Last updated: November 17, 2025
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Feel like doing some intensive gaming? PC gaming has hugely evolved over the last decade. Gone were the days when it was all about the gameplay experience; now, it’s about top-notch performance and jaw-dropping graphics. The console, too, has been able to catch up to the PC experience, but PC has no rival regarding absolute raw power and performance. Thus, you must know about all the best CPU Intensive Games. And the games we have seen in recent years, especially AAA titles, Battlefield and the Call of Duty franchise, are massively taxing and will take all the juice out of your system. But before playing such an amazing game, always know if the CPU is overclocked. It is important to check as it can process instructions more quickly, improving system performance.
You would need future-proof gaming rigs to play these games at even High-Medium settings if you have such a gaming rig and are looking for CPU-intensive games. That will test your PC hardware to its absolute limit, go through the list below and see what you like the most.
See also: PS4 Emulation in 2025: Complete Guide to Playing PlayStation 4 Games on PC
10 Best CPU Intensive Games for 2025
1. Cities: Skylines II
- Genre: City-Builder, Simulation
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: While city-builders have always been CPU-heavy, Cities: Skylines II takes this to an extreme. The game models individual citizen AI, traffic flow, complex economic systems, and environmental changes on an unprecedented scale. As your city grows, the strain on your CPU’s multi-core and single-core performance increases exponentially, making it one of the absolute hardest tests for a modern processor.
- Visit: Cities: Skylines II
2. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
- Genre: Simulation, Open-World
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: This is less of a game and more of a real-time simulation that uses massive amounts of real-world data. Your CPU is hammered with processing:
- Real-time World Streaming: Continuously loading and generating the entire planet.
- Dynamic Weather & Atmosphere: Managing complex volumetric cloud systems and realistic atmospheric physics.
- Live Traffic & AI: Simulating air traffic, ground vehicles, and the physics for every plane. It demands high single-core speed to handle the primary simulation thread and multi-core performance for data processing.
- Visit: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
3. Star Citizen
- Genre: Space Simulation, MMO, First-Person Shooter
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: Famous for its massive scope and “Persistent Universe,” Star Citizen stresses your CPU by trying to simulate a seamless, enormous environment. High CPU usage comes from:
- Object Container Streaming (OCS): Loading and unloading vast amounts of assets dynamically.
- Complex Physics and Persistence: Simulating detailed ship damage, numerous player/NPC interactions, and item physics across giant maps.
- High AI Count: Managing AI for ships, NPCs, and missions across immense star systems.
- Visit: Star Citizen
4. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
- Genre: Action RPG, Open-World
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: With the Phantom Liberty expansion and subsequent updates, the AI and crowd density in Night City have been vastly improved. The game leverages modern CPUs to:
- Manage Crowd and Police AI: Increased density and smarter behavior in the dense districts like Dogtown cause significant CPU spikes.
- Path Tracing Support: While a GPU-heavy feature, Path Tracing often causes a CPU bottleneck when trying to maintain high frame rates, as the CPU must schedule the complex draw calls and manage the data for the cutting-edge lighting system.
- Visit: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
5. Starfield
- Genre: Action RPG, Open-World
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: Bethesda’s latest epic is known to be CPU-intensive, especially in its sprawling open-world cities like New Atlantis and Neon.
- AI and NPC Density: Busy hubs and large settlements strain the CPU by requiring it to manage hundreds of interacting AI routines and physics objects.
- Loading and Streaming: Handling the procedural generation and asset streaming for countless planets and interiors can put a heavy load on the processor.
- Visit: Starfield
6. Alan Wake 2
- Genre: Survival Horror, Action-Adventure
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: Alan Wake 2 features some of the most advanced graphics ever seen, built on Remedy’s Northlight Engine. While primarily a graphical showcase, its demanding lighting and path-tracing features mean the CPU often becomes the bottleneck at high resolutions and frame rates, having to manage the complexity of rendering the two distinct, highly detailed worlds of Bright Falls and the Dark Place.
