TOP-10 Most Demanding PC Games of 2025

After a year in 2024 that wasn’t particularly rich in major releases, 2025 not only delighted gamers with masterpieces of game design, but also with technological breakthroughs, excellent optimization, and great performance even on budget PC builds. However, there were still some projects with terrible performance. Many studios continue to use the basic version of Unreal Engine 5 without putting much effort into optimization, resulting in their products not only lagging and stuttering even on top-tier CPUs and GPUs, but also lacking revolutionary visuals.

In this article, we’ve gathered games with unjustifiably high system requirements that need high-end hardware just to run properly. Yes, some of the titles listed here won’t truly impress with quality graphics or photorealistic environments, but without modern components, they simply can’t run at a good frame rate or provide stable gameplay. However, if you’ve managed to build a top-tier PC and want to put it to the test, the games in this top list are perfect candidates for benchmarking.

After several delays, Assassin's Creed Shadows finally reached players in March 2025. The main events of the new installment in the popular franchise unfold in feudal Japan, something fans had been requesting from the developers for a long time. However, due to the unusual tandem of protagonists—Naoe, a nimble ninja from the Iga clan, and Yasuke, a historical samurai of African descent — gamers had mixed reactions to the new title, and, unfortunately, it didn’t come without the classic Ubisoft controversies. In any case, from a gameplay perspective, Shadows turned out to be robust and rich. An excellent game world, well-developed mechanics, and stunning visuals are the three main reasons to check out the game.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is built on a modernized version of the Anvil engine, previously used in Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Mirage. The developers put a lot of effort into crafting the environment, with every graphical aspect recreated by hand. Thanks to dynamic shadows and global illumination with ray tracing, the game looks very realistic. Add to that the change of seasons and a system that simulates weather conditions — causing locations to completely transform in real time — and you get one of the most technologically advanced open worlds to date. For relatively stable gameplay, you’ll need a graphics card with 8GB or more of VRAM, a modern processor, and a high-speed SSD.

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Avowed is a role-playing game from Obsidian, the studio behind cult classics like Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds. The game is set in the beloved Pillars of Eternity universe. Despite its vibrant visuals, decent story, and engaging gameplay inspired by Oblivion, the project failed to replicate the commercial success of the studio’s previous works. However, it would be a mistake to call the game a failure. The developers implemented a very dynamic combat system and well-thought-out plot twists that can keep players hooked for a long time. Avowed is one of those cases where first impressions can be deceiving, and its true depth reveals itself only to those who give the game a second chance.

Avowed is developed on Unreal Engine 5. The game features lush and vibrant visuals with highly detailed objects and textures. Lighting is implemented using Lumen technology, which highlights the excellent work of the artists. Unfortunately, Obsidian couldn’t quite “tame” the engine and make the project run perfectly on most PC builds. Not only do you have to wait a long time for shader compilation to finish, but it also doesn’t complete fully, which can lead to stutters and freezes during gameplay. Only owners of top-tier hardware can fully appreciate Avowed’s beauty with smooth frame rates, as the game struggles to hit 60 FPS even on medium settings with “standard” builds.

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Borderlands 4 is a looter-shooter from Gearbox that has received mixed reviews from gamers and critics alike. On one hand, the game is praised for its new vision with an open world and revamped class system; on the other, it’s criticized for a weak main storyline and terrible performance. The scandal over poor optimization became so loud that the studio’s founder had to defend the project on social media and provide recommendations for graphics settings. And this is just about the PC version. On consoles, the game not only runs poorly but also delivers a blurry image.

Borderlands 4 is developed on Unreal Engine 5 and uses all the latest technologies, making the stylized graphics more expressive and the environment more detailed. Like most modern studios, Gearbox didn’t bother with optimization and performance polishing, offering gamers only one way to boost FPS: enabling frame generation. And trust me, even DLSS won’t save you from low frame rates and drops. A true exclusive for owners of the most high-end PC builds.

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Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a remake of the iconic third entry in the series, developed by Virtuos under the supervision of Konami. While the original creator, Hideo Kojima, was not involved in the development, his story and game design were carefully recreated on a new technological foundation, allowing a new generation of gamers to experience one of the best PS2-era games. The developers improved certain systems, updated outdated mechanics, and enhanced the controls, all while preserving the atmosphere and spirit of the original.

Like most games in our list, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is built on Unreal Engine 5, delivering rich, realistic graphics with detailed vegetation, dynamic lighting, and advanced animations. Despite its visual splendor, the game performs poorly on both consoles and PC. Lowering graphics settings drastically reduces overall visual quality, while DLSS and other upscalers blur the image too much. Therefore, to fully enjoy the remake, you’ll need a very powerful PC.

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The Outer Worlds 2 is a sequel to the RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, which, like Avowed, is developed on Unreal Engine 5 but suffers from even greater performance issues and less advanced graphics. Gameplay-wise, the game is a significant improvement over the first installment. Great side quests, signature humor, and player choice will appeal to genre fans. The Outer Worlds 2 could have easily become the best RPG of 2025 if the developers had paid more attention to the technical aspects and the main story, which, surprisingly, turned out to be rather weak and derivative.

