Digital Foundry just dropped their annual PC ports retrospective for 2025, and the results paint a mixed picture of the state of PC gaming. While the technical experts found 2025 to be arguably better than recent years, with publishers seemingly taking PC sales more seriously, several high-profile releases still launched in embarrassing condition.
The team analyzed six of the most notable PC ports from the year, splitting them evenly between successes worth celebrating and disasters that left players frustrated. From zero-stutter open worlds to shader compilation nightmares, these ports reveal exactly what separates great PC development from lazy console conversions.
The Worst Offenders
Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion Remastered
Bethesda and porting studio Virtuos managed to make a 19-year-old game run worse on modern hardware than it did back in 2006. The Oblivion Remastered launch in June brought the original game’s stuttering issues into 2025 without bothering to fix them. In fact, performance appears even worse than the 2006 version when running on high-end current PCs.
The problem stems from layering Unreal Engine 5’s own stuttering issues on top of the original game’s long-standing problems. Wide-open outdoor traversal feels utterly compromised for a game of this vintage. What makes this particularly frustrating is Bethesda’s apparent abandonment of the project, with the last patch arriving in July and no meaningful post-launch support since. Digital Foundry calls it less of a shadow drop and more of a ghost drop given how little attention it received after launch.
The Outer Worlds 2
Obsidian Entertainment released two first-person RPGs in 2025. Avowed ran pretty well on PC. The Outer Worlds 2 absolutely did not. Despite the Xbox Series X version performing solidly, Digital Foundry tested the PC version on a Ryzen 9 5950X system with near-identical visual settings and watched it completely tank on the performance front.
The PC version launched with noisy, splotchy hardware ray tracing that looked unattractive and murdered frame rates. A patch eventually moved RT into a separate toggle, but issues persist. Turning on upscalers to boost performance results in terrible image quality because they interact poorly with Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen and Virtual Shadow Map features.
Even worse, the game uses asynchronous shader compilation and visibility skipping that causes egregious first-time loads where massive chunks of textures, geometry, and effects are either downgraded or completely missing during crucial campaign moments. These blemishes make immersion nearly impossible for anyone except the most dedicated Obsidian fans.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds takes the crown for most frustrating port of 2025. The game launched with atrocious performance issues that went unaddressed for months while Capcom continued selling it on PC platforms. Even after a patch landed near year’s end, with promises of additional fixes in January and February 2026, fundamental problems remain.
Texture quality stays absurdly low for GPUs with 8GB of VRAM, even after patches. Performance tanks in feature-less desert environments with ray tracing completely disabled, leaving players wondering where all the GPU power is going. Capcom bizarrely chose to implement ray-traced reflections as a toggle in a desert biome with barely any water instead of ray-traced shadows that would have made more sense.
The situation got so bad that the community created their own texture decompression patch that players relied on for months. A recent geometry downgrade to character models represents Capcom’s attempt to improve performance, essentially making the game look worse to run better. The Monster Hunter series’ jump from MT Framework to RE Engine clearly went catastrophically wrong for the PC porting team, with console versions suffering similar issues.
The Success Stories
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
After years of mixed results, Ubisoft delivered a masterclass in PC port development with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The game scales brilliantly across various platforms, with the PC version going above and beyond for enthusiast audiences. Ubisoft’s decision to delay the game from late 2024 into 2025 paid off massively.
The technology stack is impressive. Specular lighting in the global illumination solution renders convincing real-time reflections on surfaces. Multiple upscaling and frame generation solutions work alongside dynamic resolution scaling to maintain performance. Weather effects look spectacular. The highest-end visual settings take modern PC performance into account for balanced results.
Real-time cutscenes look pre-rendered thanks to beautiful art direction. Ubisoft dedicated serious engineering effort to supporting and patching AC Shadows throughout the year, demonstrating the value of delaying a potentially messy launch. This represents a surprising Assassin’s Creed comeback that propelled the game to the top of Digital Foundry’s best ports list.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
While Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 missed Digital Foundry’s general best graphics list for 2025, it earned a spot on the PC ports list for achieving something remarkably rare in open-world gaming: a completely zero-stutter experience. Even modest PC hardware can lock to 60fps without issues.
No matter how populated the game’s cities become or how many invisible loading boundaries players cross through gorgeously rendered prairies and forests, KC:D2 rigidly holds its frame-time line when v-synced to 60Hz at respectable settings. The robustness of this scalability has Digital Foundry wondering if a decent Switch 2 port might be possible.
Warhorse Studios achieved this through smart use of CryEngine instead of chasing trendy alternatives. The lush, organic geometry and assets enjoy far more temporal stability than comparable open-world representations on engines like Unreal Engine 5. Grasses and tree branches fill the world from nearest ground to furthest horizon without apparent shimmer or fizzle. It’s a technical achievement that shows sticking with proven technology and prioritizing optimization over flashy features pays dividends.
