Best Game to Play on Laptop: When you’re on a break at work and need to kill some time before getting back to work, the best laptop games are there for you. These games are so simple to run that even cheap laptops will be able to play them just fine.
Don’t think that the games here aren’t very good either. Games like Disco Elysium are easy on your laptop and are also fun and funny. The games on this list are some of the best PC games available right now, and they show how versatile PC gaming can be.
Even if you have one of the best gaming laptops, the games on this list have a lot to offer, even if their graphics aren’t as good as those in the most powerful laptops. This list isn’t very long either, but we chose the top 10 games that everyone should think about putting on their laptops for some fun gaming on the side.
1. Disco Elysium
- CPU: Intel Core i7 or AMD 1800 equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB RAM
- GPU: NVIDIA Geforce 1060 or equivalent
Have you ever had big dreams of being the best detective ever? We did, too, and we have the perfect game for you. Disco Elysium is digital heaven for people who have always been good at solving problems and daydreaming about being the coolest (or most crooked) PI.
This open-world RPG is one of the best laptop games you can play right now. As a detective, you have more freedom than ever to do whatever you want, like solve murder mysteries and help people, or take bribes, manipulate people, and make a million dollars. And you have a lot of crazy skills and cool detective tools to help you out.
The city you’re running around in has a mysterious “I don’t know what” vibe, kind of like Gotham meets Neo-noir. And that makes this title even more interesting. This game needs to be on your laptop right now, even if you don’t have hours to kill.
2. Among Us
- CPU: Intel Pentium 4
- RAM: 1 GB
- GPU: Intel HD
Among Us(opens in new tab) seems a little less serious than some of the other games on this list, since each game only takes 10 to 15 minutes, but you can still spend hours playing it. The idea isn’t too hard to understand. Four to ten players are put on a map, which could be a spaceship or a space station, and given some simple tasks to do.
Up to 3 of the players are actually fakes who act like they are doing the same things but are actually trying to kill other players and mess things up. Players can call emergency meetings where they argue over who the imposter is and then vote on who to kick out. Given how short each game is, almost everyone will get a chance to play as an imposter after a few games.
What makes Among Us such a popular game is that it can bring friends together like a good board game can, combining socializing and strategy in a way that most online games don’t.
3. Cuphead
- CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E8400, 3.0GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 3.0GHz or higher
- RAM: 2 GB
- GPU: Geforce 9600 GT or AMD HD 3870 512MB
You might not want to play Cuphead because it is so hard, but we promise you that it is worth a shot. If you don’t already find its bright, whimsical art style to be fun, hearing about how it was made might do the trick.
Cuphead was made by an independent studio called Studio MDHR, which is short for “Studio Moldenhauer.” The two brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer started the project and gave the studio its name. In fact, the whole company is made up of family and friends who wanted to finish a project they had been working on for a long time.
This hand-drawn tribute to classic 2D platformers like Mega Man and 1930s Fleischer cartoons like Betty Boop was inked and cleaned up by Chad’s wife, Marija Moldenhauer. And if the 19 bosses aren’t enough for you, Cuphead will get a big DLC next year with new bosses, areas, and a new playable character.
4. Humankind
- CPU: Intel Core i5 4th Gen
- RAM: 8GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GTX 770 or AMD R9 290
Humankind is for people who like history-based strategy games like Civilization or Age of Empires but want something a little different. This game is like that, but it has a little twist that lets you change how you play as you go.
As you get better, you can move up to different cultures and shape your empire by making decisions about religion, war, alliances, and other things that can have long-term effects. Every time you play, it will be different.
In Humankind, you can start a nuclear war or pollute the world to death, but the goal is to be the most famous empire by the end of the game. Even though it seems to have a lot in common with the above turn-based historical strategy games, Humankind is a worthy and unique addition to the genre.
It has a higher level of customization, different ways to build cities and fight wars, and the ability to basically change history.
5. Stardew Valley
- CPU: 2 GHz
- RAM: 2 GB
- GPU: 256 MB video memory, shader model 3.0+
There are a lot of people who love farming simulation games, judging by how well Farming Simulator and Harvest Moon sell. If you’re one of them, Stardew Valley is one of the few games that will get you more excited about farming (opens in a new tab).
Stardew Valley’s top-down view and cute characters are reminiscent of the Harvest Moon games. This makes it one of the best laptop games you can play.
