In less than a month, we'll air the next edition of the .
If you missed it last year, this end-of-year edition of the PC Gaming Show has a slightly different format: it presents a countdown of the 25 Most Wanted games as selected by a special panel of voters called The Council. This special group includes high-profile game developers like Brenda Romero, John Romero, David Gaider, Tanya X. Short, Soren Johnson, and Brian Fargo, as well as some of our favorite content creators—CohhCarnage, Esfand, Missmikkaa, AnnieFuchsia, DansGaming, and others—who lend their opinions to the process. Likewise, the entire PC Gamer team adds its votes to the pile.
How we selected the nominees
The long list of more than 100 unreleased games below are selected by the PC Gamer team based on our collective interest in these projects. We take into consideration everything from that game's profile, premise, initial reception, the number of wishlists it's garnered, and its creative direction, among other factors. It's important to us that the Most Wanted list is not simply a popularity contest, however—we make a point of putting a wide range of projects that haven't been widely noticed in front of our voting panel, to make sure a spectrum of games that represent the breadth, weirdness, and experimental nature of PC gaming are represented.
Games releasing before January 1, 2025 or that are already released in Early Access are not eligible for voting (though there is an exception or two, like Arma Reforger, which is a precursor to what will become Arma 4).
The long list is limited to around 100 games; as capable as The Council is, we can't ask this group of people to vote on every game in existence (especially in a year when an average of 39 new games per day release on Steam). Although the list necessarily excludes many of the hundreds of unreleased games coming to PC, all voters also have the opportunity to nominate any game that they feel should be voted on by the wider group.
How the final Most Wanted list is selected
Voters vote on a 1-5 scale, using the following criteria:
5 • Maximum hype. Intense, obsessive interest in this [[link]] game.
4 • This game looks excellent to me.
3 • I think this game looks really good.
2 • This game looks promising and captures your interest.
1 • Mildly optimistic. You're curious about this game, but not more than that.
0 • (Abstain / no vote)
- We use a consideration called Release Certainty to weight the score of each game relative to how certain we are of that game hitting its announced release date. If a game has a nebulous release date or [[link]] none at all, its score is weighted lower—it's difficult to fully anticipate a game when it's unclear when it'll actually be available.
- The number of votes a game received is an additional weighting factor
The PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted 2024 nominees
(working title)