Best 4X games on PC 2024

There’s more variety to come, but there’s no question about which game wears the crown. 2016’s Civilization 6 is still, by a wide margin, the most popular, most prestigious 4X game in the world. Dangerously compelling, to the point where it can be hard to step away from your PC, there’s something oddly hypnotic about guiding a real life nation from mud huts to skyscrapers.

Some fans of the series took a while to learn to love Civilization VI’s cartoonish graphics and gameplay tweaks, but now its player base regularly puts it in the top 20 most played games on Steam. It’s Civilization but with more cities and more mechanics – especially with all the DLC, which adds everything from loyalty to global warming.

For the full run down of Civ 6’s triumphs and tribulations, read PCGamesN’s original Civilization 6 review.

A turn-based fantasy 4X strategy game by Amplitude Studios, Endless Legend stands out as much for its interesting, asymmetrical factions as it does for its innovations in gameplay.

Each faction plays dramatically differently – from the eerie Cultists, converting minor factions from a central uber-city, to the Roving Clans who can move whole settlements in a nomadic playstyle, to the Necrophages, who just want to eat everyone up.

Each has its own story questline, and completing yours can win you the game. Colourful and surprising, no game does the explore part of 4X quite like Endless Legend.

The new mechanics are interesting too, from the periodic ravages of winter, to the influence system, Endless Legend brings plenty of new features to the table. Its combat system is a bit marmite-y: some love the tactical battle system, while others find it slow and ponderous, especially in multiplayer.

For the full, unabridged tale, read the Endless Legend review on our sister site, PCGamesN.

In our review, we called 2020’s Shadow Empire “the best 4X wargame you’re (probably) not playing” – and that’s just as much the case in 2024 as it was four years ago.

Perhaps the very epitome of a ‘hidden gem’ in the genre, Shadow Empire is a preposterously detailed, luxurious, epic strategy game, packing in elements from half a dozen genres, from hardcore computer wargames,  to grand strategy games, to CRPGs.

Every game starts by procedurally generating an entire planet for you to conquer, randomizing conditions from a massive array of possibilities to produce a radically different game world every time.

Your first playthrough might be a tiny, featureless, waterless rock; your second an irradiated hellscape; your third a teeming jungle paradise. It all matters to gameplay, too – adapting to the randomised riches and pitfalls of your environment will shape your whole playthrough, from science and economy to warfare.

From there, things only get more complex and interconnected. To properly achieve the four ‘X’es, you’ll have to manage the different ‘bureaus’ of your imperial government – which means maintaining good personal relations with your ministers, RPG style, in the manner of Crusader Kings. Let things slide, and they’ll plot, embezzle, or even rise up against you.

At peace, Shadow Empire plays similarly to a Paradox grand strategy title, balancing government, populations, technology, and economy to generate progress. When war finally breaks out, however, a whole other game unfurls from the, er, ‘shadows’ – powered by the meticulous interlocking systems of the full-bodied, hex-and-counter wargames Matrix is famous for.

Winning wars isn’t just a matter of smashing stacks of units together – if you want to successfully expand and exterminate in SE, you’ll need to set up and manage everything from communications, logistics, and weapons development to keeping every last division supplied with food and ammo.

If you’re into really crunchy strategy games, this is by far the best 4X for you; maybe the best game for you. We’ve only scratched the surface here – for a more detailed analysis, read our full Shadow Empire review.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is an experimental departure from the tried and true fantasy formula of this series, it shores up a lot of its shortcomings.

Though the brilliant magic system, and some of the personality is lost in this title, it’s a well-rounded game overall, and not purely focused on combat – you can play an economic or diplomatic game in Planetfall.

It’s no slouch on the combat front either, though. Particularly worth a shout out is the mod slot system, which lets you equip your units in all sorts of ways, drastically changing their role on the battlefield.

To ensure a safe landing, you’d be well advised to read the full Age of Wonders Planetfall review on PCGamesN.

