![We love PC Games [Explain & Conquer]](https://pcplayerhub.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-logo-1.png){kind=logo}
What are the best PC Games 2013? What title will keep avid gamers up at night with their joysticks and keyboards groaning under stress in 2013?
2013 is actually a very interesting year for the gaming industry. A huge trend is gaining track, with independent game designers and fans dreaming up their ideal game concepts. But instead of frantically knocking on studio doors as they once had to, they can now increasingly rely on the power of so-called “crowdfunding”. We will talk more about this later on.
Also highly influencing the PC games market in 2013 is the arrival of the new versions of the two most important consoles, the XBOX 720 and the PlayStation 4.
Although the new consoles make game development more risky for studios until these are fully established, the list of the best PC games 2013 we are looking forward to is very long.
Okay, so here are our candidates for the title of the “Best PC Game 2013”.
Battlefield 4 PC
Release Date: Oct. 29th, 2013 (unconfirmed)
Genre: Strategic Action
Well, for this editor Battlefield 4 IS the Best of the Best PC Games 2013 already…without one virtual shot being fired… he is still playing Battlefield 3, even though that is 2 years old… so you might take his opinion to be immature or at least biased…
Whatever you think, you should now to get instant access once it comes out and receive the bonuses!
Hurry!
Ace Combat Assault Horizon
Release Date: January 2013
Genre: Action
The Ace Combat series is a very successful franchise of combat flight simulators and this author has already spent countless hours in aerial combat with older episodes of this franchise. But to be honest: Only on the XBOX, because the franchise has never been ported to a PC near you.
Until now.
In January 2013 the developer “Project Aces” and publisher Namco Bandai finally release the highly acclaimed “Ace Combat Assault Horizon” for the PC, after having already been released in 2011 for the XBOX and PlayStation.
In Ace Combat Assault Horizon you take on the role of Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop, a highly decorated US Air Force squad leader, and fight off the attacks of the terrorists group SRN and their deadly “Trinity”, a bomb as deadly as any nuclear device.
The game plays like a movie, with you taking over during the action scenes while the plot follows a story developed by New York Times bestselling author Jim DeFelice. Ace Combat puts you into the hot seat of a thriller.
The game features a new air combat graphics engine called “Close-Range Assault” (CRA), making dogfights a highly thrilling and realistic experience.
The times of shooting at “far-away pixels” are gone for good with this great piece of PC software!
If you like flight simulators Ace Combat Assault Horizon is a *must buy*! Definitively one of the best PC games 2013.
Total War Rome II
Release Date: October 2013
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Total War is a very successful and highly acclaimed franchise consisting of several games created by Creative Assembly in the UK. The first part of the series was released in 2000 and was a highly entertaining instant hit.
Then in 2004 Creative Assembly released the first part of Total War Rome, which since then has gained many worldwide fans and players. The game engine’s ability for modding (changes to the game design) even created a whole community of gamers who change the game to their liking. The BBC built a complete historical TV series on battle scenes created with this game.
Total War Rome is an absolute classic, no doubt about that!
And now, with the release of Rome II, we bet it will be one of the best PC Games 2013 also.
In 2013 Total War Rome II takes you much deeper into Roman history, when Rome was fighting for its life against Carthage (a city in today’s North Africa) for dominance of the Mediterranean Sea. Before the final Roman blow against Carthage completely destroyed the city, Hannibal had shocked Rome to the bone by crossing the Alps with elephants, defeating Rome’s standing armies and threatening Rome’s existence itself.
“Hannibal ante portas!”
Rome could only survive then by destroying all resources around Hannibal’s armies and with this “strategy” simply starved the enemy.
After Rome survived only by a thread, Senator Cato convinced the Senate to send Consul Scipio with a huge naval army to destroy the deadly contender that was Carthage for good, and that the Roman armies did.
No Carthaginian stone was left upon another, and after Carthage was completely wiped out the Roman armies poisoned the soil for all eternity with salt, a very precious commodity in those days.
Total War Rome II puts you right into Scipio’s shoes, in command of this decisive battle.
The game engine in TW Rome II has been refined beyond recognition. Carthage returns from its grave onto your screen in all its greatness; Your fleet is gigantic and the new game engine ushers the whole real-time strategy genre into a new era.
The gameplay creates a historical sense of the enormous scale.
Creative Assembly, the game development studio, calls this new gaming experience “a complete new computer game battle type”, or “combined battle”. From now on you do not have a naval battle or a land battle, but all the different forces working together, as troops first embark on ships, land, and then disembark to fight again on the ground.
The studio invested a lot of time into the game’s atmosphere, so that the player really feels as if he or she was in the shoes of a Roman Consul and his soldiers.
You become part of the battle and see the other soldiers’ emotions like terror or blood thirst, so that from now on battles in real-time-strategy-games (RTS) are no longer just a question of sheer numbers and tactics. The game strives to include the horrors and emotions of battle every Roman and enemy soldier had to endure and it is highly realistic.
