From great games to the scourge of the scalper: 2020 was almost a great year for PC gamers

The past 365 days have been tumultuous beyond anyone’s control, with many people turning to PC gaming to help deal with crashes, quarantines, and general bad vibes. Sitting in a chair, putting on a headset, and watching your PC boot up is a comforting thing, especially when you know there are great friends waiting to join in on a game.

We got new processors (CPUs) from Intel and AMD, new graphics cards (GPUs) from NVIDIA and AMD, new features to go with them, and a ton of great new games on all platforms. Speaking of platforms, new Xbox and PlayStation consoles were released this year, giving gamers more powerful options than ever.

But it wasn’t all salsa, with hardware shortages, rising prices, and massive deflation. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why 2020 was almost a great year for PC gaming.

What made 2020 a great year for PC gaming

Several positive PC gaming stories emerged this year, eliminating lingering discomfort and giving us a bit of fun and something to look forward to. Half-Life 2 finally got its true sequel in Half-Life: Alyx, some 13 years after Half-Life 2: Episode Two made its debut. Valve took a chance to build it exclusively for VR, but anyone who has played the game agrees that it was worth the extra effort.

In our Half-Life: Alyx review, it is noted that, “It’s a must-have experience and a great way to start your VR journey, even if it can spoil you with its incredibly polished mechanics, story, gameplay, and visuals. This is it. the top level of VR right now and the best single player VR shooter ever made. ” High praise for a game competing for the best of the year, VR or not.

Another contender for Game of the Year, Hades, also saw a full release in 2020 after spending time in Early Access. In my review of Hades, I give it a well deserved full five-star award and a Windows Central Best award. It’s the best roguelike I’ve ever played and it’s so it’s worth the relatively small price (especially when it’s 20% off during Steam’s winter sale).

After being delayed several times, Cyberpunk 2077 saw a release for better or for worse. Playing on PC, Windows Central senior editor Jez Corden mentioned in his Cyberpunk 2077 review that the game “[…] is an open-world masterpiece that features some of the most immersive and liberating storytelling this industry has to offer. “I agree with Jez here despite all the backlash the game has received after its release for console players, and I have already invested over 60 hours in the game (nerd) without coming close to seeing everything it has to offer.

Xbox Game Pass for PC proved to be the best value in games this year with over 200 titles for one monthly price.

Microsoft’s legendary Age of Empires trilogy completed its Definitive Edition journey in 2020 with the release of Age of Empires 3: DE. We’re still waiting to fully see what the next Age of Empires 4 has to offer, but for now we have three great games that are available as standalone pieces or via Xbox Game Pass for PC. Age of Empires 2: DE will even have a “Lords of the West” expansion in January thanks to how popular it has proven to be. If you played the original version years ago, it’s definitely worth picking up again, if only for nostalgia.

Speaking of Xbox Game Pass for PC, this year has proven to be the undisputed best value in games. With over 200 games, take a look at our Xbox Game Pass PC game list, for a monthly price, you can play a new game every other day and not see everything it has to offer in a year. And it only got better in 2020 thanks to Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the Bethesda Softworks holding company, id software, Arkane Studios, Machine Games and Tango Gameworks. It’s already paid off for gamers, with massive titles like DOOM Eternal available to play and more on the way soon.

Moving to the hardware side, Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA treated PC gamers with an extensive new product line in 2020. Intel released their 10th Gen Core desktop CPUs, delivering incredible gaming performance for those in need of a upgrade. Take a look at our Intel Core i7-10700K review and our Intel Core i9-10900K review to see what we think about these chips.

Not to be outdone, AMD released its Ryzen 5000 CPUs that rival Intel’s Core CPUs at the end of the year, opening up more options for gamers who want to maximize performance. My AMD Ryzen 7 5800X review shows just how powerful these chips really are.

Later in the year, NVIDIA and AMD released new dedicated GPUs, which combined make up the bulk of our collection of the best graphics card options. NVIDIA 30 Series GPUs, including the RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti, made huge generational gains over 20 Series cards and immediately became the Get cards for high-performance gaming PCs. Soon after, AMD responded with its own “Big Navi” Radeon RX 6000 GPUs, hardware that could rival NVIDIA’s offerings in terms of raw power. Check out our NVIDIA RTX 3080 review and NVIDIA RTX 3070 review for more information on these stellar cards.

What made 2020 a not-so-good year for PC gaming

In the immediate aftermath of the release of these new GPUs and CPUs there was a massive stock shortage to the point where NVIDIA apologized for the RTX launch disaster. If you couldn’t get a new GPU or CPU seconds after they went on sale online or in a physical store, you’re probably still waiting. That’s not a great aspect when there are so many great games waiting to be enjoyed to the full with the latest hardware.

Why? Supply problems with the components needed to make this amazing new hardware have no doubt contributed to the shortages, especially during a year hit by a global pandemic. And any action that did reaching the shelf was gone before you and I could get our greedy hands on it.

How? The bots bought it faster than most web pages could load, resulting in hugely inflated prices on other reseller sites. The scalping has been so bad that the UK has discussed a motion to make CPU hardware and console scalping illegal. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, but it was the latest available at a local store and I just found it on a shelf. And as for new GPUs or new consoles, so far it has been a trial in Canada.

Moving on to the software side, many of the games we expected in 2020 were pushed back to 2021 and beyond. In fact, we have a separate list of each video game lag in 2020 if you’re looking for a full rundown, but some of the highlights are Far Cry 6, Dying Light 2, Rainbow Six Quarantine (apt name), and Halo Infinite. And while Xbox Game Pass for PC is exceptional value, anyone waiting for EA Play to join the service in 2020 will have to wait until 2021.

Some games hit the market in 2020 despite previous delays, and the biggest in the language of all is currently Cyberpunk 2077. As mentioned, the game works quite well on PC and has been a lot of fun so far, but game consoles. last generation have had a bad streak. Developer CD PROJEKT RED essentially declared a state of emergency for console gamers, allowing gamers to refund the game no matter how long they played. In any case, much of the backlash appears to come from those who jump on the bandwagon, and many of the original complaints are proving unfounded. I just hope hatred doesn’t deter studios from creating massive projects like this in the future.

What was 2020 like for you as a PC gamer?

These were my highs and lows for 2020, and I certainly missed some important moments. Let us know in the comment section how 2020 treated you as a PC gamer!

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