Best Looking PC Games 2023

The best graphics cards don’t come cheap. So, your desire to show off your new rig with the most graphically demanding PC games on the market is completely understandable.

After all, what’s the point of investing in a powerful computer if you’re not playing the best looking pc games?

In this list, we’ll be highlighting a wide selection of CPU-intensive games, GPU-intensive games and RAM-intensive games that are perfect for stress testing your shiny new rig.

To keep things interesting, we’re including a variety of titles across multiple genres such as open-world games, first-person shooters, and the go-to for showing off PC hardware: racing games.

Make sure to check back as we’ll be updating this list with new entries in the future.

If you would like to receive more gaming recommendations, consider reading through our other curated lists:

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While its over-the-top characters and edgy humor may not appeal to everyone, Borderlands 3 serves as the perfect stress test for powerful PCs thanks to its vibrant cel-shaded visuals.

The looter shooter action RPG takes place seven years after Borderlands 2 and sees players returning to the planet Pandora, a barren wasteland rumored to have hidden vaults filled with treasure and advanced technology scattered around.

Pandora’s geography includes frost-tipped mountains, volcanic areas, massive valleys, and stretches of coastal land, which is more than enough diversity to showcase your PC’s incredible power.

Complementing Borderlands 3’s colorful locales are a cast of new and exciting playable characters such as Amara, a Siren with the power to summon ethereal fists; Moze, a rowdy gunner, accompanied by her mech Iron Bear; Zane, a highly skilled Operative with access to different gadgets; and FL4K, a robot Beastmaster who can summon animals in battle.  

The Metro series continues to improve with each new installment, and Metro Exodus is by far the most impressive entry to date. 

Besides backing ray-tracing, including a immersive updated HUD, and presenting more visually detailed weapons, the narrative-focused first-person shooter introduces fresh landscapes for players to discover while journeying through a post-apocalyptic Russian wasteland.

The game sees you playing as everyone’s favorite Russian scavenger, Artyom, as he sets off to find a new home for his family aboard the Aurora, a massive steam-powered train. 

However, the journey is far from simple, with harsh weather conditions, ammo-scarcity, lethal radiation, and a host of mutated creatures threatening your survival at every turn.

Playing Destiny 2 on PC is an entirely different experience than playing it on consoles, where frame rate caps and lower graphical fidelity prevent the looter shooter from reaching its true potential. 

With the right rig, you can live out all your sci-fi superhero fantasies as you hop from planet to planet defeating Fallen, Taken, and Hive enemies with the superb shooting mechanics Bungie is known for. 

Destiny 2: New Light is also free-to-play, making it the easiest – and cheapest – way to show off your hardware’s capabilities. 

If you find yourself enjoying everything the game has to offer, the latest Shadowkeep expansion builds upon the success of Destiny 2: Forsaken by offering players a more streamlined system for upgrading armor, new exotics to hunt for, cross-save functionality, and additional story content.

What better way to spend your time while waiting for the release of Doom Eternal than checking out the first game?

Released in 2016, Doom was a return to form for id Software’s iconic first-person shooter, featuring more brutal combat, gory executions, overpowered guns, and, last but not least, more Doom Guy.

What’s more, the game is just as visually-impressive today as it was when it first launched thanks to fluid, cinematic-quality animations, disturbingly detailed blood splatters and an abundance of explosive weapons. 

Doom also boasts a new upgrade system that lets players invest in weapons they like, along with stylish Glory Kill executions.

Respawn Entertainment’s take on the Battle Royale genre continues to prove itself as both a competent first-person shooter and a graphical sight to behold, with support for volumetric lighting, adaptive resolution, and dynamic shadow coverage.

It’s not that surprising when you take a look at Respawn’s track record for producing great-looking games like Titanfall 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

With Apex Legends Season 3 “Meltdown” kicking off, now is the best time to assemble a squad and dive headfirst into World’s Edge, a brand new fire-and-ice themed map.

But that’s not all. The new hacker-based legend Crypto joins Apex’s roster of unique and interesting combatants, bringing new game-changing tactics and abilities along with him.  

“Can it run Crysis?” was not only a popular joke amongst PC gaming enthusiasts but also an accurate way to gauge the limitations of your rig at the time.