The Outer Worlds 2 retains the style and tone of the original, offering players a space adventure in "acid-brown hues." Thanks to Unreal Engine 5, the game features modern visual effects, including ray tracing, realistic lighting, and shading. Overall, the game doesn’t look revolutionary or ultra-advanced, but it has clear optimization problems and frequent freezes. Even on the most high-end builds, the game barely manages a stable 60 FPS at 1080p resolution.

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The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is a large-scale re-release of Bethesda’s classic RPG, and the amount of work done makes it almost a full-fledged remake. The developers at Virtuos completely redrew all visuals on Unreal Engine 5, while preserving the gameplay and game logic of the original Gamebryo engine. In essence, the team gave Oblivion a second life by improving the interface, voice acting, and some systems, but keeping the core mechanics, atmosphere, story, and quest design intact.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is a visually stunning game by modern standards. The artists did an excellent job revamping the open world, reworking the lighting, and updating all models, including enemies and characters. However, the game has obvious performance issues. Not only is it very demanding on hardware, but it also suffers from FPS drops even on high-end builds. Many gamers even joke that Oblivion Remastered is the main benchmark of 2025. Unfortunately, the developers never released any major patches, so only those with expensive hardware can truly enjoy the remaster’s graphics.

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Escape from Tarkov is a hardcore extraction shooter with RPG elements from Battlestate Games. Players find themselves in the isolated city of Tarkov, where they participate in raids, gather loot, fight local raiders and other PMCs, and try to escape the dangerous zone. It’s one of the most intense and challenging games for newcomers, requiring 300 to 1000 hours just to master the basics. However, it’s this hardcore nature and deeply detailed gameplay that have made Escape from Tarkov popular with millions of gamers.

Yes, Escape from Tarkov isn’t a brand-new title, but it finally released version 1.0 in 2025, earning its spot in our top list. And it’s not just another hardware-hungry project, but a real challenge for any PC build. Just try to recall another game that asks for 64 GB of RAM and requires a mandatory page file. After years of development, the visuals are a bit dated and the Unity engine struggles to handle the sheer number of mechanics, but Escape from Tarkov still impresses with its visuals and meticulously detailed weaponry.

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Monster Hunter Wilds is the sequel to one of Capcom’s most popular games. This time, players will travel to the “Forbidden Lands” to find a missing expedition and study never-before-seen monsters. The developers have seriously reworked the open world, making it less linear, and improved the AI. Unlike previous entries, Wilds is primarily a story-driven adventure with survival elements, rather than a grind-heavy endgame for consumables.

Monster Hunter Wilds is built on an updated RE Engine, which delivers stunning visuals but performs poorly with open environments. The engine is well-optimized for linear, story-driven games, but isn’t suited for RPGs with large locations. Like Dragon's Dogma 2, Wilds is very demanding on both CPU and GPU. The game runs at very low frame rates, slowly loads textures into memory, and “breaks down” into artifacts if you enable DLSS. On high-end builds, it runs stably at Full HD resolution, but struggles to maintain 30 FPS at 4K. At the end of the year, Capcom released a patch that improved performance, but it’s still far from perfect. At least, the developers have already announced further updates to stabilize FPS and reduce CPU load. So, we’re waiting.

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InZOI is an ambitious life simulator from South Korean studio Krafton. Players can create their own characters, build houses, develop relationships, and manage the life of an entire city. Before release, the game was called a “Sims killer,” as the developers promised a “dream game” with hundreds of mechanics and a living open world. Unfortunately, the release version didn’t live up to the trailers. Early access turned out to be far too raw and unfinished. Many systems in the current build are just empty shells, and the promised features are unfinished placeholders for future updates. Krafton has promised to fix everything and finish the game by mid-2026.

InZOI is built on Unreal Engine 5, which made the virtual world highly detailed and photorealistic. If you don’t have top-tier hardware, you’ll definitely experience stutters and freezes during gameplay. There is simply no stable frame rate in InZOI; FPS constantly fluctuates depending on scene complexity. The developers acknowledged the optimization issues and promised to fix them in upcoming updates.

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Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is nominally a sequel to one of the best role-playing games in the industry, but in reality, it’s a first-person action game that has little in common with the original vision of the project presented in 2019. The Chinese Room has created a story-driven linear game in which players, as a powerful vampire, will roam the snowy streets of Seattle while investigating a detective story.

Originally, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was developed on Unreal Engine 4, but with The Chinese Room taking over, the engine was upgraded to the fifth version. The developers kept the art, locations, and characters from the first version of Bloodlines 2, but significantly improved them to modern standards. Nighttime Seattle looks beautiful and impressive. Lighting, shading, and location detail are the project’s main strengths. Performance on mid-range and budget builds is not ideal. FPS drops, stutters, and memory leaks occur regularly. On more powerful PCs, the frame rate rarely drops below 60.

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Of course, these aren’t all the hardware-demanding games released in 2025. There’s also MindsEye, which even the most high-end PCs can’t handle, and Echoes of the End. We decided to focus on more or less playable projects that can truly show their graphical potential on a premium build. What poorly optimized game stood out to you in 2025?