Straddling the line between a 4X game and grand strategy, and the only ‘turnless’ title on this list, Paradox’s 2016 mega-hit Stellaris does an amazing job of taking a galaxy-full of content and making it relatively accessible.

It might not have the sheer depth of something like Distant Worlds 2 or Terra Invicta, but it definitely doesn’t lack for varied and interesting gameplay, particularly with all the mods and DLC available. It’s a great strategy game to while away some relaxing hours, a map painter where you can gaze at the stars – bliss!

If you’re somehow not sold on becoming an interstellar emperor, PCGamesN’s Stellaris review can offer a little more depth.

Released to some fanfare in 2021, Humankind is a quite compelling riff on the classic Sid Meier’s Civilization 4X formula, which – though it doesn’t quite impress in all areas – deserves a place on this list for its innovations, undeniably addictive gameplay, and gorgeous graphics and animations.

You’ll still be shepherding an empire from the dawn of humanity through to the space age – but, instead of picking from a pre-set list of real-world civs to lead, you’ll get to mix and match elements from different cultures, traditions, aesthetics, and gameplay styles as you progress through the game’s six historical eras.

You might enter the Ancient era as Egypt, enjoying bonuses to your industry, building pyramids and whatnot; transition to Romans in the Classical age (unlocking the badass Praetorian Guards unique unit); go all Aztec during the Medieval era; become the Venetians in the Early Modern; cosplay as Austro-Hungary in the Industrial Era, and close out the game’s Contemporary Era as the Soviet Union.

As gameplay gimmicks go, it might not be as awesome as we all thought it would be during the spectacular pre-release hype period for this game – but it’s still brilliant fun, and delivers lots of replayability. A relatively shallow, but reliably enjoyable turn-based battle system sees you zoom in to control individual battlefield units on a grid (as opposed to classic Civ’s simple dice-driven ‘stack versus stack’ combat) – and this, too, adds spice.

Basically, if you love Civilization, and want something that delivers much the same experience, with some enjoyable tweaks – try Humankind.

Everyone knows that the early stages of Civilization, before troublemakers invent confusing, new-fangled technology like the compass, is the best part of the game. So it was only a matter of time before someone (someone like Mohawk Games) made a historical 4X game with only one era.

Old World is a rarity in 4X games, in that it respects your time – with a 200 turn limit, and an orders system that means not all your units can move or attack each turn, you can breeze through a game in a mere 15-20 hours.

There’s a lot of tweaks to the 4X formula under the hood, but perhaps the most noticeable one is the characters. You don’t have some undying avatar representing your nation, instead controlling real people with personalities and stats, who raise heirs and then die, leaving the new blood in charge. To succeed in the Old World, you’ll need to manage, not just an empire, but also a family.

For more parental (and empire-building) guidance, check out PCGamesN’s full Old World review.

Warhammer 40k games can be somewhat hit and miss, so it’s pleasing to get a fine example of the 4X genre in Gladius – Relics of War. As you’d expect for a game in this universe, warfare is the order of the day, diplomacy is not an option. In fact three out of four of 4X’s Xs are somewhat vestigial in Gladius.

However, if you’re a Warhammer fan, and you want to slug it out in a tactical combat game with some 4X decision-making thrown in, we can definitely recommend picking this up. If it doesn’t ‘load your boltgun’, however, you might find something else you like in our guide to the best RTS games on PC – or perhaps among the best turn based games.

If you’re in the mood for a magical adventure in a gigantic sandbox, then Age of Wonders 4 is the 4X strategy game for you.

While the previous game already let you play around with highly compelling RPG elements that encouraged you to sculpt powerful hero characters, Age of Wonders 4 gives you way more freedom to experiment. You can shape your race, culture, leader, world, and magic, ensuring a great deal of variety between playthroughs.

