Who decided that laptops are for work and not for play? In theory, a laptop gives you the power to get your game on just about anywhere you can carry a backpack. Armed with the best laptop games, you can entertain yourself through a long-haul flight, take a quick break from work, and enjoy convenience without sacrificing quality.
Maybe you think you need a fast and powerful desktop computer in order to enjoy the greatest PC games. But cutting-edge graphics aren’t an instant recipe for a good game and many games run great with just a laptop keyboard and trackpad. In fact, the games for laptops are more reliant on compelling stories, tricky puzzles, and replay value for a good time.
So here’s a list of the best laptop games that you can play wherever and whenever, no fancy desktop computer or console set-up required. The only thing these games have in common is being super fun to play on a laptop, so with that level of variety, there’s something for every kind of gamer.
The Best Games For Laptops
15. Caves of Qud
Developer: Freehold Games
Publisher: Freehold Games
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where water is currency, Caves of Qud is a traditional roguelike game inspired by tabletop RPGs. And while it uses a very retro art style, the simplicity stops there.
Caves of Qud is roleplaying fun at its finest, with endless options for your story and virtually no limits on what you can do in the procedurally-generated world.
Caves of Qud is one of the best games for laptops out there because it only requires a keyboard, and being closer to the screen actually helps with seeing the small details on the map. However, make sure to adjust your key bindings if you don’t have a number pad on your laptop because your character will eventually need to move diagonally.
14. Crypt of the NecroDancer
Developer: Brace Yourself Games
Publisher: Klei Entertainment
Roguelikes and rhythm games come together to deliver a mesmerizing experience in Crypt of the NecroDancer.
You play as the appropriately-named Cadence, who is searching a crypt for her lost father when a NecroDancer steals her heart and forces her to move to the beat in order to stay alive. This foundation creates a perfect marriage of the two genres.
Hands down one of the coolest things about Crypt of the NecroDancer is that you can also add your own music to the background and the game automatically syncs to the beat of the new song. The game requires very little power to run and only a keyboard is needed.
13. Papers, Please
Developer: Lucas Pope
Publisher: 3909
The “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please lets you assume the role of an immigration officer in a fictional eastern European country in 1982. The country has many political enemies and its border checkpoint is tense.
Papers, Please is a simulation game with puzzle elements that requires you to review each immigrant that comes to your window, checking their documents against a tightening list of restrictions. You also have to balance your personal finances and take the wellbeing of your family into consideration because, after all, this is a job.
A laptop trackpad works great at first but can make things more complicated toward the later stages of the game when things must move quickly and there are many documents to flip through.
12. Hollow Knight
Developer: Team Cherry
Publisher: Team Cherry
Hollow Knight is a challenging and fun game set in a magical world that offers so much more than a typical 2D platformer.
First, the world is expansive and there are so many corners of the map to explore. You can go in almost any direction in this game and find something to do. Second, the hand-drawn art style is wonderfully unique and provides a different ambience for each area of the game.
The concept for Hollow Knight actually originated during a game jam and was subsequently improved to become the game we know today. Hollow Knight is easily played on a laptop keyboard and runs surprisingly well on any machine that meets the minimum spec requirements.
11. Cuphead
Developer: Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.
Publisher: Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.
Cuphead is 1960s American animation meets running and gunning. Its wacky, colorful art style takes inspiration from a type of animation called “rubber hose” named because the characters’ arms and legs move freely in a curved manner.
But don’t let the game’s whimsical, silly style mislead you. Cuphead is difficult and very boss-heavy, so there’s a lot of dying involved. The silver lining is that you get unlimited lives with no inventory loss in between, so you can keep on trying for that sweet boss victory.
Although Cuphead is not an easy game to beat, it is a relatively easy game for your laptop to run. It offers full controller support but is just as easily played with a keyboard.
10. OneShot
Developer: Future Cat
Publisher: Degica
OneShot is an indie puzzle adventure game where you control a cat child named Niko. What the developers describe as a game where “the world knows you exist”, in OneShot, the player is their own character separate from Niko.
Your mission is to restore sunlight to a wasteland-esque world by placing a lightbulb in a high tower. OneShot strikes a careful balance keeping you intrigued by the mystery while also being slow-paced enough to play on the go.
No list of the best laptop games is complete without OneShot because it runs just flawlessly on even outdated, non-gaming laptops. Controller integration is also available and works great in place of the keyboard.
9. Legend of Grimrock
Developer: Almost Human Games
Publisher: Almost Human Games
Legend of Grimrock delivers an ingenious modern spin on old-school dungeon crawler RPGs. It’s known for offering incredibly challenging but intuitive puzzles and map design.
You control a group of four prisoners who have been escorted to the legendary Mount Grimrock to carry out a punishment of exile from which no prisoner before them has ever returned. But as soon as they’re sealed inside the mountain, they hear a voice promising them a way out if they can make it to the bottom of the dungeon.
Not only does Legend of Grimrock come with a map creator to make your own adventure but the modding community is always making new additions to keep the decade-old game fresh.
