What are the toughest games to run on a new PC?
What are the toughest games to run on a new PC?
Hello!
The most visually intense games for newer titles often push graphics to their limits, and many new releases require around 100 GB due to advanced visual effects and high-resolution assets. These demands aren't usually about length but about the complexity of rendering and performance needs.
The most visually intensive titles in 2025 consist of games such as GTA 6, Alan Wake II, The Last of Us Part II (Remastered), and Death Stranding 2, among others. These experiences are recognized for their ultra-high-resolution textures, intricate environments, realistic lighting effects, and sophisticated NPC designs, positioning them as leading examples of advanced graphical innovation.
most of the large file sizes come from high-resolution content. even without playing at 1440p or 4k, you still need to download and save files that you’ll never use.
other features are multiplayer tools—essential if you plan to play, but not necessary otherwise.
i wish installers allowed choosing which files to download to reduce sizes. right now i only play at 1080p, and i dislike keeping all that data for resolutions i won’t use soon. i also don’t play multiplayer, yet there’s a lot of unrelated content here.
The scalable market primarily serves developers aiming to maximize their catch by casting wide nets. A larger net yields a bigger haul, while a smaller one means fewer catches and more frequent attempts. You’ll never truly get de-bloated software.
Or perhaps it never will at all. Fallout 4 stands out as an exception. You can purchase the dlc and/or high-resolution texture pack separately. However, this likely stemmed from its development era—when HD was still emerging. Still, you must include all the dlc for the unofficial patch with extensive bug fixes to make it functional. Now it costs around $20 instead of $50.
I played Mirror's Edge in 2009 on a GPU with 2GB of VRAM and possibly a dual-core CPU—or maybe even a Pentium 4. I didn’t think anything was wrong with it, though some critics mocked the 2D comic book interludes rather than 3D cinematic scenes. I didn’t miss PhysX for having a non-NVidia card.
Recently, I tried it again and found it difficult to run at 1080p, needing third-party tools to get it started. It worked with PhysX, but only produced some smoke effects and fragile plastic in certain scenes. I could push it up to 4K at 60fps, but the frame rate dropped when using PhysX. At 2K at 60fps with PhysX enabled for a 1060.
YouTube videos of it on a 4090 show more detailed weathering on pipes you can cling to during parkour runs—wow.
It’s clear that some are heavily investing in the budget market with $1–5 offers that run on low-end systems, while others focus on high-performance builds.
When evaluating game performance, it's important to rely on concrete data rather than general opinions found online. Perceptions can be quite personal and influenced by current trends for specific titles. Consider these two recent releases as a case in point: Borderlands 4 and Dying Lights: The Beast. The former is often criticized for being difficult to run and poorly optimized, whereas the latter is lauded for its smooth performance. However, when you examine the actual figures, they turn out to be comparable.
At high-quality settings and 4K resolution, both games maintain around 60-70 FPS on a RTX 4080. With some upscaling applied, performance can reach approximately 90 FPS in both titles. The controversy surrounding Borderlands 4 stems from benchmark tests using the "Badass" preset, which maximizes UE5 Lumen effects (ray tracing), significantly impacting performance compared to Dying Light, which doesn't employ such features.
Currently, many developers avoid prominently advertising the highest preset as a "challenge" to encourage players to push their systems. This approach helps prevent frustration and ensures smoother gameplay. CDPR effectively communicated this by highlighting that ray tracing enhancements were primarily showcased in tech demos for Nvidia's new capabilities, allowing players to test them before deciding whether to enable them.
Gearbox, on the other hand, introduced numerous demanding settings without clear justification, making the "badass" preset unnecessarily complex. Given the game's cartoonish aesthetic, the distinction between "badass" and "high" settings is minimal. They should have limited the preset to the higher setting. Benchmarks would have resembled those for Dying Light, avoiding the backlash that arose from such changes.