Persona 5 Royal becomes one of highest-rated PC games of all time, outshining classics like Half-Life 2 and GTA V

Persona 5 Royal, a critically acclaimed JRPG from Atlus, has been launched on PC to massive success. It is now the highest-rated game on the platform by Metascore, albeit with some nuances.

Persona 5 Royal finally arrived on PC on October 21, peaking at 35,474 concurrent players on Steam (via SteamDB). It currently has a 97% score based on 4,017 user reviews.

The game also received warm reviews from critics, with an average score of 97/100. This makes Persona 5 Royal the highest-rated PC game on Metacritic at the moment, on par with Disco Elysium: The Final Cut. It is currently above other critically acclaimed titles like Half-Life 2, GTA V, and BioShock.

Top 20 highest-rated PC games of all time

1. Persona 5 Royal — 97/100 (7 reviews)
2. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut — 97/100 (11 reviews)
3. Half-Life 2 — 96/100 (81 reviews)
4. Grand Theft Auto V — 96/100 (57 reviews)
5. Out of the Park Baseball 2007 — 96/100 (5 reviews)
6. The Orange Box — 96/100 (34 reviews)
7. Half-Life — 96/100 (24 reviews)
8. BioShock — 96/100 (44 reviews)
9. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn — 95/100 (30 reviews)
10. Divinity: Original Sin II – Definitive Edition — 95/100 (5 reviews)
11. Portal 2 — 95/100 (52 reviews)
12. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim — 94/100 (32 reviews)
13. Common & Conquer — 94/100 (5 reviews)
14. Mass Effect — 94/100 (55 reviews)
15. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City — 94/100 (30 reviews)
16. Sid Meier’s Civilization II — 94/100 (7 reviews)
17. Quake — 94/100 (9 reviews)
18. BioShock Infinite — 94/100 (68 reviews)
19. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion — 94/100 (54 reviews)
20. Elden Ring — 94/100 (60 reviews)

It is worth noting that Persona 5 Royal has only seven reviews now, so it may lose the top spot in the future. 

Metacritic also doesn’t show decimal values, so that’s why games with the same score are likely in different places. For example, Out of the Park Baseball 2007 with only five reviews ranks higher than The Orange Box with 34 reviews, although both titles have a score of 96/100.

There are definitely some flaws in Metacritic’s rating system. So it is not 100% fair to compare classic games with dozens of reviews with some titles whose scores are based on less than 10 reviews.

What is so special about Persona 5?

Developed by Japanese studio Atlus, Persona 5 is the sixth installment in the Persona series. It initially came out in 2016 on PS3 and PS4, with the Royal edition released three years after.

Both versions were labeled as one of the best JRPGs of all time by critics, with the base game selling over 3.2 million units globally by December 2019. Persona 5 Royal has sold 1.8 million copies since its Japanese launch in October 2019.

Originally a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series, Persona has grown into a franchise in its own right with global success and combined sales of over 15 million units. Its products span not only video games, but also stage plays, anime series, and other media.