What are the very best platform video games on PC? Again within the ’90s and early ’00s, you couldn’t escape the numerous platformers and mascot characters catering to console avid gamers. Nevertheless, other than the likes of Commander Eager, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Duke Nukem, the PC acquired little or no love. Fortunately, this stigma has lessened since these days, and we owe that largely to the explosion of indies which have flooded onto digital storefronts over the previous decade or so.
The perfect platform video games have garnered a fame for requiring mechanical mastery and elegant timing to finish them, however builders proceed to push the style ahead by introducing RPG sport parts and Metroidvania sport maps. Platforming may also be a staple mechanic in a number of the finest story video games, as demonstrated in releases like Celeste and Ori and the Blind Forest. With a lot to select from, listed below are the finest platformers on PC.
The perfect platform video games are:
Neva
Neva is the non secular successor to Nomada Studio’s Gris, and suffice it to say that the Barcelona-based group has outdone itself. This Ghibliesque 2D platformer charts the adventures of a younger swordswoman and her bond with a magical white wolf as they combat to defend their idyllic dwelling from a harmful corruption. As Alba, you nurture the titular Neva from a playful wolf cub to a robust grownup, utilizing its light-weight melee-based fight and motion mechanics to defeat aberrant creatures and navigate this ethereal, shattered world. A (principally) dialogue-free story of affection, loss, and hope, our Neva evaluate calls it “poignant platformer” that “ensures no dry eye within the room.”
9 Sols
Developer Purple Candle Video games could be recognized for the controversial but critically acclaimed psychological horror Devotion, however their first tour into platform video games proves that this indie studio isn’t only a one-trick pony. 9 Sols is a superbly animated action-platformer that follows Yi on a path of vengeance to slay the eponymous rulers of New Kunlun. Yi could be an anthropomorphic fox, however don’t be fooled – the realm of New Kunlun is brutal, usually violent, and stuffed with risks to cut back our vulpine hero to a bloody pulp. Nevertheless, there’s additionally magnificence to behold right here, too. “Taopunk” is the portmanteau coined by Purple Candle to explain the collision of conventional Taoism and gritty cyberpunk that function the driving rules behind its sci-fi Asian fantasy.
Like many trendy platform video games, 9 Sols inherits soulslike and metroidvania mechanics however by no means strays from the core rules of navigating the world. A Sekiro-like fight system that depends on precision to deflect and counter is Yi’s main line of protection, bolstered by mysterious Meridian abilities and Jade skills that draw on the traditional rules of Taoism. Whereas the platforming isn’t as arduous as another platformers on this checklist, 9 Sols boasts butter-smooth traversal throughout a world that may enchantment to Hole Knight followers.
Animal Nicely
Animal Nicely is a superb and atmospheric Metroidvania that makes you’re feeling small and alone from the offset. As we discover in our Animal Nicely evaluate, this important, fixed feeling of concern sticks with you all through, giving the sport an actual edge-of-your-seat vibe.
Whereas Animal Nicely may really feel claustrophobic, it appears to be like completely beautiful. Its neon, pixelated fashion permits vibrant pinks and greens to face out on the darkish and gloomy indigo backdrop, providing a shimmer of sunshine and hope throughout the tense environment. The gameplay itself, in the meantime, units you out as a weak dot in a world of what we’d ordinarily contemplate lovely animals – till we turn out to be mentioned weak dot, and their dinner. To outlive, you should study the pathing by the degrees of the platform sport whereas additionally finishing numerous puzzles, using objects round you to your benefit. All of the whereas, each side of Animal Nicely completely aligns to make sure the risk stays ever-present.
Sheepy: A Quick Journey
Sheepy: A Quick Journey, as you may guess from its title, isn’t the longest sport on this checklist, so should you’re in search of a timesink, maintain scrolling. Nevertheless, first-time dev MrSuicideSheep proves that you simply don’t want hours of gameplay to ship a shocking environment, an emotional story, and epic gameplay, arguably making it higher than a number of the longer platform video games accessible.
