Enix staff as well-received retro RPGs like Octopath Traveler, it’s a love letter to grid-based medieval social gathering fight.

The three-way wrestle of the world’s important international locations is mirrored within the morality system, which tugs equally on the participant’s utility, morality, and liberty. A battle setup closely leaning on terrain benefit and particular skills ought to scratch your technique itch.

Triangle Technique is $60 on Steam.

Honorable Point out: Dwarf Fortress

Technically, the primary model of Dwarf Fortress got here out 16 years in the past. A small however thriving group has been obsessive about this world-building recreation ever since, although its text-based graphics look extra like some type of ASCII nightmare than a contemporary online game. Understanding its extremely deep and evolving programs is a examine in itself, and one that the majority avid gamers merely can’t be bothered with.

However you actually ought to strive, if solely to say you probably did. And with a brand new pixel-based graphics makeover, Dwarf Fortress now appears to be like prefer it’s solely 35 years previous, as a substitute of one thing out of the daybreak of computing. To begin a recreation of Dwarf Fortress is to create a tiny, dwelling, respiratory world, and to outlive in it’s an accomplishment that few can declare…and none can preserve.

The brand new, pixel artwork model of Dwarf Fortress is $30 on Steam. The unique is free.