Although game development technology has surpassed the graphical feats Crytek was able to achieve with their first-person shooter, Crysis 3 is still a shining example of how genuinely gorgeous a game can look with the right hardware.

Featuring highly-realistic environments, dynamic water effects and expressive character facial animations, Crysis 3 is just as impressive today as it was when it was released back in 2013.

While its story is mostly dull, the addition of new weapons and abilities go a long way towards keeping you engaged while exploring an urban rainforest teeming with overgrown fauna, murky swamplands and turbulent rivers.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a story-driven, open-world action RPG set in a medieval city powered by CryEngine. The result is a hyper-realistic medieval sim with detailed characters, HD-textured objects and environments, and a dynamic day/night cycle.

Additionally, developer Warhorse Studios built a motion capture studio to create the game’s highly expressive facial and sword-fight animations. Players control Henry, the son of a blacksmith who decides to join a resistance combating invading raiders after his parents and village are slaughtered. 

More broadly, the game takes place during the Holy Roman Empire when the death of Emperor Charles IV causes two heirs to engage in combat over the throne. 

While you won’t find any dragons or magic, Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s medieval-based combat can be immensely rewarding once you make it past the steep learning curve.

Prey is an open-world first-person shooter developed by Arkane Studios, which was also made possible by the CryEngine toolset. 

The game postulates an alternate reality where President John F. Kennedy was never assassinated, leading to more technological advancements in the space exploration field.  You take on the role of Morgan Yu, a human aboard the Talos 1 space station, which becomes overrun by a species of violent aliens known as the Typhon.

While characters and the Typhon all share striking depictions, the real highlight is the architectural design of the Talos 1 space station, which features detailed 1960s-inspired design and décor — perfect for running the game on a super powerful PC. 

On the gameplay side of things, Prey has a lot to offer when it comes to player’s choice, allowing you to pick Morgan’s gender, what weapons and upgrades you want to use, and make decisions in the world that affect how the story plays out.

Far Cry 5 presents players with a massive open-world format inspired by the wilderness of Northwestern United States. 

Set in the fictional Hope County, Montana, the game sees you traveling through vibrant valleys, warm springs and treacherous mountains, as you track down three cult generals belonging to Eden’s Gate, a dangerous organization led by a villainous man who calls himself The Father.

Although it maintains the exciting gameplay that the series is known for, Far Cry 5 also provides plenty of opportunities to take a break and admire Hope County’s numerous vistas while fishing or hunting.

Aside from its campaign, which can be played in both solo and co-op, FC5 features a map editor that allows players to create their personalized challenges and share them with the world.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider may not be the strongest entry in the rebooted series, but it’s undoubtedly the most brutal, depicting a much darker and more violent Lara Croft than previous games. 

The Eidos Montréal action-adventure game sees the iconic explorer venturing into a gorgeous, tropical rainforest in a race to stop the evil organization Trinity from unleashing an ancient Mayan apocalypse.

Gone are the days of playing as an inexperienced tomb raider who was willing to stand her ground when necessary but typically avoided combat. Instead, we get a version of Lara who’s not only capable but more than willing to kill Trinity’s soldiers using an array of new tools, traps and weapons. 

With features like HDR support and built-in benchmarking tools, SoTR serves as an excellent stress test for any gaming PC.

No Man’s Sky will undoubtedly go down as one of the most controversial releases in video game history. This is something developer Hello Games has spent the past couple years trying to remedy. 

The Beyond Update is the indie studio’s greatest achievement by far, adding several QoL improvements with support for VR and a host of new multiplayer-focused activities designed to entice new and returning players.

However, the game’s procedurally generated planets brimming with exotic fauna and wildlife appear just as captivating today as they were at launch. 

Now sporting a redesigned and improved engine, NMS’ algorithm-based geometry and structure do an excellent job at mimicking real nature, resulting in surreal environments with vibrant color palettes that can be absolutely breath-taking on the right gaming rig.

Just Cause 4’s huge open-world and physics-based mayhem makes it a solid choice for seeing what your PC can really do. 

Whether you’re zipping around with a grappling hook, gliding past mesmerizing South America-inspired landscapes, or just blowing up every car, enemy, and explosive barrel to high hell, there’s always something exciting to see or do.