Sheepy is free, takes solely about an hour to finish, and may even depart you in tears throughout and after this harmless plushy’s journey by the historical past of a darkish and mysterious firm. Equal components cute and gloomy, Sheepy: A Quick Journey additionally comes with an unimaginable soundtrack that you would be able to buy should you’re so moved by the sport’s good musical accompaniment. In case you nonetheless aren’t satisfied, we’ll remind you that it’s free, but it surely additionally has hundreds of Overwhelmingly Constructive critiques on Steam, and that many individuals – us included – can’t be fallacious.
Jusant
There was a short-lived pattern in 2023 the place avid gamers actually loved climbing big towers – Jusant is like that however with out the concern of shedding all your progress after making a poor leap. In case you take pleasure in calm vibes and also you get a way of accomplishment if you attain a vacation spot, you’re going to like Jusant.
Created by Don’t Nod, the group behind Life is Unusual, gamers set off on a meditative expertise, that includes a soothing soundtrack and colourful artwork fashion. Accompanied by Ballast, a mysterious creature that aids you in your journey, you’ll study concerning the tower’s previous as you spend hours attempting to achieve the highest.
Pizza Tower
Taking inspiration from Wario Land 4 on the GameBoy Advance, Pizza Tower is a fast-paced platformer the place you discover ranges to search out hidden secrets and techniques, rescue ingredient buddies, and escape along with your lives as all the space crumbles round you. Its ’90s cartoon artwork fashion is very expressive, with exaggerated facial expressions from Peppino, the pizzeria proprietor protagonist whose restaurant faces annihilation.
Peppino’s default strikes depart a whole lot of room for some slick and satisfying speedy gameplay. On the similar time, his many transformations give Pizza Tower an expertise we don’t get all that always on PC. We extremely suggest you give this spicy meatball of a sport a attempt.
OlliOlli World
OlliOlli is again, and it’s higher than ever. The most recent installment of the skateboarding 2D action-platformer oozes fashion, difficult you to kickflip your means by the unusual and compelling world of Radlandia, a skating utopia created by the Skate Godz. The place do you match into all of this? You’re on a mission to turn out to be the following Skate Wizard, after all – consider it just like the Avatar, however for skateboarding – and to do this, you should journey by every stage, finishing missions and executing as many advanced tips as you possibly can to show your self to the Godz and convey stability to Radlandia.
From a seashore boardwalk to a landfill mountain, each stage in OlliOlli World is vibrant and superbly crafted. Not solely is it pleasant to take a look at, however the a number of paths that wind seamlessly by the surroundings additionally encourage replayability and make for a different co-op expertise whereas working your strategy to the highest of the leaderboard. You don’t should be a pro-skater to get began – OlliOlli World will provide you with the abilities you must grasp essentially the most advanced platforming tips and ascend to Gnarvana. As our OlliOlli World evaluate attests, this jewel of the sequence is among the best skateboarding video games round.
It Takes Two
You’ll must recruit a good friend to navigate It Takes Two’s delightfully quirky platforming challenges and minigames – like Hazelight Studios’ earlier sport, A Method Out, It Takes Two is solely a co-op sport. After teaming up regionally or on-line, you and your accomplice play as Could and Cody, a married couple whose relationship is on the point of catastrophe.
By some mysterious means, their daughter’s sorrow has reworked them into doll variations of themselves, and the pair should study to work collectively to get again to regular, exploring their relationship within the course of. Every gleefully absurd stage is completely tailored to co-op gameplay whereas thoughtfully exploring numerous obstacles within the couple’s marriage.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
The eagerly anticipated sequel to the beloved Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps takes its predecessor’s staggering magnificence and atmospheric heft to new heights. Fight has been refined, and there are much more skills to make use of as you assist Ori battle the forces of evil.