- Visit: Alan Wake 2
7. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- Genre: Open-World, Survival FPS
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: As a highly anticipated title built on Unreal Engine 5, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is engineered to stress modern hardware. Its open world and complex “A-Life” simulation (the system that controls the behavior of NPCs, mutants, and anomalies) demand constant computational power, making it a critical test for multi-core performance.
- Visit: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
8. Dragon’s Dogma 2
- Genre: Action RPG, Open-World
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: This game is known for placing a massive demand on the CPU due to its unique “Pawn” system.
- Complex AI: The Pawn companions are highly intelligent, constantly giving advice, engaging in combat, and navigating the world, which requires continuous, intensive processing.
- Crowd Density: Managing a large number of NPCs and monsters on screen at once, especially in major cities, can be extremely taxing.
- Visit: Dragon’s Dogma 2
9. Battlefield 6 (or the latest installment)
- Genre: First-Person Shooter, Multiplayer
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: The Battlefield franchise is a classic hardware test. Its key CPU demand comes from:
- 64v64 Player Counts: The sheer number of player and vehicle positions, inputs, and state changes to track is massive.
- Destruction Physics: The real-time, large-scale environment destruction requires the CPU to constantly calculate and update geometric changes to the map.
- Game Logic: High-tickrate servers and complex netcode for smooth large-scale battles require a fast processor.
- Visit: Battlefield 6
10. The Last of Us Part I (PC)
- Genre: Action-Adventure
- Why it’s CPU-Intensive: Despite being a port of a PlayStation title, the PC version is incredibly demanding due to its stunning fidelity and asset streaming. The game is known for having very aggressive texture and object streaming, meaning your CPU is constantly managing the movement of data from your SSD to your RAM and GPU, ensuring the next area loads seamlessly without stuttering. This requires a fast CPU to manage the I/O pipeline efficiently.
- Visit: The Last of Us Part I
FAQS
Why is a game like Cities: Skylines II so CPU intensive?
Cities: Skylines II is highly CPU-intensive because it is a deep simulation game, not just a graphical showcase. The CPU is responsible for managing complex systems like:
- Individual AI: Every citizen, vehicle, and pet is simulated with its own needs, pathfinding, and behavior.
- Economic & Social Systems: Calculating supply chains, tax revenue, zoning effects, and the city’s overall health.
- Physics: Simulating water flow, traffic patterns, and utilities. The computational complexity grows with the size of your city, leading to high CPU usage across many threads.
How can I reduce CPU usage while playing a CPU-intensive game?
You can try a few steps to alleviate CPU strain:
- Close Background Applications: End processes like web browsers (especially with many tabs), streaming software, or overlay apps.
- Adjust In-Game Settings: Look for settings that are tied to CPU load, such as Crowd/NPC Density, Physics Quality, and AI Complexity. Reducing these can significantly lessen the CPU burden.
- Use a Higher Resolution/Graphics Preset: Sometimes, increasing your resolution (e.g., from 1080p to 1440p) shifts the bottleneck to the GPU, making the GPU work harder and reducing the CPU’s maximum load, which can sometimes lead to smoother performance.
- Update Drivers: Ensure your chipset and graphics card drivers are current for the latest game optimizations.
Are there other CPU-intensive games similar to Cities: Skylines II?
Yes, other strategy, simulation, and massive open-world games are highly CPU-intensive due to their complex systems:
- Factorio / Dyson Sphere Program: Complex crafting and logistics simulations.
- Total War (latest titles): Managing thousands of individual units and their AI paths during massive battles.
- DCS World / ARMA Reforger: Highly detailed military simulations with realistic ballistics and complex AI.
Will upgrading the CPU improve gaming performance?
Yes, for CPU-intensive games, upgrading the CPU to a robust model will significantly improve performance and frame rate consistency. A modern CPU with high single-core speed and a good number of powerful cores (like those with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology or Intel’s latest high-core-count processors) can handle the demands of AI, physics, and draw call management more efficiently. This often results in a smoother experience with higher minimum and average frame rates, eliminating stuttering and performance dips, especially in busy, open-world areas.
See also: How to Check Your Graphics Card (GPU) on Windows 10 & 11 in 2025 — 4 Fastest Methods
