Top 10 Most Hardware-Demanding PC Games of 2023

The year 2023 was a real challenge for owners of top-tier processors and powerful graphics cards. At the same time, many projects couldn't even slightly approach next-gen standards. Poor optimization and excessive reliance on DLSS and FSR led to the majority of games from the past year having excessively high system requirements and absolutely unstable frame rates.

In this top list, we've gathered games with unjustifiably high system requirements, which need a top-of-the-line graphics card and SSD for adequate performance. The past year 2023 wasn't groundbreaking in technological innovations, but it did surprise us with projects that managed to lag even on current-generation consoles. If you're the lucky owner of a fresh i9 series processor and an NVIDIA 40-series graphics card, then you should check the listed projects for performance with ultra settings. Believe me, you'll be shocked by what you see.

Hogwarts Legacy is a long-awaited open-world role-playing game based on the Harry Potter universe that many have been eager to dive into. The project offers fans of witches and wizards the opportunity to embark on a journey to Hogwarts, find fantastic beasts, brew potions, learn spells, and develop their talents to become a wizard. Upon release, the game became a real information bomb, and the Harry Potter theme filled all media spaces.

Hogwarts Legacy is developed on the fourth version of the Unreal Engine. The developers have managed to optimize the game not only for modern systems but also to port it to outdated consoles, including the Nintendo Switch. However, don't be too quick to rejoice if you think the game will work well on ancient graphics cards. Hogwarts Legacy has a serious issue with shader loading and fast texture uploading to RAM. For a comfortable gaming experience, you'll need plenty of RAM, a fast SSD, and a graphics card with DLSS support.

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Redfall is a cooperative adventure developed by the well-known studio Arkane. The game is a patchwork of multiplayer session play, a single-player open-world game, an immersive sim, and a loot shooter with microtransactions. Redfall boasts an incredibly attractive atmosphere, excellent narrative, and Arkane's signature approach to location creation. On such a foundation, it could have been one of the studio's best games. However, due to the developers' lack of understanding of how to make multiplayer games, the release turned out to be extremely disappointing.

Redfall was developed using Unreal Engine 4. Because Arkane's programmers couldn't optimize the open world, the game lags terribly even on the most high-end PCs. Meanwhile, the local visuals are worse than in Dishonored 2 and Deathloop. To add insult to injury, the optimization for Xbox consoles also poured fuel on the fire. At release, Redfall couldn't deliver 60 frames per second, earning it the title of the worst Microsoft exclusive of 2023. Six months later, the developers released a patch that improved performance, but even it couldn't fix the countless bugs, lags, and glitches.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is one of the best Star Wars games to date, and it's undoubtedly a hit with fans of the far, far away galaxy. Incredibly, the developers managed to avoid most of the sequel's pitfalls and didn't get stuck in self-repetition, offering a logical development of all the original ideas. The mediocre storyline and weak villains still look more interesting than what Disney is doing with the canon, and the old characters have been given their own story arcs and the necessary depth. Unfortunately, Jedi: Survivor was released early in the year, which is why it has been somewhat forgotten.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launched in a very raw state. Numerous bugs and severe lagging significantly spoiled the experience for most gamers. Even with a very powerful PC, you can't escape frame rate drops, stuttering, and freezes. The situation is even worse on consoles. Jedi: Survivor displays a blurry picture, freezes, and is not suitable for 4K TVs at all.

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Starfield is an atypical Bethesda game that has divided the fan base into two camps. Some are thrilled by Todd Howard's «space» ideas, while others downvote the project on all possible platforms. We believe that it is the first Bethesda game without a clear open world, but it offers more freedom than many projects released in recent years.

Starfield's optimization is done according to all Bethesda standards. The game runs well for the first five hours. After 20 hours, it starts to lag even on top configurations. All because of the outdated engine, which stores in its memory absolutely all information about the player's actions. Starfield has very beautiful objects with clear textures that require a lot of free video memory. Without an SSD, there is no point in playing the game. Loading between locations happens more often than shootouts with NPCs, so owners of old hard drives are doomed to play «loading screen simulator».

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Alan Wake 2 is a splendid sequel to the first part and a pleasant surprise of the past year. Despite issues in the horror aspect, clichéd plot twists, and an unthoughtful balance between combat and location exploration, Alan Wake 2 still delivers more positive emotions than most story-driven projects in recent years.