Taking care of fields, growing crops, and raising animals doesn’t sound very exciting, but that’s the beauty of it. There’s a special kind of peace in the little things you do in Stardew Valley, like growing your farm, catching fish in the river, and going into the village to make friends (and maybe more) with NPCs. Farming has never been so entertaining and hard to stop doing.
6. Age of Empires IV
- CPU: Intel Core i5-6300U or AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
- RAM: 8GB
- GPU: Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11
RTS game fans can celebrate! Age of Empires IV is here, and it improves on everything that made the other games so fun. Not only has the game been repainted, but the AI and mechanics have also been changed.
You can play as one of eight different civilizations in four different campaigns that span 500 years of history and end with the Renaissance. But you don’t have to play only the single-player campaign. You can also play PvP or multiplayer co-op with your friends.
The most important thing is that you don’t need a powerful GPU to play. This makes it a great game to play on your laptop. You just need graphics that are as good or better than Intel HD 520, which has been around since 2015.
7. Night in the Woods
- CPU: Intel i5 Quad-Core
- RAM: 4 GB
- GPU: Intel HD 4000
In more than one way, Night in the Woods reminds us of a mix of Life is Strange and Bojack Horseman. The interactive dialogue parts of the first remind me of the second, and the overall themes of dealing with mental health problems ring true in the second.
Infinite Fall, which is made up of coder and composer Alec Holowka and Twitter jokester, illustrator, and animator Scott Benson, made Night in the Woods in the game engine Unity. Together, these two have made not only a game but also a beautiful world with characters you should be able to relate to.
You play the part of Mae, a cat who quit college and just moved back to her hometown, Possum Springs. Modern point-and-click adventure games tend to be story-driven, and this one is no different.
There aren’t many things to do in the game that will keep you interested. So, Night in the Woods might be the best laptop game for you if you like Telltale Games or Life is Strange.
Best of all, it will run pretty well on integrated graphics because the art style is pretty but not too demanding. Even though it didn’t win at The Game Awards, this is definitely a game that will be talked about for a long time.
8. Command and Conquer: Remastered Collection
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 @ 2.4ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400 @ 2.4ghz
- RAM: 4GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 420 or ATI Radeon HD 5570
With the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, the 1990s are still going strong. This isn’t just a remastered version of the original game from 1995. It also comes with Red Alert and its three expansion packs, which add more than 100 missions and over 250 multiplayer maps to the game. This release has a lot of information in it.
This remastering makes the game one of the best laptop games to play in 2020. It includes upscaling the visuals, remastering the music (with 20 new tracks), and, most importantly, setting the game to 4K resolution.
The controls have been updated so that you can use hotkeys and have a more modern experience. And the game comes with mod support for people who want to change it in their own way.
The core of the game is still mostly the same as it was in the 1990s, so if you want a great-looking and sounding blast from the past, this is the perfect game for you.
9. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
- CPU: Intel Core i3-2100T @ 2.50 GHz / AMD Phenom II X3 B73
- RAM: 4 GB
- GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire came out in 2018 and has a pretty big fan base, but your laptop’s built-in graphics can still run it (opens in a new tab). It has mostly the same forgiving system requirements as its predecessor, so if you liked that game, you should be able to enjoy this best laptop game as well.
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire puts players on the Deadfire archipelago and gives them the job of looking for a god who has gone rogue. And, like its predecessor, it has a deep story and deep RPG gameplay that takes you back to the days of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
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Even though all of the backgrounds are 2D and seen from above, they are still beautiful to look at. Also, the many spell effects will keep you enchanted as you fight in intense and strategic battles.
And since it’s made by Obsidian, a company known for making some of the best role-playing games of all time, you can be sure you’re getting a great adventure and one of the best laptop games for your money.
10. Papers Please
- CPU: 1.5 GHz Core2Duo
- RAM: 2 GB
- GPU: OpenGL 1.4 or better
If someone told you that a game about working at a border control office would be one of the most addicting games ever, would you laugh and shake your head?
Well, you could give Papers, Please(opens in a new tab) a try. It’s a small, independent gem. You are an immigration clerk in a made-up version of the Eastern Bloc. Your job is to help refugees from a hostile neighboring country.
The main idea is simple: check each person’s papers against a clear set of rules, process those who meet the requirements, and hold those who have fake papers.
The game is made to see how well you pay attention to details and how strong your sense of right and wrong is. Sometimes you’ll have to decide if certain sympathetic characters should get asylum, even if it’s against the rules.
The twist is that if you do well, you can feed your family, but if you mess up, their lives are in danger. It’s dark but in an interesting way.
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