Cyberpunk is not the only long-awaited title on this list. Though the futuristic RPG was teased 7 years ago, many PC gamers have been impatiently anticipating a true sequel to 2008's medieval sandbox RPG "Mount & Blade" for even longer. Fortunately, that's just what they'll get in soon, as Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord finally nears a release.

But what should you expect from Bannerlord? In short, picture the original Mount & Blade, but better. All of the franchise's core features are here, from its open-ended gameplay or directional combat mechanics to its impressive simulated economy and real-time, tactical army battle system. However, the combat has been sped up to give attacks more "oomph," and unit AI has been improved enough that your troops should hopefully stop all charging up the same darn siege ladder.

Features like Mount & Blade's overworld map, diplomacy, city building, and faction management are also returning, with various improvements to each. For example, there are new buildings to construct in your cities or towns, and diplomacy will have a pseudo-currency that should make it a bit easier to convince Bannerlord's various characters to do your bidding.

If improvements alone aren't enough to grab your attention, Bannerlord will be receiving its fair share of new features, too. There'll be aging, permadeath (due to old age, combat, or execution), and heir mechanics, as well as robust weapon crafting and expanded options for non-traditional playstyles, like banditry or trading.

Frankly, we could talk about Bannerlord all day. Rest assured, if you're a fan of multi-genre games or medieval RPGs, this is one PC-exclusive title you won't want to miss when it launches on Steam Early Access in two months.

Coming from well-known Polish developer of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 aims to take everything that made the medieval fantasy RPG excellent and build upon it with unprecedented levels of player freedom.

Cyberpunk will have a full character creation system, complete with perk, attribute, and skill customization, as well as the choice of three distinct Dragon Age: Origins-like backgrounds, each with its own unique playable prologue.

Cyberpunk 2077 also carries over this notion of player freedom to its moment-to-moment gameplay. Unlike The Witcher 3, in which most encounters were resolved with a simple (but satisfying) hack-and-slash combat system, Cyberpunk lets players approach missions in a variety of ways.

Do you favor big guns, explosions, and pure bravado? Cyberpunk has you covered. What about sneaking, hacking, smooth-talking, or toying with robots... or a combination of everything? All equally valid play styles, CD Projekt Red promises.

And, if you ever tire of making life-or-death gameplay and story decisions, you can always take a break and cruise through Cyberpunk 2077's impressive setting: a sprawling, futuristic and dangerous metropolis known as "Night City."

Unlike previous games in this Fallout-like, post-apocalyptic, party-based RPG series, Wasteland 3 is doing away with the stereotypical desert setting. Instead, the game will drop players into the middle of frigid Colorado, a land ravaged by an ongoing nuclear winter.

As your custom character and his or her in-game companions -- the last surviving members of "Team November," a squad of peacekeeping Rangers -- traverse Colorado's hostile landscape in an armored rover, you'll be contending with raiders, mutated creatures, and the very elements to scrape by. The more encounters (combat-oriented or otherwise) you and your allies survive, the more new abilities and equipment they'll gain access to.

And trust us, you'll need every advantage you can get. Wasteland 3 seeks to revitalize Wasteland 2's challenging and notoriously deadly XCom-like strategic combat system with new weapons and features for players (and enemies) to take advantage of, not the least of which is an all-new cooperative gameplay option. That's right. For the first time ever in the Wasteland franchise, you can choose to bring a friend along for the ride as you face down the ever-dangerous Colorado wilds and their inhabitants.

Whether you do so or not, though, inXile promises that its latest project will deliver an emotional, story-driven RPG experience that reacts to your choices. You'll be forced to make tough moral decisions that can doom or save the game's various factions and locations. With all that power in your hands, will you try to help as many people as possible and make the wasteland a better place, or simply watch it burn?

Modern open-world action-adventure games tend to feel alive on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, you realize that it's all mostly an illusion. The NPCs, though large in number, are typically little more than unremarkable set dressing. However, that might not be the case for much longer -- Ubisoft's upcoming open-world action title Watch Dogs: Legion promises to shake the genre up significantly.

When you first load up Watch Dogs: Legion's dystopian, government-dominated version of London, you'll see the usual hordes of NPCs walking about. The twist is, every single one of those characters, from the cranky old woman feeding the pigeons to the corner DJ, is fully playable. They all have their own personal story, skillset (whether it's stealth, combat, hacking, or something else), background, and set of available perks for you to make use of.

And make use of them you should -- in Legion, you aren't playing as a one-man army. When you're up against the full force of London's fictional totalitarian police state, you're going to need some help, and that's where the "Resistance" comes in." Every character you recruit throughout the game, whether you choose to play as them or not, gets added to the Resistance's ranks, and once your pool of characters gets large enough, you might just be able to overthrow London's oppressors.

Be careful, though. Watch Dogs: Legion introduces permadeath to the franchise, which means even your favorite characters can be killed off for good if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, you can reduce your chances of failure by bringing up to three real-life buddies with you on your adventures. Whether you have friends willing to tag along or not, you can join the Resistance for yourself later this year when Watch Dogs: Legion finally arrives.

The grand strategy genre is one of the oldest in the PC gaming industry, and the games within it aren't dying off any time soon. At least, not if Crusader Kings 3 has anything to say about it. As the latest entry in the long-running medieval strategy series of the same name, Crusader Kings 3 will bring moderate upgrades and changes to the franchise without sacrificing too much of its core DNA.

