What’s been your favorite new sport this yr? You may learn all about our decisions proper right here, with our full Sport of the 12 months Awards 2025 record, however I’ve acquired another for you. Importantly, this one is not fairly so subjective as most ‘better of’ collections as a result of it displays one thing that is actually essential in PC gaming: efficiency.
I do not simply imply outright body charges, although that is no small matter. You may have a sport that runs at effectively over 200 fps, but when the graphics are all wonky donkey, or the entire thing is much less steady than a block-away-from-disaster sport of Jenga, then it will be no enjoyable to play.
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However three stood out for being shining examples of good sport growth, from a technical perspective. They do not simply have glorious graphics and excessive body charges, but in addition rock-steady stability and a variety of choices to assist them scale throughout the huge sea of {hardware} configurations on the market.
Sadly, one other three excelled at being shining examples of the full reverse: glitchy graphics, inexplicably poor efficiency, and a heavy reliance on monstrously highly effective {hardware} or upscaling/body technology simply to run at a suitable tempo.
So with out additional ado, listed here are the perfect and worst video games of 2025, tech and development-wise.
The very best examples of high sport growth in 2012
Battlefield 6 | 4K native, Max high quality | Ryzen 9 9900X | RX 9070 XT
Should you’ve already performed the sport, then our first decide for the best-performing sport this yr will not be in in the slightest degree stunning. It is Battlefield 6 or, as Andy merely referred to as it, “What a well-optimised sport appears like in 2025.” How does a body charge of 100 fps at 1440p on an RTX 4070 sound? How about after I let you know that is with utilizing the sport’s most high quality settings and no upscaling or body technology?
In fact, what’s serving to an important deal in Battlefield 6 is that its builders fully eschewed all the newest rendering wizardry, resembling ray tracing, to focus solely on maximising efficiency. That does not imply it appears like a bag of bitter frogs, although. Environmental destruction has been Battlefield’s occasion piece for a few years, and it feels as epic as ever within the newest iteration.
However the perfect a part of all of it is simply how effectively all of it runs. Even at launch, it was remarkably glitch-free and scaled very effectively throughout a number of generations of CPUs and GPUs. Even on {hardware} from the final decade, Battlefield 6 appears and runs nice. You’d suppose that this could be the norm, however that is not been the case in any respect, regardless of 2025 exhibiting a lot promise with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 | 1080p, Prime quality, DLSS High quality | Ryzen 7 7735HS | RTX 4050
For an enormous, sprawling open world sport, replete with epic vistas, big forests, and cities bustling with NPCs, KCD2 runs prefer it’s a Battlefield 6 form of sport (i.e. small maps, with tight constraints on draw distance).
The star of the present right here is Crytek’s CryEngine software program, which is considerably underused by sport builders. Though there is not any full-blown hardware-based ray tracing on present, KCD2 makes use of voxel-based software program ray tracing to nice impact, although the sport’s screen-space reflections aren’t wherever close to as spectacular.
With shader compilation cleverly hidden in loading screens and within the background, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is blessedly freed from stutters, even when traversing over massive distances on horseback; even the dense crowds of the principle metropolis do nothing to have an effect on the body charge.
When a primary RTX 4050 laptop computer can comfortably hit 60 fps at 1080p on the top quality preset and a snit of DLSS upscaling, you already know the builders labored onerous to make efficiency a high precedence.
Simply on the premise of how good these two video games are, you might be forgiven for considering that ray tracing is a curse to be averted when focusing on excessive body charges, however there was one launch in 2025 that proved it may be used with out an excessive amount of of a efficiency hit. Doom: The Darkish Ages wasn’t the frantic shoot-em-up that Doom Everlasting was, however it might nonetheless churn out the frames fairly rapidly.
Doom: The Darkish Ages | 1080p, Extremely high quality, DLSS High quality | Ryzen 5 5600X | RTX 3060 Ti
Hitting 64 fps at 1080p Extremely high quality (over 90 fps with DLSS High quality) on a rig with a Ryzen 5 5600X and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti may not sound tremendous spectacular, however given that every one the lighting and reflections are {hardware} ray-traced, it is actually to not be sniffed at. That form of efficiency can also be achievable with out upscaling or body technology, however making use of only a mere trace of the previous does wonders for the body charge.
Sadly, Doom: The Darkish Ages would not scale in addition to Battlefield 6 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, as a result of using {hardware} ray tracing robotically prevents GPUs predating the RTX 20-series or RX 6000-series from working the sport. And the truth that an RTX 2060 can barely hit 40 fps at 1080p Low with upscaling is not nice, both.
However in case you’ve acquired the best degree of minimal {hardware} to benefit from the newest Doom, then not less than you may be handled to a stutter and glitch-free expertise. One thing that may’t be stated for the three worst video games of 2025, even months after they launched.
