The best puzzle games On the PC, classic head-scratchers can be transformed into rich, meaningful stories with frustrating problems to solve. Whether you’re looking for clever dialogue, moving narratives, or a healthy dose of laughter with your conundrums, puzzle games are versatile enough to find a way to do it all.
This large genre encompasses everything from point-and click pirates to tetromino trickery, quantum physics capers and quantum physics tricks. A few of these games could even be included on our overall list of the top PC games. The comprehensive list below outlines the top puzzle games, with some familiar faces.
Unpacking
Unpacking takes the stress out of moving and turns it on its head. This relaxing, but emotionally charged puzzler tells a story and reminds its players that not all people live in the same spaces.
You are required to find homes for various household items such as books, toilet paper, and diplomas. Paying attention pays off, as familiar objects and changing locations begin to reveal more about the game’s protagonist and their life’s journey as they move from place to place across their life. You begin as a curious voyeur, and you end up with intimate knowledge about their journey.
With BAFTA award-winning music from Jeff Van Dyck and meticulously detailed pixel art, Wren Brier and the team at Witch Beam deliver a hand-crafted world that doesn’t demand your attention but asks for it kindly while offering a cup of tea.
Escape Academy
Escape Academy is high-pressure puzzle games that make it hard to keep your heart rate low. This clever indie, unlike other escape rooms, is set in an escape school with a full curriculum that includes missing persons, intrigue and mind-boggling exams.
After a seemingly simple introduction, you’re welcomed into the hallowed halls of the Escape Academy, and tasked with battling against the clock with other students and your own brain. A seasonal campus serves as a fitting backdrop to each set of challenges, with chunky cel-shaded assets and fully-realised characters inviting players down the rabbit hole – no pocket watch needed.
And, if you wrap up the main campaign, there’s a season pass of DLC full of headache-inducing trickery for those looking for more delicious morsels of mystery.
Return to Monkey Island
Ron Gilbert’s pivotal pirate has returned, taking on enemies old and new. In this hotly-anticipated follow-up, the Terrible Toybox team ask important questions like, ‘what is nostalgia’, ‘can you maintain a legacy’, and… ‘is scurvy contagious?’
Guybrush Threepwood will be joining him as he searches for meaning and ultimately seeks Monkey Island’s true secret. With the weight of his past adventures, he is able to join Guybrush. Threepwood’s charms may not be as effective in navigating this new, more modern pirate world. However, Threepwood’s legacy of kindness and clever wordplay keep him a lovable pirate at his core. He enjoys his usual hijinx, funny quizzes (our guide to Return to Monkey Island trivia cards can help you here), and interesting point-and-click puzzles.
A vibrant cartoonish art style from Rex Crowle puts a sensational spin on Monkey Island’s iconic pixelated past, complemented by scene-stealing characters with big personalities to boot.
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a classic adventure that will be remembered long after this list. Known for being a head-tickling story full of sarcasm, turrets and ground-breaking teleportation tech, the maestros at Valve made sure Portal’s younger sibling would be one for the history books.
Portal 2 expands on the original game’s success and offers new challenges that players can tackle. A portal gun is all you need, along with some luck, lateral thinking, and a lot of luck. The goal of the game is to navigate through the beautiful remnants of an once futuristic facility in order to find freedom. Be prepared for the unexpected and sometimes life-altering cubes and goops that will be found in its later puzzles. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s also on our list of the best co-op games.
Tetris Effect
Do yourself a favor and put headphones on while you play Tetris Effect. This clever synaesthetic spin-off of the ‘80s classic brings beats and bliss, making stacking blocks feel emotionally charged. Each level is tied to dynamic dioramic environments that interact with each move, your every decision pulling you deeper into a cleverly-crafted web from the mind of Rez and Lumines’ Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
Old-school Tetris tactics are still very welcome here, but beware, Tetris Effect’s disarmingly-beautiful imagery may seek to distract you from the task at hand. You can avoid some serious losses by finding a way to balance your attention between the beautiful scenery and the need for the right amount of tetromino as you go through the epic Journey Mode campaign.
The Pedestrian
The Pedestrian is a platforming side-scroller with clever sign-based storytelling that will bring new life to industrial imagery. The Pedestrian is a game where you play as a brave stick figure that flips switches and defies obstacles, jumping between signs in the 2D space while the bustling 3D world goes around them.
As you piece together The Pedestrian’s broader narrative puzzle, you will help your figure friend build confidence and rearrange road signs to move around a giant concrete jungle, with all of its anxiety-inducing features front and centre, impeding your pathways through the sweetly-soundtracked urban sprawl.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Strap on your investigative boots and prepare to examine what’s left of a once-missing merchant ship in The Return of the Obra Dinn. This once-great vessel has become a hollow shell five years after its voyage. There are ghosts and mysteries that still need to be discovered.
Insurance appraisers have to be able figure out how a ship with many sea people and high quality goods could disappear. Memento Mortem is your pocket watch. It can transport you to the time just before the death of the corpse when it is viewed. Quick-witted exploration provides clues and information in this diorama filled with death. Let’s hope you have your sea legs, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
The Witness
It may not be the most inviting idea to wake up on a mysterious island without your memories intact. But if you are willing to explore the mysteries of The Witness, you might find a valuable message that is worth the effort.
This lonely berg is full of lush biomes. There is no forward motion. Interacting with grid puzzles with varying difficulty levels is the only way to move. The Witness constantly teaches players new rules and tools, enabling further exploration, while optional video and audio logs discovered throughout the journey provide slivers of information necessary to understanding the player’s purpose on the island. As you unlock each area, look inwards. If you get lost, keep going.
If you’ve exhausted this list of the best puzzle games, why not check out our picks for the best adventure games on PC? A lot of them share similar traits to the titles in this list, or our list of the best story games may help if you’re looking for something a little more narrative driven.
