2022 is almost over, so we’ve decided to share with you the games that amazed us with their graphics. The following games have the best graphics, and PC gamers can use them to impress their friends. Do note that we won’t be focusing on overall optimization here. The following list is also in random order. So, without further ado, here are the best PC game graphics of 2022.
Stray
Stray is a game that pleasantly surprised us in 2022. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, the game has some of the best environments we’ve seen in a video-game. This is mostly due to its pre-baked global illumination/lighting. Stray does not feature a dynamic/real-time day-night cycle. As such, the developers were able to carefully craft its environments. This is the exact same reason why Assassin’s Creed: Unity still looks incredible. Stray can also run with 60fps on a wide range of PC configurations, though it does suffer from shader compilation issues. Nevertheless, this is a really beautiful game.
Need for Speed Unbound
Need for Speed Unbound was the most beautiful racing game that came out in 2022. Powered by the Frostbite Engine, this game also uses pre-baked global illumination in order to enhance the game’s graphics. Seriously, since current-gen consoles cannot handle proper Ray Tracing effects, I’d love to see more developers embracing pre-baked techniques. We don’t need a dynamic day-night cycle in every game. Just give us beautiful games with pre-baked lighting. As I said and before, there is a reason why Assassin’s Creed Unity still looks great.
SCORN
SCORN is yet another Unreal Engine 4-powered game that suffers from shader compilation issues. However, SCORN also sports some incredible visuals. This is mainly due to its “H.R. Giger” art style. Still, Ebb Software has created an incredibly-looking title. Not only that, but SCORN does not require a high-end PC system.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continues the tradition of offering top-notch graphics on PC. After all, both Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty Modern Warfare found their way to our previous “Top PC Game Graphics” lists. As we’ve said, our only gripe with COD: MW2 is its somewhat low LOD for some of its objects. Other than that, the game looks amazing, and can run on a wide range of PC configurations.
UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection
UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection had a number of technical issues on PC. However, and even though this is a remaster of a PS4 game, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection still looks amazing. Naughty Dog has mastered the use of pre-baked lighting, and the game’s jungle areas can give you some Crysis vibes. Furthermore, the game has a lot of destructible objects, you can interact with every plant, and its characters remain among the best we’ve seen.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
In 2022, Sony released both Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales on PC. So, we’ve decided to include one of them on our list. Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales is one of the best-looking open-world games on PC, even without its Ray Tracing Reflections. Furthermore, the game does not suffer from any stuttering issues, and we have to congratulate Nixxes and Insomniac for this.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human
Dying Light 2 is one of those games that benefited from Ray Tracing. Although its rasterized version looks great, its ray-traced version is one/two steps above it. This is one of the few cases where the ray-traced version of a game feels like a truly next-gen version. This is mainly due to the per-pixel ray-traced global illumination and ray-traced ambient occlusion effects. Similarly to Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Dying Light 2 is one of the best examples of the hybrid ray-tracing/rasterization rendering model.
The Callisto Protocol
The Callisto Protocol is easily one of the best looking games on PC right now. Even without its Ray Tracing effects, this is a graphical powerhouse. Its 3D models are almost photorealistic, and its environments look incredible. It also packs some spectacular special/particles effects.
A Plague Tale: Requiem
Asobo Studio has created one of the most beautiful games to date on PC. A Plague Tale: Requiem looks absolutely phenomenal, with vast environments, amazing pre-baked global illumination, high-quality textures, and long draw distances. This game features the best open-world environments of any game. The only downside is its characters, which are not on par with those of The Callisto Protocol or Uncharted 4. However, when it comes to its environments, A Plague Tale: Requiem is unmatched. And then we have the incredible physics-based sequences with the rats. In fact, there are two specific scenes with the rats that will leave you speechless. Well done Asobo, well done.
Portal RTX
Well, most of you may have seen this coming. After all, we had Quake 2 RTX in our previous “Top 10 PC Game Graphics” list. Portal RTX, alongside Doom RTX and Quake RTX, showcase what Ray/Path Tracing can achieve. NVIDIA used RTX Remix in order to overhaul the graphics of this classic game, and the results are spectacular. The fact that NVIDIA will release RTX Remix so that modders can implement full ray tracing/path tracing effects in older games is also something that excites us. Portal RTX is a graphical powerhouse, and it’s something you must experience if you own an RTX GPU.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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graphics are not everything
here we go again. yet the title of the article is pretty clear.
You are correct. However, this article is strictly about the best graphics, so it’s kind of a pointless comment to make here. Now if it was an article about best games of 2022 and it seemed like the games John listed were on the list mainly due to visuals, then yes your post would be relevant.
Ok thank you, I understand?
honestly calysto mudpeople protocol looks so ugly, its either dark, too bloddy or too muddy. Also portal rtx? Really old games now?
While yes, Portal is “old,” this RT version features one of the most, if not THE most advanced renderer in a shipping game currently. So yeah, it belongs on the list.
last time when John recommended Metro Exodus, I felt cheated. That game was an absolute mess. I can’t even launch it in DX12 mode. Whereas in DX11 safe mode, I immediately crashed to desktop view changing the resolution to native value. I hope John is more honest this time.
Hmm, was this around the time the game launched? I’ve been playing Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition recently, and haven’t had any of those issues, so it’s possible that whatever problems you had back then are fixed now. It might be worth giving it a go again if you’re not busy with anything else.
Bought it on Steam Sale last month. Refunded 1 hour after that because I cant even fcking play it. What a horrible unoptimised game.
Weird. What are your PC specs?
i7-10700F, 3080 Ti, 16Gb RAM 2933MHz, Samsung 970 EVO SSD 1 TB.
Doesn’t matter anyway. Already refunded. Dogshit optimization. What a joke.
Damn, that’s a fairly beefy system that should be able to handle this game with little to issue. That’s just the nature of the PC platform I guess. No matter how optimized a game is, there will still be some PCs out there that’ll have problems with it for various reasons.
It’s also possible that it’s a problem on your end. You probably OC’d something to the point of instability and this is one of the games that punishes you for it. Either that or you have some combination of software that’s causing problems.
You really really Lost your Judgment.
2 games with one of the best (if not best) graphics and not listed here? But Dying Light 2 made it to the list…….
lol scorn
Quite unoptimized for a unreal 4 game. Peformance issues in all settings on my machine.
It’s interesting how the games with the best-of-the-best graphics always use their own custom engines.
A Plague Tale Requiem and Horizon Forbidden West both use their own custom engine, and they have graphics that are above anything else I have seen.
It makes sense, any studio able to write their own custom engine has has some of the world’s best math wizards working for them, who know how to get the best out of graphics. They can optimize the engine for their specific game.
i dont know about horizon but the old game had awful graphics because of riddiculus usage of ambient occlusion that made nights too dark and insufferable lens flares effects that were blinding to the eye.
You really really Lost your Judgment.
2 games with one of the best (if not best) graphics and not listed here? But Dying Light 2 made it to the list…….
what are those games? be more specific
Tetris and Pong.
Judgment and it’s sequel i think
Interesting that you didn’t suck up to The Witcher 3 w/RT.
They probably couldn’t, CDPR gave it the buggy mess “next gen” update.
Dont see why Modern Warfare 2 is hear yes some are the graphics are good but some are crap look at Advanced Warfare still looks better and when you add Reshade global illumination looks a dam site better.
Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.
Your article gave me a lot of inspiration, I hope you can explain your point of view in more detail, because I have some doubts, thank you.