8 – Balatro
What’s there to say about Balatro that hasn’t already been said by everybody else? This roguelike deckbuilder is the perfect game for people who, like myself, travel constantly and need something light on their portable machines that’s in equal parts easy to run and entertaining enough to keep playing for months and even years. In Balatro, players have to beat the computer’s bind for that turn, and do so by playing their poker hands and creating combos with their cards. Things rapidly escalate from a couple of points each round to hundreds of thousands of points in a manner of turns as you unlock new cards, evolve your combos, and complete your build for that run. It’s an amazingly addictive game that took the world by storm in 2024 and won every award under the gaming sun.
7 – Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition
Anytime, anywhere, if someone mentions strategy games in a conversation, there’s always someone who says, “What about Age of Empires 2? It was my favorite game growing up!” By now, in 2026, Age of Empires is nearly 30 years old, and it is still one of the most played RTS games. Now, everyone plays the Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, which is one of the best remasters in gaming history. A remaster that kept itself 100% faithful to what made the original so special, while improving only where the game needed. Graphics got a major uplift, new singleplayer and multiplayer content were added, several balances were made, and a lot of quality of life improvements saw their way into the final product, making AoE 2 a game very much worth playing in 2026. This hits especially hard if you grew up playing this masterpiece, and seeing it now in glorious 4K is the definition of that meme “how I remember the gaming looking”.
6 – Europa Universalis 5
I was one of the first to release a review of Europa Universalis 5, meaning that I had the chance to experience the whole thing without ever looking a guide, a YouTube tutorial, or any kind of helping material, which made the experience all the more engrossing and special for me, as every triumph, well-designed strategy and long-term move had to be engineered by my very own head-noodle. I genuinely feel like Europa Universalis 5 is the defining grand-strategy historical title going forward, as the crew threw all its chips at a population simulation and it worked out incredibly well, with that system trickling down to all other systems like the economy, government, diplomacy, and warfare. It was a major step forward, and I cannot phantom another Paradox title that doesn’t have it to some extent. By far, my favorite grand-strategy game of the last decade, and I have played a ton!
5 – Gates of Hell: Ostfront
It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of World War 2 games in general, especially first-person shooters and strategy games. In the last 10 years, several franchises attempted their way into my top 10, and I can happily highlight Company of Heroes 3, a game that I think is now a lot better than most people give it credit for. Steel Division and Steel Division 2 took the Wargame series of titles and chucked it back at World War 2 and presented a solid formula, but lacked the fine tactical detail I personally enjoy. Sudden Strike 4 in 2017 also brought back the memories of old-school RTS. Alas, it was not to be any of those; instead, Gates of Hell: Ostfront came out in 2021, and despite failing to impress me during its early stages, I’m happy to nominate it as one of the best strategy games of the last decade, and the best one set in World War 2.
A spiritual successor to Men of War, Ostfront does everything that Men of War singleplayer campaigns did, as well as Men of War: Assault Squad 1 and 2 did for multiplayer, and fuses it together in a package that’s more complete, better looking, has a lot more content, thousands of mods, and an active multiplayer scene. It also has some of the best campaigns of the last decade, with the Liberation and Airborne campaigns from their ever-increasing DLC library being my personal favorites.
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