2013 rapidly recedes, leaving only trace memories of pirates, guns, storied old mansions and always-online debacles. For now, a moment of peace. What better time to admire the onrushing tide of destruction soon to be wrought on our spare time? Here in 2014, more people are making games than ever. More than 1500 titles line Greenlight's shelves, dozens of Kickstarter projects are coming to fruition and almost everything is headed to early access.

That's just the tip of the joyberg that awaits. Which games will pierce through the screaming throng? Of the thousands of PC games out there, which are worthy of your attention? We're here to help, with the latest in our annual mega-features about the years to come. Sit back, have a cup of tea and immerse yourself in the games of 2014 and beyond.

Big-budget behemoths often dominate the action category, and so it proves in 2014. The surely-headed-to-PC Grand Theft Auto 5 rubs shoulders with intriguing multiplayer survival games like The Division. The spectres of distant games like Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror's Edge 2, Deus Ex Universe and Beyond Good and Evil 2 offer haunting glimpses of a time beyond 2014, but all may fall before the return of the space flight sim. Star Citizen is coming. If its team can effectively utilise that vast crowd-sourced budget, we could be in for something a bit special.

You can thank Kickstarter for the return of the adventure game. Double Fine's Broken Age showed that there's still a huge appetite for narrative-driven puzzle games. Now we have a number of nostalgic returns to great adventure gaming series like Broken Sword. Elsewhere, Telltale lead the charge with their character-focused and choice-driven take on adventure games. Can Season Two of The Walking Dead live up to the terrific first run? Will The Wolf Among Us capitalise on its strong first episode? We can't wait to find out.

This is a new category for 2014. Many upcoming games don't comfortably fit into old action stereotypes. These games are about exploration and discovery. You wander, learn, craft and gradually master the world. Some, like Starbound, are easygoing and pleasant, others, like DayZ, are absolutely not. The exploration and survival section is home to many great hopes of 2014, like Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Sunless Sea and The Forest, and fresh contenders like Alien Isolation show that studios are willing to put big budgets behind these clever survival horror concepts.

That's just the tip of the joyberg that awaits. Which games will pierce through the screaming throng? Of the thousands of PC games out there, which are worthy of your attention? We're here to help, with the latest in our annual mega-features about the years to come. Sit back, have a cup of tea and immerse yourself in the games of 2014 and beyond.

Big-budget behemoths often dominate the action category, and so it proves in 2014. The surely-headed-to-PC Grand Theft Auto 5 rubs shoulders with intriguing multiplayer survival games like The Division. The spectres of distant games like Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror's Edge 2, Deus Ex Universe and Beyond Good and Evil 2 offer haunting glimpses of a time beyond 2014, but all may fall before the return of the space flight sim. Star Citizen is coming. If its team can effectively utilise that vast crowd-sourced budget, we could be in for something a bit special.

You can thank Kickstarter for the return of the adventure game. Double Fine's Broken Age showed that there's still a huge appetite for narrative-driven puzzle games. Now we have a number of nostalgic returns to great adventure gaming series like Broken Sword. Elsewhere, Telltale lead the charge with their character-focused and choice-driven take on adventure games. Can Season Two of The Walking Dead live up to the terrific first run? Will The Wolf Among Us capitalise on its strong first episode? We can't wait to find out.

This is a new category for 2014. Many upcoming games don't comfortably fit into old action stereotypes. These games are about exploration and discovery. You wander, learn, craft and gradually master the world. Some, like Starbound, are easygoing and pleasant, others, like DayZ, are absolutely not. The exploration and survival section is home to many great hopes of 2014, like Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Sunless Sea and The Forest, and fresh contenders like Alien Isolation show that studios are willing to put big budgets behind these clever survival horror concepts.

That's just the tip of the joyberg that awaits. Which games will pierce through the screaming throng? Of the thousands of PC games out there, which are worthy of your attention? We're here to help, with the latest in our annual mega-features about the years to come. Sit back, have a cup of tea and immerse yourself in the games of 2014 and beyond.

Big-budget behemoths often dominate the action category, and so it proves in 2014. The surely-headed-to-PC Grand Theft Auto 5 rubs shoulders with intriguing multiplayer survival games like The Division. The spectres of distant games like Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror's Edge 2, Deus Ex Universe and Beyond Good and Evil 2 offer haunting glimpses of a time beyond 2014, but all may fall before the return of the space flight sim. Star Citizen is coming. If its team can effectively utilise that vast crowd-sourced budget, we could be in for something a bit special.

You can thank Kickstarter for the return of the adventure game. Double Fine's Broken Age showed that there's still a huge appetite for narrative-driven puzzle games. Now we have a number of nostalgic returns to great adventure gaming series like Broken Sword. Elsewhere, Telltale lead the charge with their character-focused and choice-driven take on adventure games. Can Season Two of The Walking Dead live up to the terrific first run? Will The Wolf Among Us capitalise on its strong first episode? We can't wait to find out.

This is a new category for 2014. Many upcoming games don't comfortably fit into old action stereotypes. These games are about exploration and discovery. You wander, learn, craft and gradually master the world. Some, like Starbound, are easygoing and pleasant, others, like DayZ, are absolutely not. The exploration and survival section is home to many great hopes of 2014, like Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Sunless Sea and The Forest, and fresh contenders like Alien Isolation show that studios are willing to put big budgets behind these clever survival horror concepts.