The Best PC Action Games for 2021

Epic ninja battles. Supernatural slugfests. Comic book brawls. These thrilling, recommended action games prove that PC gaming is so much more than clicking tiles and positioning troops.

In the past, the PC was the thinking person’s video game machine. There, you’d find deep, strategy games, such as Civilization or StarCraft, or groundbreaking first-person shooters, such as Doom or Half-Life. For flashy and fleeting action games, you played at the arcade or on console. Fortunately, you can now play any game type on the personal computer. Today’s top PC games include action-packed hits.

The action genre is surprisingly tricky to define. Action games contain a lot of combat, but they’re aren’t fighting games or beat ‘em ups. An “action-adventure” game may have narrative, exploration, or puzzle-solving elements, but too many tip the title into the role-playing game or adventure game territories. It’s more than a little subjective.

Video game genres are more fluid than ever, but for this list we focused on the PC games that best prioritize action-packed thrills above all else. Here are the best PC action games that you should download right now.

Batman: Arkham City

Excellent (4.0)

The middle chapter of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham trilogy does the best job balancing dense, thoughtful level design with an open-world Gotham City for the Caped Crusader to patrol. You’ll encounter recognizable villains, including Mr. Freeze, Hugo Strange, and the League of Shadows. The game’s still-revolutionary combat system makes it a joy tearing through mobs of generic goons and henchmen.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (for PC)

Ninja Theory can craft solid combat systems in its sleep. If all Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice had going for it was its intimate and tactical combat encounters, we would still recommend it. What makes this a truly special game, though, is how fighting your way across the ancient Celtic and Norse hellspaces ultimately serves as a raw and powerful metaphor for the mental health issues plaguing the main character, brilliantly performed by Melina Juergens.

About Jordan Minor