The poorest examples of sport growth in 2025
Monster Hunter Wilds | 1080p, Customized medium/top quality, FSR 3 Balanced + body gen | Ryzen 7 5700X3D | RTX 3060 Ti
Standing head and shoulders above each single sport of 2025, Monster Hunter Wilds launched in an abysmal mess, and it is barely any higher ten months down the road. It is not simply that it did not run very effectively when it first appeared, although getting 55 fps at 1080p on the bottom high quality preset with a Ryzen 7 5700X3D and RTX 3060 Ti is actually very grim. Do not be fooled by the above video, as that is with FSR 3 Balanced and body technology enabled.
It is extra right down to the truth that whereas maxing out the graphics settings would not really hurt the efficiency all that a lot, the settings do little to make the sport really look excellent. Making use of a considered quantity of upscaling and body technology produces a good sufficient body charge, however the blurry graphics, muted colors, and sparse environments do not tally with how poorly the sport runs.
With sure {hardware} combos, Monster Hunter Wilds can stutter fairly badly, and together with the token implementation of ray tracing (to make water replicate a tad higher), it simply feels just like the PC model of the sport was a low precedence for the builders. Issues do decide up, by way of visible splendour, as you progress by way of the assorted areas, and the efficiency would not really get any worse.
However even Capcom recognises it is simply not ok, when it referenced Monster Hunter Wilds as being the bar that it’s going to keep away from with Resident Evil Requiem.
Borderlands 4 | 4K native, Badass high quality | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | RTX 5090
Maybe if Gearbox’s CEO was simply as forthcoming about Borderlands 4, issues may need gone considerably higher for that sport at launch. Alas, regardless of solely hitting 40 fps with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5090 rig at 4K Badass high quality indoors (albeit with out upscaling), Randy Pitchford was adamant that there was nothing flawed with the sport in anyway and that the difficulty was gamers’ {hardware} and expectations.
Not like Monster Hunter Wilds, Gearbox has patched out a number of the sooner issues, particularly points regarding stability, however it’s nonetheless not essentially the most performant of video games this yr. Being Unreal Engine 5 powered, a lot of the preliminary ire was directed in the direction of the software program, however the fact of the matter is that the comparatively low efficiency is totally right down to selections made by the builders.
Borderlands 4 appears very good: too good, really. The extent of element within the graphics and the sheer scale of the sport world simply make it very onerous work for even essentially the most potent of gaming CPUs and GPUs. For video games aiming for ultra-realistic appears, that is to be anticipated, however that is by no means been Borderland’s vibe. The most recent entry within the collection does run fairly effectively now, however the participant base ship has lengthy since sailed.
For our last decide of the worst-performing sport of 2025, there have been fairly a couple of contenders. Elden Ring Nightreign was a little bit of a canine’s dinner, however Elden Ring followers are so used to FromSoftware jank that it was largely all forgiven. Avowed’s efficiency was fairly hit-and-miss at launch, however rapidly improved, and Civilization 7 simply beloved grinding down any CPU you cared to throw at it.
Reality be informed, these video games weren’t actually dangerous, only a bit disappointing, and provided that they had been contemporary developments, efficiency woes may very well be considerably forgiven. Nevertheless, ought to a sport be nothing greater than a barebones remaster of one thing fairly previous, you’d suppose that low body charges would not be a part of the equation.
Gears of Struggle: Reloaded | 1080p, Customized low high quality, FSR Balanced | Asus ROG Ally
Enter stage left, Gears of Struggle: Reloaded. Basically a remaster of the 2016 Gears of Struggle: Final Version, which itself was a remaster of the unique sport, Reloaded did really run fairly effectively. Even on primary previous gaming PCs utilizing the Extremely high quality preset, efficiency wasn’t actually an issue. So why have we picked it for this record?
For what’s basically an previous sport with barely improved lighting, Gears of Struggle: Reloaded has no enterprise working as badly because it does on a handheld gaming PC. Even utilizing a personalized low high quality preset and FSR Balanced upscaling, a constant 60 fps was out of the query for an Asus ROG Ally.
A mix of fairly a heavy CPU workload, together with poorly optimised out of doors scenes, will continuously produce sub-40 fps efficiency figures. With body occasions in all places, the sport simply is not fulfilling on a handheld.
We did not deep dive into the efficiency of each sport launched in 2025, however we noticed sufficient to get an excellent overview of what the present state of play is like in sport growth. It is most likely truthful to say that, for essentially the most half, PC efficiency hasn’t been the utmost precedence, and console-like body charges have been the norm this yr.
Whether or not the backlash that the likes of Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter Wilds have obtained shall be sufficient to vary that for 2026, effectively, we’ll simply have to attend and see. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to make certain that some video games will nonetheless lean closely on upscaling and body technology to achieve acceptable body charges, and that ray tracing will wow and frustrate us in equal measure.
But when Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Battlefield 6 can look and run nice, then there’s hope that the following large releases will achieve this, too.