This customization isn’t just limited to game set up either. Key choices you make, particularly the magic you choose, will cause significant and interesting shifts. You can alter an entire race in the midst of a campaign, changing their cultural values, or using magic to give them fur, change their physical size, or make them sprout huge demon wings.

Exploration and combat are the highlights, but a competent civ-like is attached, and you can automate whole sections of Age of Wonders 4 if you want to focus purely on the tactical battles or city building. The game does a good job of keeping all the complexity more-or-less parsable, thanks to clearly communicated unit types, and a tidy UI that makes good use of nested tooltips.

Despite the powerful customization tools, it all feels remarkably thought through and balanced – which makes gameplay very solid, but might be a downside for lovers of RNG and the kind of emergent storytelling that comes from spectacular, unlikely moments. Fear not, lovers of wacky hijinks, the game also lets you recruit deadly penguins and throw them into wars with evil lion-men.

DLC and regular updates have much improved this title since launch, adding interesting content like dragons and lovecraftian horrors. Check out our Age of Wonders 4 preview write-up for more information.

At close to 30 years of age, Master of Orion 2 is the oldest game on our list, but still well worth playing today. Developer Simtex hit the 4X sweet spot, producing a strategy game of the perfect size and level of detail to feel epic without being a nightmare to play – a pit that Master of Orion 3 would fall bodily into when it came out in 2016.

The game features relatively simple systems that combine to create a great amount of depth. That includes a diplomacy system that rivals the best modern games, an interesting tech tree with decisions that truly matter, and engaging combat, where ships operate very differently depending on how you build them.

Characterful and extremely competent, the only truly bad part of MOO2 is the amount of micromanagement required in the late game, and the relatively few routes to victory, which ensure you’ll start far more campaigns than you finish. But, hey, that’s pretty common for the genre. If it wasn’t for the old fashioned graphics you might easily forget you were playing a game from the 90s. It even has a readable UI with useful tool tips!

Distant Worlds 2 offers a dizzying proposition, an enormous galaxy to explore, expand, etcetera combined with immense granularity. The beating heart of the game is powerful automation options that let you choose just how hands-on you want to be, letting you focus your energies in exactly the areas you want to. You can micromanage like crazy or automate everything and let the game run itself, like watching a galactic ant farm.

More likely, you’ll pick some point in between, at which point Distant Worlds 2 does a good job of making you feel like some godlike space dictator, tinkering away on your own special projects while your scurrying underlings pop up with suggestions for you to weigh in on.

The game was a bit rocky on launch, requiring you to fight against the AI automation more often than was ideal, and with performance issues that could cause crashes.

By all accounts, many of its more egregious problems have been patched up now, though it still needs a few more updates to feel as content rich as its less pretty predecessor. Check out our Distant Worlds 2 review for more details.

A less than typical 4X game, Conquest of Elysium 5 mixes the core tenets of the 4X genre with elements taken from both roguelikes and autobattlers. It might look like it was dredged up from the early 90s, but it actually only came out in 2021.

While offering only the barest glimmer of diplomatic or economic gameplay, and giving you no control over combat itself, Conquest of Elysium 5 contains a high level of complexity, with hundreds of different units – each combatant tracked separately by the game – and loads of spells to deploy.

Its 24 factions function very differently, from trolls that can take out armies with a single unit, to dwarves that must slowly upgrade their troops, to druids that summon huge armies of woodland creatures to die in droves.

The game has a high degree of randomness, and sometimes you’ll just get stomped when you accidentally walk your army into the sea, or leave your capital undefended and have it taken over by bears. Emergent story generator.

We’ve only touched the surface – there are four planes to explore, the apocalypse can happen, and the game has a lively modding scene – but that should give you enough to know if you’ll enjoy this hidden gem or not.

Conquest of Elysium is created by Illwinter, which also makes the Dominions series, one of our favorite turn based strategy games. You should check out our Dominions 6 review, in fact, because that game’s another strong contender for this list.