AAA games have been controversial in recent years due to a common problem – poor optimization at release. Projects released in 2025 do not reverse this trend, but among them there are still interesting exceptions. PC Gamer Portal speak about the best (and worst) optimized games released in 2025.
Best optimization
Battlefield 6
Battlefield 6 is a prime example of what a well-optimized game should look like in 2025. 100 fps at 1440p on an RTX 4070? Easily. Furthermore, at maximum graphics settings, no scaling and framing is required. DICE abandoned chasing the latest technological trends and put all its efforts into optimization, but the game still looks solid – destructible environments have been one of Battlefield's main features for years.
The Kingdom Comes: Rescue 2
Although Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a massive open-world game with epic landscapes, vast forests, and bustling cities, it functions much like Battlefield 6, with an emphasis on small maps and strict limits on draw distance. The developers did a great job with the CryEngine engine, which is not as popular as many other alternatives. The game doesn't have hardware ray tracing, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 makes up for it very well with software voxel ray tracing. In addition, thanks to the synthesis of shaders cleverly hidden in the loading screen and in the background, the game runs without micro-freezes even during long-distance riding.
Doom: The Dark Ages
64fps on super graphics at 1080p on a machine with a Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 3060 Ti may not be very impressive, but considering the lighting and amount of reflections with hardware tracking, the game shouldn't be written off. Furthermore, such performance is achieved without scaling or framing. Doom: The Dark Ages doesn't have the same scale as Battlefield 6 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, as the best hardware tracing automatically prevents the game from running on RTX 20 and RX 6000 video cards… But those with hardware that meets the minimum system requirements will still get a well-optimized game.
Worst optimization
Wild monster hunter
Monster Hunter Wilds is considered the worst optimization job of 2025. The game performed miserably on release and 10 months later, the situation has barely improved. 55fps at 1080p on minimal graphics and even on a machine with a Ryzen 7 5700X3D and RTX 3060 Ti – it's a sad number, to put it mildly. Furthermore, turning the settings to maximum doesn't significantly harm performance, and the game doesn't start looking better either. Blurred graphics, muted colors, and poor environments don't match Monster Hunter Wilds' poor performance.
On certain hardware combinations, Monster Hunter Wilds can also suffer heavily from micro-freezes. And the poor implementation of ray tracing (just make reflections in water look better) leads to the conclusion that the PC version of the game is not a priority for the developers. Even Capcom admitted that the Steam port of Monster Hunter Wilds fell short of expectations – and now it intends to avoid that mistake with Resident Evil Requiem.
Borderlands 4
Perhaps if Gearbox's CEO had been as honest as Capcom's senior management, the launch of Borderlands 4 would have been less of a disaster. 40 fps on Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 5090 at 4K resolution and even indoors… However, Randy Pitchford loudly asserted that there are absolutely no problems with the game – gamers just need a “normal computer”.
Unlike Monster Hunter Wilds, Gearbox has fixed a significant portion of the initial issues, especially those affecting stability. However, Borderlands 4 is still not perfectly optimized. And it's not even just Unreal Engine 5 – the poor performance is entirely the result of the developers' decisions.
Borderlands 4 looks good—too good, in fact. The graphical detail and scale of the world make rendering an overwhelming task for even the most powerful gaming CPUs and GPUs. For games with a realistic visual style, this is understandable, but Borderlands has always been stylized and cartoonish.