That means you'll still be able to play as famous rulers from European history, execute political masterstrokes to get ahead, brutally assassinate your (in-game, we hope) kids, and marry off your relatives to each other to keep the bloodlines "pure." In other words, Crusader Kings 3, like 1 and 2, will give you a way to live out your wildest Game of Thrones fantasies shamelessly.

This time around, though, you'll be doing so with some much prettier eye candy to look at. Instead of static 2D portraits, every character in the game now has his or her own, fully-animated 3D model, and the game's textures and user interface have been modernized quite a bit. All in all, the game should be more accessible than ever, without compromising in the realm of complexity.

Aesthetics aside, Crusader Kings 3 is a veritable treasure trove of fresh content and changes. For example, the reworked Lifestyle system lets you customize your ruler with one of five different life focuses: Diplomacy, Martial, Stewardship, Intrigue, and Learning. Each focus helps to shape your character's personality while unlocking new active abilities, bonuses, and roleplaying events for them to partake in.

If you're the sort of gamer who enjoys (literally or figuratively) backstabbing your closest allies and slowly watching your empire grow over time, Crusader Kings 3 will be a must-play when it hits the market this year.

Scores of childhood (and adult) gaming memories were made thanks to the PlayStation 2.  In fact, many still have their trusty consoles and return to them for the beauty of nostalgia on a daily! The PS2 is the best-selling console of all time, with 157 million units sold — 50% more than the second best.

So, it’s possible that you have some favorite games from the PS2 era.

What if we told you that there is a simple way to download and play PS2 games on PC – want to know how?

Yes, that’s right, you can download and play PS2 games on PC without hassle thanks to easy-to-use emulator software.

This latest post in a series of FileHippo How To Articles will explain just how you can do this.

We will be looking at one emulator in particular; PCSX2. It’s one of our favorite solutions for a number of reasons. For example, compatibility rates make over 80% of all PS2 games as playable. If you own a reasonably powerful computer then PCSX2 is a great emulator.

The application also provides support for lower end computers as well, so all owners of PlayStation 2 consoles will be able to see games working on their PC!

In this article we will explain some of the benefits to playing PS2 games on PC, and tell you a little bit more about how emulators work (and how you can get your hands on PCSX2 for free!).

So, without further ado, let’s discover how to download and play PS2 games on PC!

An emulator is a piece of software that allows you to replicate the functions of another system on your computer. There are many types of emulator that imitate different operating systems, hardware, software, and CPU. 

The type of emulator we are focusing on here are PS2 emulators for Windows PC.

Essentially, they replicate the PlayStation 2 console on your computer, which means you can play PS2 games on your PC.

With a good emulator, you eliminate the need for having a physical PS2 console. You’ll be able to play games straight from the disc or as an ISO image from your computer’s hard drive. 

Essentially, there are lots of advantages. Gamers are now using this method, rather than dusting off their PS2 consoles, more and more these days.

Firstly, you can enjoy custom resolutions (up to 4096×4096), anti-aliasing and texture filtering. This will could make your old PS2 games rival their HD remakes!

You can also use any controller that works on Windows with keyboards and mice. Unlimited memory cards will also be a big plus, how we all could have done with them in the past!

Certain emulators can also allow you to increase and decrease game speeds. This is done by using a built-in-frame-limiter. You will also be able to quick save and load practically anywhere in your game.

Moreover, gamers are particularly drawn to emulators for a key reason: the recording abilities. Many gamers are using PS2 emulators to record and stream gameplay of classic games without hassle.

If you use a good emulator, there’s also the ability to record in full HD, and one reason we love PCSX2 is the built-in video recorder that can be used in just one click. 

We’re going to talk you through how to use PCSX2. It is a free emulator and one of the most popular out there. 

PCSX2 creators say that there are just six steps to using and getting the most out of the program.

The first step, of course, is to download the version best suited for you. For beginners, the full installer of the latest stable release is recommended. Further information to guide you can be found at its FileHippo program page, or the official website.

Secondly, you must get the BIOS file from your PlayStation 2 console. PCSX2 creators say this is not included with their program due to Sony copyright laws. So, you have to get this from your console. Don’t worry, you can visit their tools section for more information on how to do this.

Once you’ve got the BIOS file sorted you can install PCSX2, then the next stage is to configure it. A detailed description of every configuration option can be found in the PCSX2 full guide. Beginners can also check out the Quick Start Configuration Guide and PCSX2’s Configuration Guide Video.

After all that, the fun begins! You can then insert your PS2 game CD in your DVD rom compartment. The PCSX2 team say you can either run it directly from the disc or create an ISO image of your disc with a programme like IMGburn for faster reads. After that, you can just enjoy the experience!

So, there you have it, that’s how you download and play PS2 games on your PC. We think this is one of the most straightforward methods out there, and it’s free too!

Playing PS2 games on your PC can help you relive those amazing gaming moments, but in HD with more memory and with your choice of controller.

PCSX2 is a great way to help you achieve this too, we hope you agree. The creators themselves admit it is “not the simplest program out there” but they do make efforts to present it as user friendly as possible.

You will have to look at its compatibility list before attempting to run your game. If there is no support in place you may have to wait for a fix or try another game. The PCSX2 Forum is always available for further advice though.

Interested in finding out about other gaming opportunities available on your Windows PC? Be sure to check out our Gaming Software Page here at FileHippo.com!