Each video games are extra Metroidvania than simple platformer, with a fair proportion of backtracking and loads of skills to unlock. There’s rather less platforming in Will of the Wisps than in Blind Forest – as an alternative, there’s extra of a deal with difficult boss battles. With a shocking orchestral soundtrack and a narrative that may deliver a tear to your eye, Ori and the Blind Forest will stick with you lengthy after the credit roll. In case you’re curious to know the way we acquired on, our Ori and the Will of the Wisps evaluate will assist new and returning sequence followers.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy
The Spyro Reignited Trilogy overhauls all three unique Spyro video games and at last brings the beloved dragon to PC with a refined new look, however the identical intricate ranges, and beloved characters.
This 3D platform sport is a part of a platforming renaissance on PC, because the launches of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Snake Move, and Yooka Laylee have already confirmed. The Sypro Reignited Trilogy is a nostalgia journey into the dazzling and colourful world of our fiery pal, constructed from the bottom up by studios Iron Galaxy and Toys for Bob. Spyro gives new challenges and harder bosses however the identical hodge-podge of minigames and tough platforming that saved us hooked so way back.
Celeste
Celeste is way over only a assortment of difficult online game ranges. Considered as an entire package deal, it could be essentially the most good sport on this checklist. It’s filled with clever, recent platforming mechanics, from bubbles that launch you into oblivion to clouds that enhance you should you leap on the proper time. Every of its exacting programs supplies a brand new layer of depth so that you can grasp.
In contrast to most within the style, Celeste earns its excessive issue by constructing itself across the struggles of the participant character, Madeline, who should battle insecurity and psychological well being points to climb the titular mountain. Even when remoted from the sport’s well-wrought ranges, it’s some of the shifting tales within the style. Its unrelenting strategy to stage design isn’t for everybody, however there are accessibility choices that make it potential for nearly anyone to courageous Celeste Mountain. This gem isn’t only a nice platformer however among the best video games of 2018. When you’ve completed it, try the free follow-up sequel, an unlikely browser sport accessible on Itch.io.
A Hat in Time
3D platforming followers on PC have slim pickings in comparison with the likes of the Nintendo Swap. There have been a handful of notable efforts in recent times, however A Hat in Time stays the very best instance by a protracted shot.
This sport wears its influences on its sleeves, with a vibrant colour palette and numerous motion choices that recall the N64 period of open-level platformers, full with a mid-air dive straight out of Tremendous Mario 64. The mechanics are nothing novel, however its attraction helps elevate it from a easy imitator right into a sport value taking part in in its personal proper. One stage forces your intrepid “Hat Woman” to star in numerous films filmed by two rival administrators, an Elvis imitator and a wannabe DJ. Not each platformer could be courageous sufficient to attempt to drive a Homicide on the Orient Categorical parody into its second stage, however A Hat in Time is nothing if not adventurous.
Coming in at a dozen or so hours, it’s removed from the longest sport on this checklist, but it surely punches in each fiber of its being, proper on right down to the haunted bathroom you combat in Act 3.
Cuphead
Impressed by Nineteen Thirties cartoons like Looney Toons and Betty Boop, conquering this robust platformer is not any imply feat. Its meticulous hand-drawn visuals take our wide-eyed heroes on a run-and-gun side-scrolling journey by unforgiving ranges and boss fights – all set to the brash beats of unique jazz, early huge band, and ragtime rating.
As you progress by the sport, taking part in as both Cuphead or Mugman (that’s participant two should you’re in co-op) – you’ll encounter unusual bosses, corresponding to a carrot with sonic powers, a boxing frog, and a fiendish sunflower. You’ll purchase new powers, too, all whereas incomes HP and time bonuses that will help you progress additional. Cuphead isn’t on the high of our checklist for enjoyable video games, however in order for you a difficult platform sport on PC, Cuphead has the strikes.
Sonic Mania
The unique Sonic video games stay iconic to this present day, however they’re very a lot a love-it-or-hate-it proposition, particularly should you didn’t develop up with the blue blur. Sonic Mania throws all the pieces that works from the unique trilogy right into a blender, producing maybe the very best sport within the sequence ever, or certainly the very best for the reason that ‘90s.
