Another year has gone, which means I've got one less summer left in me to enjoy PC games... a bleak opener... it must be the summer weather.
Anyway. Death and taxes get all the credit for being life's only certainties, but they're also joined by a third: PC Gamer's Top 100, which landed through my letterbox this week with the satisfying thud of an organisation that never got the memo about print being dead.
Last year's edition prompted me to build my own list. Specifically, one entry: Caves of Qud, was sitting at number seven. A game I had never heard of... in the top 10 on a list I give weight to, and I was staring at it like a man who'd wandered into the wrong bar downtown.
Self doubt is not a hat I wear comfortably. So I did what any reasonable middle-aged bloke would do, and wrote 1,500 words about why I was right and they were wrong!
Vindication! (sort of)
This year, balance has returned.
Caves of Qud is still on their list. So is Dwarf Fortress, another title I'd file under "niche" and which last year sat at number three. But the positions have shifted somewhat.
Caves of Qud: number 7 in 2025, number 59 in 2026.
Dwarf Fortress: number 3 in 2025, number 95 in 2026.
That's a fall of 52 and 92 places respectively, in twelve months, for two games that have not changed. No disastrous updates, dev scandals, or servers turned off. The games are identical. But the list has moved...
I want to be clear here, because I've no interest in kicking Freehold or Bay 12. Both are extraordinary pieces of work made by people who clearly dedicated years of their lives to build something singular. Caves of Qud won a Hugo! Neither of them deserves to be the punchline. But there's a difference between "this is a remarkable game" and "this is the seventh best PC game ever made", and last year's list couldn't tell them apart.
The math is wrong
The shuffle isn't a change of heart. It's a change of method. And the method is where PC Gamer gets properly daft.
Here's how it's supposed to work, according to their own definition. Thirty of PC Gamer's editors, writers and staff vote on games across three categories:
- Quality at 70%, described as "simply the team's favourite games"
- Importance at 15%, the most influential in PC gaming history
- Freshness at 15%, a celebration of new and novel ideas
Each category total is divided by the number of people who voted for it, giving an average. That average is divided by 100 and multiplied by its weighting. The three results are added together for a Top 100 score, which produces a provisional list. Writers then get to demote or promote one game each, "using arguments and democracy", which is a lovely phrase for what I assume is thirty adults shouting in a meeting room in Bath.
So far, so reasonable. Now here's the problem.
Problem one. The definition says staff "were invited to rate games based on four categories we deem most important". But the flowchart directly beneath it shows three. There is no fourth category anywhere on the page, in the scoring, or in the results.
Problem two. Sitting in the middle of that same flowchart is a pie chart illustrating the weighting. It reads 60/20/20. The actual arithmetic printed below it reads 70/15/15. Two different weightings, one page, and only one of them can be the one they used.
Problem three. The vanished fourth category is Playability, which last year was worth 10%, alongside Quality at 60%, Importance at 15% and Current Hotness at 15%. "Current Hotness" has been rebranded "Freshness", which is the same thing wearing sunglasses. So the 60/20/20 pie chart isn't a leftover from last year either. It matches nothing. It has never been the weighting. Someone dropped a category, rebalanced the maths, and forgot to redraw the picture.
None of this is a scandal. It's a proofing error in a magazine, and I've published worse on this blog before. But it does rather undercut the "using maths and secrets" energy of the whole exercise when the maths on the explainer page doesn't add up.
Where it gets interesting
Flip to the back of the list and there's a page listing the top five scorers in each individual category. Read it next to the main list and the whole thing gives itself away.
Quality: Baldur's Gate 3, The Witcher 3, XCOM 2, Disco Elysium, Elden Ring.
Freshness: Blue Prince, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, Dwarf Fortress, Caves of Qud.
They are there - both games still scoring in the top five for novelty, and neither appearing anywhere near the top five for quality. Which means last year, when they were sitting at three and seven, it wasn't durability putting them there. It was heat. And heat fades...
Dropping Playability should have helped Dwarf Fortress. It's the single category that game was always going to bomb. They removed the penalty and it still fell ninety-two places.
My honest read is that quality is simply the team's favourite games. It's not a measure of how good a game is. It's a measure of what thirty writers played recently and enjoyed. Which is fine, it's an opinion piece and so is this, but it means the list can't do the job the cover implies it does. You can't build a canon out of thirty people's last twelve months.
My Top 25 list stands
So, my list remains unchanged.
Not because it's perfect, but because nothing in the last year has shifted it- and it's aged rather well, which I'll take.
Four games I placed that PCG had outside their top ten last year have now climbed into it: Minecraft (my 20, their 5), XCOM 2 (my 4, their 7), Doom 1993 (my 6, their 9) and Half-Life 2 (my 17, their 10). Disco Elysium sits at number two on both lists, which feels like the two of us shaking hands across a table. The Witcher 3 is my 5, their 3. Crusader Kings III is my 12, their 8.
We part company in places, obviously. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still my number one game and their thirteen. Balatro is my three and their sixteen. Cities: Skylines is my thirteen and their ninety-seven, which I would very much like to argue about...
The point of the alignment isn't scorekeeping. It's that where two very different lists agree that there is probably a game or two here worth your time: Doom, Half-Life 2, XCOM 2, Minecraft, Disco Elysium, The Witcher 3. If you haven't played them yet, then do yourself a favour.
Or don't. Apparently watching other people play games is now a legitimate way to experience them, according to my young adult children, who say this to me with the patience of someone explaining a smartphone to a grandparent. I remain unconvinced, but I've also never had to explain to anyone why I spent hours watching Hot Wheels toys getting pimped, so perhaps I should shut up.
Twelve months of my gaming persona
My own year had a few high points.
Terminator 2D: No Fate was a genuine joy when it arrived with all the right pixels in all the right places.
007 First Light - I've already banged on about it here, so I won't do it twice.
Days Gone finally got its turn, and it's a much better game than its reputation suggests.
All three were a good time. None of them are top 25 material. That's not a criticism, it's just what the number 25 means.
I will say this though: I put some proper hours into Baldur's Gate 3 this year, after bouncing off it twice, and I get it now. I can see the craft, I can see why people talk about it the way they do, I can see exactly why it's held the number one spot for three years running. It is, objectively, a magnificent thing. But I'm still not being drawn in. My brain is just wired differently, and after a certain age I stopped apologising for that.
So where does that leave us
Exactly where we started, which is the whole point.
This is an opinion, and so is theirs. Mine hasn't changed in a year, and that's not a reflection of a stagnant market. It's a reflection of a stagnant gamer who likes what he likes.
Ask me again when GTA 6 arrives. I suspect it'll be a serious contender.
It just has to turn up on PC first...
Where do you stand? Is Caves of Qud at #59 fair, or did I just get lucky? Should Cities: Skylines really be languishing at 97?