8. Oxenfree
Developer: Night School Studio
Publisher: Night School Studio
If you’ve got a laptop and you’re in the mood for a spooky cool story, look no further than the supernatural graphic adventure game Oxenfree. You play as a teenage girl at an overnight island party with her friends and stepbrother when things take a very strange turn.
One of Oxenfree’s most unique features is that it seamlessly delivers narrative without any cutscenes, instead using a “walk and talk” technique where the player can respond by clicking a speech bubble.
Finally, the soundtrack to Oxenfree alone is enough to recommend it as a positive experience. Be sure to grab your headphones and settle in for a surprisingly charming teen thriller that will fully immerse you no matter where you’re playing.
7. VVVVVV
Developer: Terry Cavanagh
Publisher: Terry Cavanagh
Originally built in Adobe Flash 12 years ago, VVVVVV still manages to hold its own as one of the most fun and uniquely challenging classic-style games out there. 2D platformers are known for making you jump, but VVVVVV actually requires you to reverse gravity instead.
Few things match the satisfaction of beating a hard level in VVVVVV. It can take hundreds of tries, but the fast pace and killer soundtrack don’t even give you a moment to catch your breath.
In 2020, VVVVVV’s source code was made available and the community has been submitting expansions to the game ever since. Like many of the best laptop games, VVVVVV is worth keeping an eye on because new challenges are still released regularly.
6. Dicey Dungeons
Developer: Terry Cavanagh
Publisher: Terry Cavanagh
What happens when you combine a dice game, a roguelike, and a game show? Add a pinch of sarcasm and a dash of sadistic wit and you get Dicey Dungeons.
The show’s haughty host, Lady Luck, has turned six contestants into anthropomorphic dice blocks who now have no choice but to try and win their freedom by beating a dungeon.
Dicey Dungeons’ gameplay is like turn-based RPG combat, but with various dice-rolling combat features unique to each contestant-turned-adventurer. Nothing is safe from the game’s meta sense of humor and cheesy character dialogue.
Since it only takes around 15 minutes to either win or lose a run, Dicey Dungeons is the perfect light-hearted challenge for a work or school break.
5. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance
Developer: Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl
Publisher: Nicalis
When it comes to replayable top-down roguelikes, you can’t do much better than The Binding of Isaac. Loosely based on the eponymous biblical tale, the player controls Isaac who is running from his extremist mother at the risk of being sacrificed. As he escapes to the basement of his home, he finds a dungeon full of bizarre items and repulsive monsters.
Like all the best laptop games, you can try a multitude of different runs and challenges in The Binding of Isaac, making it the perfect choice to occupy yourself while traveling or commuting.
Its Repentance expansion is the most recent version of the game, with almost double the original amount of content to play with – all based on a fan-made mod.
4. Kentucky Route Zero
Developer: Cardboard Computer
Publisher: Cardboard Computer
Take it from a Kentuckian, Kentucky Route Zero is one of the best indie titles of the decade and a fine example of how beautifully bleak video games can captivate players. Top that off with the fact that it can run on the most basic of machines and you have no reason not to go play this game right now.
Seven years in the making, Kentucky Route Zero is a point-and-click adventure played in five acts, the first of which was released in 2013 and the fifth not until 2020. Its narrative centers around a truck driver, Conway, and the peculiar but oddly familiar characters he meets as he travels a secret underground highway.
Kentucky Route Zero captures the bittersweet reality of life in Kentucky like no game has before.
3. Stardew Valley
Developer: ConcernedApe
Publisher: ConcernedApe
Stardew Valley is a chill classic that’s great to have on your laptop for those moments when you just want to escape to a simpler place. After all, that’s what Stardew Valley’s story is all about.
You, the player character, are tired of your thankless desk job, slaving away for the benefit of the corporate tycoons who own your weekdays. So you open a letter from your dead grandpa and the next thing you know you own a quaint farm in the close-knit community of Pelican Town.
And you can bring your friends. Stardew Valley is a great co-op game, allowing you to farm and explore with up to three other players.
2. Undertale
Developer: tobyfox
Publisher: tobyfox
Indie game Undertale became a surprise classic among gamers of all kinds, taking the community by storm and achieving cult status. It’s so popular that it’s almost not necessary to include it in this list, and yet it’s impossible to leave out.
What first appears to be a run-of-the-mill, top-down 2D RPG slowly reveals itself to be anything but traditional. Undertale relies on its player to have typical RPG expectations but then subverts those standards.
It’s likely that some of Undertale’s incredibly widespread success is owed to the fact that it can run on just about any machine, making it possible for anyone, anywhere to experience this nuanced RPG.
1. Slay the Spire
Developer: Mega Crit Games
Publisher: Mega Crit Games
Confession: I have played over 400 hours of Slay the Spire on my laptop. That’s just a testament to an addictively great laptop game.
Slay the Spire is a deck-builder with roguelike elements, and it employs just the right balance of skill and luck to be extremely addictive and satisfying to win. Like other titles on this list, Slay the Spire offers so many different runs, achievements, and challenges that there’s really no way to be done with the game.
One of the main laptop-friendly features unique to Slay the Spire is its “card quick select keys” which give you the option to play with the keyboard instead of the traditional trackpad method. It almost feels like it was made to play on your lunch break, and it deserves the top spot on this list by a landslide.
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