Doom The Dark Ages
Initial outcry about Doom The Dark Ages forcing ray tracing stemmed from fears that RT requirements would prevent the game from running well on lower-end hardware. Those concerns proved completely unfounded once id Software’s latest FPS launched. The game runs extraordinarily well despite aggressive ray tracing implementation.
An RTX 2060 GPU struggles with RT-enabled Unreal Engine 5 games but handles Doom The Dark Ages admirably. The game is even verified for Steam Deck, pushing its base ray tracing configuration at 30fps on that power-limited handheld device. This represents ray tracing implementation done right, proving the technology doesn’t have to destroy performance.
For players with hardware to spare, a path tracing update arrived months after launch that further grounded the lighting and shadow model with appreciable light-bounce improvements. Loading times are so blistering fast that your PC might load The Dark Ages faster than original Doom games from the 1990s. Real-time lighting has advantages over lighting-based asset streaming, and id Software exploited those benefits brilliantly.
What This Means for PC Gaming
Digital Foundry’s assessment suggests 2025 was better than recent years for PC ports, but significant problems persist. The worst ports share common issues: non-preventable stuttering, poor optimization of popular engines like Unreal Engine 5, and developers shipping broken products while promising future fixes.
The success stories demonstrate that excellent PC ports remain possible when developers prioritize optimization, choose appropriate technology, and delay launches rather than shipping broken games. Ubisoft’s willingness to delay Assassin’s Creed Shadows contrasts sharply with Capcom shipping Monster Hunter Wilds in an embarrassing state while continuing to take customers’ money.
Unreal Engine 5 appears repeatedly in the worst ports list, not because the engine is inherently bad but because developers struggle to properly implement features like Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and shader compilation without causing stuttering and image quality issues. Meanwhile, CryEngine and id Tech prove that mature, well-understood engines in experienced hands deliver superior results.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best PC port of 2025 according to Digital Foundry?
Digital Foundry named three best PC ports without formal ranking: Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Doom The Dark Ages. Assassin’s Creed Shadows received particular praise for excellent scalability, beautiful visuals, and Ubisoft’s decision to delay rather than launch in poor condition.
What is the worst PC port of 2025?
The three worst PC ports of 2025 are The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion Remastered, The Outer Worlds 2, and Monster Hunter Wilds. Monster Hunter Wilds received extensive criticism for launching with atrocious performance that remained broken for months despite Capcom continuing to sell it.
Why does Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 run so well on PC?
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 achieves zero-stutter performance by using the well-optimized CryEngine instead of Unreal Engine 5. Warhorse Studios prioritized frame-time stability and scalability, allowing even modest PC hardware to lock to 60fps without stuttering regardless of city population or environment complexity.
What problems does Monster Hunter Wilds have on PC?
Monster Hunter Wilds suffers from terrible texture quality on GPUs with 8GB VRAM, poor performance even in simple environments with ray tracing disabled, bizarre ray tracing implementation choices, and fundamental optimization issues. Community-made patches were required for months to address texture problems Capcom failed to fix.
Does Doom The Dark Ages require ray tracing?
Yes, Doom The Dark Ages requires ray tracing capable hardware, but id Software implemented it so efficiently that even an RTX 2060 can run the game well. It’s verified for Steam Deck at 30fps, proving mandatory ray tracing doesn’t have to destroy performance when properly optimized.
Why do so many Unreal Engine 5 games have stuttering issues?
Unreal Engine 5 games frequently suffer from shader compilation stuttering, poor interaction between upscalers and features like Lumen and Virtual Shadow Maps, and asynchronous asset loading that causes textures and geometry to appear downgraded or missing. Developers struggle to properly implement UE5 features without causing performance problems.
Is The Outer Worlds 2 fixed on PC now?
The Outer Worlds 2 received patches that moved problematic ray tracing into a separate toggle, but fundamental issues remain. Upscaling still produces poor image quality, shader compilation stuttering persists, and first-time loads continue causing missing textures and geometry during important campaign moments.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Digital Foundry’s assessment offers both hope and concern for PC gaming’s future. Publishers appear to be taking PC sales more seriously and listening to technical criticism from enthusiast channels. Delays like Assassin’s Creed Shadows demonstrate that some companies would rather postpone launches than ship broken products.
However, the prevalence of Unreal Engine 5 problems across multiple worst ports suggests an industry-wide struggle with the engine’s newer features. Developers need to either master UE5’s complexities or consider alternative engines that deliver better out-of-box performance. The success of CryEngine in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and id Tech in Doom The Dark Ages proves mature engines in experienced hands still outperform trendy alternatives.
Monster Hunter Wilds’ months-long disaster followed by insufficient patches represents the worst-case scenario: developers shipping knowingly broken products while promising future fixes that never fully materialize. Capcom’s willingness to continue selling a fundamentally broken game while community patches did their job reflects poorly on the publisher’s commitment to PC players. As we head into 2026, the industry faces a choice between following Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows model of delay and polish or Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds approach of ship now, maybe fix later. PC gamers desperately hope more publishers choose the former.