Developed by followers for followers, this best hits of basic Sonic remixes favourite ranges from the Sonic canon and provides a couple of inventive ones of its personal. Greater than any sequence reboot on the market, Mania is aware of easy methods to sate your nostalgia whereas constructing on the fashion and perspective that made the blue hedgehog right into a culturally embedded character sturdy sufficient to outlive a long time of mediocre video games.
The primary act of each zone reminds you of the fundamental mechanics of a stage you probably performed a very long time in the past. Add an excellent throwback remixed soundtrack, and you’ve got among the best retro video games ever.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
It’s taken lengthy sufficient, however Crash Bandicoot is lastly on PC within the type of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which remasters all three unique video games: Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Again, and Warped. This platform sport sequence options all of the staples you’d anticipate from a mid-’90s 3D platformer: you defeat most enemies with a rudimentary spin assault or by leaping on them. There are heaps of hidden segments and collectibles and no scarcity of conveyor belt ranges. The remastered trilogy even contains a few new ranges, together with a completed and polished model of a beforehand unreleased stage from the primary sport, plus a brand-new stage.
The nostalgia journey of taking part in these platforming classics once more is cause sufficient to earn Crash a spot on this checklist, however should you missed out on the well-known marsupial’s adventures if you had been youthful, then there’s rather a lot to like about this sequence. Crash Bandicoot is a platformer with so many tips up its sleeve that you simply’re at all times in your toes, and memorizing devious traps at all times takes priority over timing or abilities. You’ll spend hours on some ranges, attempting to determine each leaping sequence and the place each enemy is or wandering off the overwhelmed path in quest of extra Wumpa Fruit. Everytime you lose a life, you’ll wish to dive straight again in to overcome the impediment, satisfied it’ll solely take yet another attempt, even when it takes a number of.
The long-anticipated sequel to the N. Sane Trilogy, fittingly titled It’s About Time, acquired a PC port again in 2021 and boasts light-weight system necessities that’ll please the oldest of old-school gamers.
Hole Knight
Like its forerunners within the Metroidvania style, Hole Knight provides so many motion parts to its core hop-and-jump gameplay that you simply’d be forgiven for placing it on one other checklist. However beneath its kinetic melee fight and array of difficult bosses lies a sturdy platformer with double jumps and super-dashes.
Greater than something, Hole Knight is a sport that promotes an old-school mentality, typically to a irritating extent. You could discover a nebbish cartographer to acquire the map of every of its twisty-turning areas, which allows a way of ceaseless exploration. And like Symphony of the Night time earlier than it, you aren’t given a well being bar for any enemy within the sport, leaving you to guess how a lot you’ve bloodied a goal, even for robust bosses.
For individuals who can abdomen these retro touches, there’s an alluring world stuffed with hidden treasures and elusive figures to plunge into. Don’t get too snug pondering that is solely an action-adventure sport, although – if you wish to get one of many ‘higher’ endings, you’ll should finest an ivory world of gleaming buzzsaws and tough platforms to make it by.
There’s a sequel within the works, too, titled Hole Knight: Silksong, the place we’ll play Hornet, a personality from the unique sport. Thus far, we’ve been promised 150 new enemies, acrobatic fight, and on-the-fly therapeutic – we’re eagerly awaiting the Hole Knight: Silksong launch date.
Inside
Inside is a non secular successor to Limbo, Playdead’s expressionist, monochrome indie darling that made waves through the indie growth of the early 2010s. It adopts the identical fundamental premise: a younger boy is drawn right into a surrealist world of mute horror, and the one means out is thru a sequence of advanced environmental puzzles. Whereas Limbo is a wonderful platformer in its personal proper, Playdead builds upon its strong foundations to ship a platforming horror sport expertise extra advanced and thought-provoking than its predecessor.