Alan Wake 2 is developed on the Northlight engine, which was used in Quantum Break and Control. The system requirements announced by the developers turned out to be slightly inflated, but owners of GTX graphics cards had to forget about the writer's new adventures. With maximum settings and enabled RTX, ray tracing, and reflections, Alan Wake 2 displays a very realistic picture. However, without DLSS and FSR, the game struggles to maintain 30 frames even on an RTX 4090.

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Remnant 2 is the sequel to the superb soulslike game that not only managed to surpass the original but became a true reimagining of the entire genre. The developers listened to the players, corrected the shortcomings of the original, and perfected the features embedded in the series. The sequel has all the hallmarks of a great video game: an engaging combat system, memorable bosses, cool procedural content generation, and a world filled with all sorts of secrets that you want to uncover even after defeating the final villain.

Remnant 2 is developed on the Unreal Engine 5, which led to poor performance on powerful hardware and subpar optimization. Even on top-tier PCs, the game manages to drop the frame rate to minimal values, especially noticeable in co-op. Without DLSS, comfortable gameplay is unattainable. Moreover, lowering settings does not save from lags. Developers are gradually releasing patches that improve optimization. The game now performs slightly better than at release, but DLSS is still essential.

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Forza Motorsport is a solid racing game and a serious step forward for the entire series. Turn 10 Studios not only improved the graphical technologies but also rectified the shortcomings that have plagued Motorsport for a decade. The new physics model brings the game closer to racing simulators, but it's still not enough to compete with Gran Turismo 7 in an open rivalry. Forza continues to aim for mass appeal, so it is vital for it to remain at the intersection of hardcore simulation and arcade.

With the new technologies, Forza Motorsport looks very good, but without a powerful PC, you are doomed to endure low frame rates and drops. Unfortunately, the game performs poorly on GTX graphics cards and cannot load locations quickly without a good SSD. On consoles, the game runs excellently, but the graphics are noticeably worse than on PC. Without DLSS and FSR, the new Forza can display a very realistic picture.

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Immortals of Aveum is a first-person shooter where the player wields not weapons, but magical spells. The combat turned out to be very dynamic and spectacular. The story campaign is rich and full of secrets. The graphics are quite pleasant and occasionally surprise with stunning landscapes. However, Immortals of Aveum was an unexpected release and thus passed unnoticed by many. Now, it is remembered for one reason: unrealistically high system requirements.

Developed on Unreal Engine 5, Immortals of Aveum faces the classic performance issues: lack of stable frame rates, frame drops on RTX 4090, sound stuttering, and visual bugs. It's one of the most demanding games of 2023. Most players who purchased the game at release ended up requesting refunds because their PCs couldn't handle the performance even with DLSS enabled. If you are ready to test your system's strength, Immortals of Aveum is worth checking out.

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Forspoken is one of the most controversial games of last year. It's a patchwork of other people's ideas and can «boast» a monotonous and empty open world, a series of repetitive activities, and terrible side quests that distract from the mediocre main storyline. Additionally, the game was a temporary PS5 exclusive, which undoubtedly tarnished Sony's reputation last year.

Forspoken made it to this list solely because of its unrealistically high system requirements. The game stutters and lags even on top-tier PCs. Moreover, the game's world is quite stingy on decorations and details. The graphics do not impress even on the highest settings. Special effects look decent, but everything else is disappointing. Consoles also have optimization issues. In 4K resolution, the game falls apart into pixels and the frame rate drops to 20 and below.

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OS: Windows 10 (64-bit);

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600;

Memory: 16 GB;

Disk Space: 150 GB of free space;

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8 GB).

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The Last of Us Part 1 is a beautiful remaster of one of the best games in history, which Sony called a remake and is selling for 70 dollars. In 2023, it was ported to PC in a not-so-great manner. The developers gave players what is arguably the most slipshod port of a console exclusive in history.

The Last of Us Part 1 port was released utterly unoptimized. It required costly hardware and precious time for compiling shaders to run. The system requirements far exceeded the technological innards of the PS5, on which the game was originally released. For an entire year, developers refined the port and released patches so that by the end of 2023, players received a more or less functioning version of The Last of Us. Unfortunately, the port still performs poorly on average hardware and demands expensive components.

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Of course, these are not all the demanding games that require modern hardware, which were released in 2023. For instance, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Cities: Skylines 2 also crave ultra-powerful builds to run properly. However, we decided to sidestep the technological mess and mention games that are not embarrassing to launch on top-tier hardware. What do you think about the exaggerated requirements?