Total War Rome had only one flaw: The sometimes suicidal artificial intelligence (AI) of your computer opponents. For Total War Rome II the AI has been completely revamped so that your enemies behave like real opponents and are harder to predict or to subjugate than ever.
Total War Rome II is highly realistic and your qualities as commander-in-chief in a real-time strategy game are more challenged than ever. It is obligatory for all real-time strategy aficionados among you and will be released in October 2013 for Windows PCs.
Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Patriots
Release Date: Unknown
Genre: Ego Shooter
A new game in the Rainbox Six franchise is to be released in 2013? Wow! That would be fantastic! The return of an absolute ego shooter classic!
We loved playing the first part of Vegas 2 in 2008 and long after, but today the graphics just don’t cut it anymore. Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield have spoiled us with their brilliant sceneries, and so no one plays Vegas 2 anymore today.
The game concept is one of the best we have ever enjoyed because of its emphasis on team cooperation in the Cooperative and Multiplayer modes. Unlike in any other game we have ever played, Rainbox Six forces you and your friends to advance and cooperate as a team, making this game a modern day “buddy experience” with your worldwide friends.
The Rainbow Six franchise is part of the cooperation between best-selling author Tom Clancy (“Hunt for Red October”, “Patriot Games”, “Red Storm Rising”) and Ubisoft. This cooperation has allowed for great games like Ghost Recon, Endwar and Rainbox Six Las Vegas, creating hours of fun for the you.
The gameplay of Rainbow Six is based on ego shooting with team action, You take over the role of a team member of the élite anti-terror task force unit Rainbow Six.
When terrorists attack the West you must stop them and their plot.
Not much has been released so far about the game content, except for the trailer above.
However, with the looming release of the next generation of Microsoft and Sony consoles it seems doubtful that Ubisoft will release this game in 2013. We have waited since 2008 for a new part in this franchise and it seemed that Ubisoft had given up on the series. Now, with the announcement of a new episode, we cannot wait any longer:
So Ubisoft, please: We understand that you want to wait for the new consoles to gain market share, but with us, your truest fans from the PC gaming guild, you need not wait for any new hardware releases. You take no risk in releasing this highly longed-for game for our PCs in 2013, so why not release the PC version in 2013? That is what we ask you for, Ubisoft.
Dear readers, if you want to support this petition to Ubisoft, please send them a mail here.
Command & Conquer
Release Date: Unknown
Genre: Real-Time-Strategy
Command & Conquer is *the* classic real-time strategy game for us. Over the years there were many parts to the franchise, but lately the series had lost its track, the studios closed, and no one seemed really in charge of keeping the game alive.
Still, when a sequel to this franchise is announced, for us that belongs on the list of the (potentially) Best PC Games 2013.
So we were excited to hear last year that Electronic Arts had announced a new episode, then called “Generals 2”. Since Generals 1 was one of the great and highly innovative episodes of the original Command & Conquer game, it sounded like Command & Conquer could be back on track. The gaming community had been pretty hopeful about a new approach (some say that, after Generals, trying to switch the gameplay to consoles ruined the game) to revive this basically dead franchise, reaching back to the great Generals episode.
Later that year Electronic Arts announced that the concept and development of Generals 2 had been canceled, and that the parts already programmed would be released simply as “Command & Conquer”.
So when EA canceled Generals 2 and instead announced a blend of all the Command & Conquer games ever created for release in 2013, the gaming community was very skeptical at best.
The real news is that EA decided to use all the already existing assets to make Command & Conquer 2013 a “free-to-play” game. A free-to-play game costs you nothing, while the maker hopes to get back his money from selling stuff on the inside.
While we cannot imagine a game where a pop-up screen opens up saying “Need a tank? Here is your Paypal link”, we for now have decided to view CnC 2013 as a free gift from EA and will decide if we like it or not after we have given it some of our time.
No release date has been given so far, though.
Star Wars 1313
Release Date: Unknown
Genre: Ego Shooter
Breaking News April 2013: With Disney killing LucasArts the future of this game is uncertain. Perhaps in a galaxy far far away…?
Lucas Arts has released its first Star Wars game since the merger with Disney and all our fears of Darth Vader with Mickey Mouse’s ears seem to have been unnecessary, but still the game Star Wars game studio’s future is unclear since the mouse was interested in the movies and not so much the video game department. The future will show what Mickey has in mind for our PCs.
Star Wars 1313 may be the decisive game release for Lucas Arts, and it looks pretty promising though “Rated: Mature” games probably won’t fit Disney’s family-centered universe.
In Star Wars 1313 the player assumes the role of a bounty hunter. 1313 refers to the level below the surface of Coruscant, where the scum of Republic’s capital planet hides.
Star Wars 1313 again creates a real Star Wars atmosphere and promises to delight the player for many hours.
This release definitely belongs on the Best PC Games 2013 Leaderboard.
