The best laptop games ideal for low-end PCs

Sometimes I decide what game I want to play by first deciding where or how I want to play it. Between my powerful desktop, my laptop, and my Steam Deck, my library of games is now carved up into fiefdoms competing for my attention and time. A big, graphically intensive FPS may demand the desktop and large monitor. A 2D action game plays perfectly on the Steam Deck’s analog sticks. A relaxed card or strategy game like Civilization? Those were born for a laptop.

The best laptop games can run on low-end PCs, even though today’s gaming laptops can pack some powerful hardware. Because even if you have a beefy gaming laptop with an RTX 3000 series GPU, you’re constantly balancing heat and battery life when laptop gaming.