After a short chase sequence from armed guards and safety canine, your baby avatar breaks into an odd manufacturing unit with a surveillance system that will make George Orwell blush. The manufacturing unit is stuffed with senseless employee drones overseen by the chilly gentle of CCTV cameras. Being found as an outsider ensures a swift and brutal dying; your solely selections are to mix in or flee on your life whereas progressing by the brutalist inside. Some puzzles even require a thoughts management helmet, manipulating the employee’s hive thoughts to do your bidding – even when it ends in their dying. Inside’s story is a grim portrait that examines the strain between narrative and participant company and may be very probably to stick with you lengthy after you attain its stunning conclusion.
Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove
Shovel Knight is a marvel of retro engineering, constructed to look, sound, and really feel like a misplaced 8-bit sport made with immediately’s know-how. Like the very best throwbacks, it’s not afraid to solid away a number of the extra dated points of NES-era design – ‘lives’ are changed by a Souls-esque system the place you retrieve your loot out of your corpse, and the problem is much extra balanced than some older platform video games.
The Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove contains the Plague of Shadows, Spector or Torment, and King of Playing cards expansions, which let you play as three of the unique sport’s bosses. Every growth is a full-blown sport, full with brand-new bosses, areas, and backstories of a few of Shovel Knight’s most memorable characters. The Treasure Trove additionally contains Shovel Knight Showdown, a platform preventing sport designed for as much as 4 native gamers.
Shovel Knight himself is an amalgam of a number of the period’s finest heroes. He can pogo on his shovel like Scrooge in DuckTales or swing it round like Hyperlink in Zelda. Although the sport is very satisfying from stem to stern, what actually makes it stand out is its dedication to the 8-bit aesthetic. Although it takes its environments to a restrict that an actual NES may by no means obtain, it serves as a love letter to an period of gaming that has largely been supplanted by others in recent times, chock-full of references and little touches.
Tremendous Meat Boy
Edmund McMillen could be higher recognized nowadays for The Binding of Isaac, one of many finest roguelike video games with a twist on the top-down Zelda formulation, however platformer Tremendous Meat Boy put him on the map. Staff Meat’s excellent effort wasn’t the primary platformer to market itself on sheer issue, however its irreverent tone and downright gratuitous quantity of content material have made it some of the well-known and recognizable platform video games.
Armed with solely a leap and a seize, you should steer the heroic Meat Boy by display screen after display screen of merciless and devious obstacles to rescue his beloved Bandage Woman. The unabashedly retro video games aesthetic and frequent homages to its 16-bit progenitors helped Tremendous Meat Boy outline the primary wave of standout indie video games, and its affect continues properly into the current, as evidenced by a number of different platform video games on this checklist. In case you don’t take pleasure in pixel-perfect platformers, it’s unlikely to sway you out of your place, however should you haven’t no less than tried your finest to courageous its first world, you’re lacking out.
One other World
Whether or not you name it an journey sport, a puzzler, or a platformer, there’s little question that One other World (or Out of This World within the US) might be essentially the most notable PC platformer of the early ‘90s. Prince of Persia might need spawned a multi-million greenback franchise, and Flashback had a extra coherent story, however nothing fairly beats the moment-to-moment novelty of developer Éric Chahi’s finest work.
As a scientist transposed into an alien world by an errant experiment, you should combat your means out of the clutches of your alien overlords by outwitting and outgunning them at each flip. Some points of the sport present their age – notably its glacial, finicky platforming, which takes various getting used to – however the truth that it continually reinvents itself offers it a vitality that only a few platformers have – no surprise One other World is likely one of the finest platform video games you may get your palms on.
And there you may have it, the perfect platform video games on PC, from narrative-driven adventures to platformers that break the style guidelines solely. In case you’re after extra lists then be sure you try our rundown of the very best PC video games to play proper now, or our checklist of the very best free on-line video games, which options a couple of nice platform video games. Both means, there’s sufficient operating and leaping goodness right here to sate your urge for food.
