While console exclusives tend to hog the majority of the limelight, PC gaming is also no stranger to games designed solely for its platform. Certain genres simply work better with a mouse and keyboard, which is why many real-time strategy games and MMOs tend to remain restricted to PC.
As the 2010s come to a close, now seems like the ideal time to look back at the decade's best PC-exclusive games, at least, according to Metacritic's aggregate scores. The focus will be on the site's critic scores; furthermore, as long as a game was only available on PC during the 2010s, it will be deemed eligible.
10 Dota 2 (90)
The definitive MOBA, Dota 2 was developed by Valve, the studio responsible for Half-Life and Portal. Hailed for its complex battle system that set the standard for its genre while permitting for endless replayability, to the point of consuming someone's entire social life, Dota 2 is the type of game that is impossible to put down.
While the free-to-play game continues to be a heavy hitter on Steam, newcomers will find it rather difficult to jump on board in 2020.
9 Guild Wars 2 (90)
Guild Wars 2 can be disregard as just another MMORPG, but that would be a great disservice to ArenaNet's masterful title. Along with a robust character creation system that allows multiple races and professions to be mixed to determine the skills available to a player, Guild Wars 2's gameplay also manages to remain fresh by focusing more on tactical combat rather than endless grinding.
Set in Tyria, Guild Wars 2 features a forever-evolving storyline that takes into account a user's actions, even if the changes to the world cannot be too excessive. Nowadays, Guild Wars 2 is free-to-play, so there is really no reason to not pick up this brilliant game.
8 Total War: Shogun 2 (90)
Putting aside some blips in the road like Rome II, Total War mostly enjoyed a fruitful decade. Released in 2011, Shogun 2 finds the strategy series in top form. By this point, Total War's gameplay was perfectly fine-tuned, with Shogun 2 serving as a culmination of the franchise's best ingredients.
While managing armies and leading campaigns remain as exciting as ever, what truly elevates Shogun 2 is the 16th-century feudal Japan setting. Set during the Ashikaga shogunate, Japan's war-torn political climate serves as the ideal setting to bring out the best Total War has to offer.
7 Sid Meier's Civilization V (90)
Speaking of strategy games, Civilization V debuted in 2010 to a standing ovation from critics and users. Although its sequel was ultimately ported to consoles, Civilization V can only be played on PC.
Few turn-based strategy games come close to matching the wealth of options and creativity present in Civilization V, even if the AI has aged a touch since the game's original release.
6 Stephen's Sausage Roll (90)
So far, this list has primarily featured well-known, albeit niche, games. Well, this one is a touch obscure. Stephen's Sausage Roll is a puzzle game about guiding a sausage over grids to reach a grill. The goal is to cook the ultimate sausage, which involves grilling the dog on four sides.
Even if the premise is rather weak, Stephen's Sausage Roll is a fun and challenging puzzle game. Quirky and addictive, this is one indie game worth seeking out.
5 World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (90)
With 2018's Battle for Azeroth garnering quite a mixed reception, World of Warcraft is finally beginning to show its age. Blizzard's legendary MMORPG has been around since 2004 and has taken over countless lives over the last 15 years, mainly thanks to fantastic expansions like 2010's Cataclysm.
Cataclysm revamped WoW's two main continents while adding over 3000 new quests. It was a huge expansion that injected life into a game that had already been around for more than half a decade.
4 Disco Elysium (91)
Even though Disco Elysium should be debuting on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2020, ZA/UM's RPG will end the 2010s as a PC exclusive. Praised for its impressive dialogue options and character freedom, Disco Elysium is a splendidly written RPG that makes fantastic use of its dark subject matter, story-focused skill trees, and tightly constructed open world.
As far as 2019 RPGs go, Disco Elysium stands out as a truly unique experience, one dripping in humor and weirdness.
3 Kentucky Route Zero - Act III (91)
The final chapter in an engrossing trilogy, Kentucky Route Zero - Act III is the third chapter in four of Conway's mysterious journey to deliver a package to Lysette, a woman who lives at 5 Dogwood Drive.
As the focus is squarely on telling a mysterious and effecting story, Kentucky Route Zero limits gameplay to dialogue options and interacting with characters and objects. Fans of point and click adventures owe it to themselves to pick up this masterpiece.
2 Out of the Park Baseball 17 (92)
It is always fascinating when there is a huge discrepancy between a game's critic and user scores on Metacritic, with Out of the Park Baseball 17 serving as a prime example. A baseball management sim, Out of the Park's 2016 entry does a good job of putting users in the role of a team owner or a variety of other positions at a club.
The game does not quite have the polish of something like Football Manager; that said, Out of the Park Baseball 17 is comfortably the best baseball sim on the market.
1 StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (93)
Expectations were high when Blizzard announced a sequel to 1998's StarCraft, one of the RTS genre's quintessential entries. Once again centering around three warring species, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty serves as a fine continuation of the franchise's mythos, boasting modernized gameplay that arguably surpasses the original.
The story is ambitious but takes quite a while to pick up momentum and features a cast of mostly forgettable characters. Nevertheless, StarCraft II's modding community and core gameplay make 2010's game one of the best RTS titles of the last decade.