The game sees players assuming control of Rico Rodriguez once again as he takes on the Black Hand, a powerful militaristic organization run by a new villain named Gabriela Morales. 

After discovering his own father had ties with Morales and the Black Hand’s shady dealings, Rico travels to Solís, a fictional country prone to extreme weather conditions stemming from the organization’s dangerous experiments.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is by far the best-looking entry in the historically based action RPG, breathing new life into the now twelve-year-old franchise while telling an original story set in ancient Greece. 

The game blurs the line between realism and power fantasy even further by providing players with new combat options, including the neat ability to kick enemies off ledges 300-style.

In terms of visuals, Odyssey is a carefully blended mix of confident art design and technical wizardry, the result being an immersive open-world game whose magic and wonder could rival that of the gods of Olympus. 

Sprawling environments serve as the perfect opportunity to assess your GPU’s draw distance capacity while exciting lines of sight give you the chance to admire the finer details.

Hitman 2 builds upon the success of the previous game in a lot of ways, most notably the size and scope of its sandbox environments. 

Levels are more detailed and offer additional opportunities to cause trouble to everyone’s favorite bald assassin, Agent 47, by taking advantage of new disguises and the game’s hilarious and unpredictable AI.   

The sequel pushes the Glacier 2 engine to its full potential, rendering intricately designed levels such as a crowded racing event in Miami, Florida, and a shady mining operation located beneath a lush Colombian rainforest. 

These settings are not only interesting to explore, but they also create opportunities to showcase improvements made to Hitman 2’s reflection technology.

The Witcher 3’s intimidatingly large and open-world format is simply too enticing not to explore. It offers seemingly infinite opportunities to venture into the beaten path and dive deep into the unknown. 

Its uniquely designed locales and otherworldly beasts are complemented by well-written characters and an engaging story centered on Geralt of Rivia, a monster-hunting Witcher. In addition to his two swords, Geralt can wield magical powers that add an extra layer to combat and make battling enemies more satisfying. 

When you’re not defeating mighty creatures, you’re exploring nearby attractions discovered across The Witcher 3’s vibrant urban areas, battle-damaged marshes, thick woods, and vast caverns.

Control was a hot mess at launch as frame rate stuttering plagued both console and PC versions, not to mention how taxing the game was, even for the most powerful graphics cards. 

The third-person action game is highlighted as one of the first major releases to support real-time ray tracing and strive to utilize practically all of the features included with RTX. 

In terms of gameplay and story, Control carries over a lot of the themes and mechanics found in previous Remedy Entertainment games such as Quantum Break and Alan Wake. In it, you control Jesse Faden, a woman equipped with supernatural abilities and a shape-shifting gun called the Service Weapon.

Monster Hunter games have historically always appealed to a much smaller community. However, that changed when Capcom decided to focus on refining the series’ numerous systems to appeal to Western audiences.  

Although some parts can still feel cumbersome and confusing at times, Monster Hunter: World does an excellent job of making you feel like you’re constantly improving.

Whether it’s taking down a tougher version of a monster you’ve already fought or crafting more powerful gear, progression is measurable and visually represented. Small details such as monsters accumulating scars throughout a hunt and unique weapon animations for each attack go a great length towards immersing you in this fantastical world. 

This is made even better thanks to mods like Clear Hunter Reshade, which improves textures and details by removing the bleached effect stemming from the game’s engine.

If you’re playing on normal settings, chances are you’re not that impressed by the presentation of Grand Theft Auto V’s open-world. However, switching over to its highest graphics settings and installing a few graphics-enhancing mods such as NaturalVision overhauls the game’s visuals by introducing many changes.  

This affects environmental weather effects, lighting, ambient colors, tone-mapping and weapon systems. Also, higher-quality textures completely change the experience. The result is a shockingly realistic depiction of a living, breathing world, albeit one that’s rampant with criminal activity. 

The online version of the game continues to be well-supported by Rockstar, and a host of community-made servers, mini-games and activities that provide more excuses to dive into the world of Los Santos.

Project Cars 2 is a motorsport racing sim that boasts an impressive catalog of 140 tracks set in 60 real-world locations and a roster of 189 vehicles to race in. 