FIFA 14
Release Date: Q3 2013
Genre: Sport Simulation
FIFA is the most successful soccer simulation there is, and though FIFA 13 has just been released a new version has already been announced for Fall 2013. Perhaps they want to have a game named exactly as the soccer world championships taking place in the summer of 2014 in Brazil (also called FIFA 2014)?
Since this is one of the two most important games Electronic Arts has in stock (the other being Battlefield 3), a new release of FIFA is something for the Best PC Games 2013 Leaderboard.
SimCity 5
Release Date: March 2013
Genre: Simulation
When Electronic Arts releases a new version of this city-building simulator, it will be a clear candidate for the Best PC Games 2013 Leaderboard. The new version comes with improved 3D graphics and a much more realistic city life. When you create a new building, you will see a new building being built, and if you create a street, you will get traffic and the traffic jams that go with it.
What is most noteworthy about SimCity 2013 is its full multiplayer features, something that has not been part of SimCity since the 2000 version, so now you can build against your friends.
The best of the Best PC Games 2013? Grand Theft Auto V
Release Date: none
Genre: A Class of its Own – if not the best games in 2013 – but for PC?
Damn, this is a hot topic for us PC gamers. In our opinion, this is the hottest of the (potential) Best PC Games 2013, but… It seems there will be no PC version. Rockstar, the game publisher (and studio) only plans releases for the XBOX and PlayStation.
So, this game would belong here if it was released for PC. Since it is not planned at this point in time, no need to go into details.
But we ask you to support our quest to make Rockstar release the game for the PC also, so please sign the petition below, which will be routed to Rockstar Games. Thank you!
Petition to Rockstar Games to Release Grand Theft Auto V for PC
Splinter Cell
Release Date August 20th 2013
Genre: Ego Shooter Strategy
Splinter Cell is another very successful franchise of Ubisoft’s cooperation with Tom Clancy, with Spliter Cell Blacklist being the 6th installment.
We put this game on the Best PC Game 2013 list because of the franchise’s unique gameplay, a mixture of stealth movements and quiet action.
The game will again feature the “spy vs. mercs” competitive multiplayer mode, so even after the single player missions are solved the game won’t collect dust.
Strike Suit Zero
Release Date: January 2013
Genre: Shooter
We put Strike Suit Zero on the Best PC Game 2013 Leaderboard not so much because of unmatched 3D HD graphics or for having a brand new game concept. No, Strike Suit Zero is on this list because of the way the game was created.
The game-changer in the video games industry in our opinion is … Crowdfunding.
The way crowdfunding works is that someone posts the game idea and project plan on a webplatform like Kickstarter, presenting the concept to the world and asks for a small contribution to the project in return for some fan articles or free copies.
This way millions of game fans can back the project they would like to see on their PCs (or phones or consoles), while the big studios lose the chance to buy the idea while it is still cheap.
This way the game studios might meet the same fate in the future as book publishers do right now because of the Kindle: They lose their power over the gaming industry. They are no longer the only hope for game designers to let their dreams come true.
And 2013 is the first year when this trend yields results. Don’t be surprised if some of our Best PC Games 2013 were actually crowdfunded.
Crowdfunding is a very important video game industry trend, and we will look into that much deeper in articles to come on this site.
Strike Suit Zero is a very entertaining space flight combat game like we all enjoyed back in the 90s. It is very well designed and programmed, though it “only” raised USD 150,000 on Kickstarter, which is nothing compared to the industry’s biggest budget of $150-200 million for Star Wars The Old Republic.
Kudos to the studio for creating such a nice title on such a limited budget and for finding innovative paths to create their dream game.
Dead Space 3
Release Date February 2013
Genre: Ego Shooter
If you like horror stories and movies, Dead Space is the video game for you. Wikipedia classifies this game as “survival horror”, and the game does its best to let the zombies (“Necromorphs”) get under your skin.
The graphics are excellent and the gameplay is impressive. The magazine Gameplay says: “Dead Space 3 is a thrilling and worthwhile sequel“ (to Dead Space 2).
Electronic Arts’ CEO Frank Gibeau is quoted as saying: “we definitely do not want to piss off our fans” by reducing the horror content in Dead Space 3. “We tried to open up the accessibility of the (game) a little bit by adding a little bit more action, but not undermining the horror.”
So if you liked Dead Space 2, this game definitely belongs on your list of the Best PC Games 2013.
Crysis 3
Release Date: February 2013
Genre: Ego Shooter
If you are a huge fan of ego shooters the German-made Crysis 3 is a must for you. While some complained about the graphics of predecessor Crysis 2, this time the CEO promised “to melt the PC” with graphic power.
Crysis 3 is a very entertaining, highly original, and very well designed first-person ego shooter. Absolutely one of the Best PC Games 2013 in this category.
The Best PC Games 2013 – Your Comments?
So this is our Best PC games 2013 Leaderboard. What are we missing? What do you think does not belong here? Share your thoughts in the comments below and discuss your favorites with our readers and us!