In addition to featuring stunning, photorealistic visuals, the game also introduces new dynamic weather and track temperature systems, resulting in a more immersive racing experience.

New types of racing competitions such as Off-Road and Rally cross add some versatility to the game’s offerings while providing opportunities to compare how your PC performs in each mode. 

Lastly, Project Cars 2 utilizes the LiveTrack 3.0 physics engine, which makes it possible to render realistic track conditions that have a direct impact on your car’s acceleration, handling and braking.

Anno 1800 is the fastest-selling entry in the city-builder series’ history, and for a good reason.

It’s not only an engaging real-time strategy game with innovative gameplay, but it also happens to be one of the most visually awe-inspiring games within its genre, sporting historically accurate structures inspired by the architecture of the Industrial Age.

Players are tasked with determining the future of humanity as they navigate the difficult climate created by a society with rapidly changing technology and corrupt politics. You’ll shape the lives of your citizens as you explore new solutions to complex problems, settle new lands, and conquer neighboring territories through a mix of diplomacy, trading, and all-out warfare.

Forza Horizon 4 is a testament to everything developer Playground Games has learned since releasing the first entry in 2012 while maintaining the high-speed arcade racing sim gameplay the series is known for. 

Set in the United Kingdom, the game showcases 420 exquisitely crafted vehicles and introduces a novel dynamic weather system that allows the world to cycle through seasons over time.

The switch from racing on high-stakes circuits to the open roads of a stunningly recreated United Kingdom gives the player a chance to admire the hard work that went into crafting every open-field, thick patch of trees and pile of snow.

When combined with the graphical effects from Motorsport 7 and a diverse roster of unique vehicles, it’s easy to see why Forza Horizon 4 is one of the best-looking games around.

You might be scratching your head wondering why we decided to include Minecraft of all games on this list. 

While the popular survival sandbox game’s blocky visuals may not be able to compete with just about every other game on this list in terms of quality, its simplicity provides the perfect opportunity to test your PC’s hardware capabilities straightforwardly.

By now, most will recognize the staple Minecraft formula: you break blocks for resources and use them to construct tools, weapons, decorative items… you name it. However, it’s not until you dive headfirst into the world of Minecraft Mods that you realize the game’s full potential, both graphically and gameplay-wise. 

Mods like Optifine add support for HD-textures and, when combined with an RTX-enabled graphics card, you can turn the game’s blocky world into an aesthetically pleasing wonder. 

Unravel Two is a platforming adventure game played from the perspective of two Yarnys, small living beings made of yarn. 

The two share a connecting thread that allows them to run, jump and swing to solve puzzles and traverse tricky environments filled with dangerous obstacles such as animals, sharp objects and harsh weather conditions.

We’ve included Unravel Two on this list for its unique visuals, which present fantastically detailed representations of coastal shorelines, damp caves, mechanical workshops and abandoned warehouses. The contrast between the Yarnys themselves and the massive environments they inhabit make Unravel Two a spectacle that’s best experienced firsthand. 

The Deus Ex games are known for masterfully blending elements found in first-person shooters, RPGs, and more traditional stealth games while depicting a visually captivating futuristic setting.

An expansive number of graphical details including atmospheric fog, volumetric smoke, and physics-simulation for clothing have allowed the now three-year-old Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to retain its spot as one of the best-looking games. 

In this game, you play as series protagonist Adam Jensen, a tough-talking hero pulled straight out of an early 2000s game cover. Set two years after Human Revolution, the game sees Jensen acting as a double agent for Juggernaut Collective, a hacker group looking to expose the Illuminati, who have been secretly planning to carry out a sinister plot.

If you don’t mind the challenge that comes with Soulslike games, then Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an excellent way to showcase your gaming PC’s hardware. 

Set during 16th-century Sengoku Japan, the game has you playing as the Wolf, a deadly Shinobi seeking revenge against a Samurai who’s wronged him. A grappling hook allows the Wolf to quickly reach different vantage points to track enemies, locate items, or just soak up the game’s alluring Japanese architecture. 

This is all made even better thanks to support for mods like the Simple Realistic Reshade, which makes noticeable improvements to the game’s saturation, contrast and lighting without being too GPU-heavy.