To me the XP-era is 2001-2009. Though one can make a case for 2007-2009 being a transitional period because there are features than are not supported by XP as well as features no longer supported by Vista.

The games:
Age of Mythology
Aliens Versus Predator 2
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2142
Beyond Good & Evil
Bioshock
BloodRayne
Bully - Scholarship Edition
Call of Duty
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: World at War
Codename: Panzers: Phase One
Codename: Panzers: Phase Two
Colin McRae Rally 2005
Colin McRae DiRT
Command & Conquer: Generals
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Crysis
Dead Space
Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil
F.E.A.R.
Fallout 3
Far Cry
FlatOut
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage
Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter Nights
Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter Nights 2
Gears of War
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto IV
Half-Life 2
Joint Task Force
Mafia
Manhunt
Mass Effect
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed Underground
Need for Speed Underground 2
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Need for Speed: Carbon
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way
Overlord
Prey
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones
Prince of Persia
Quake 4
Race Driver: Grid
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Rush for Berlin
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
Saints Row 2
Serious Sam: The First Encounter
SimCity 4
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Supreme Commander
Test Drive Unlimited
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Sims 2
The Witcher
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Tomb Raider: Legend
Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 3
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Wolfenstein
World in Conflict
XIII

I like Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), if anyone's into horror genre. And Cry of Fear, 2012, total-conversion running on Half-Life's engine.

The newest game I played on XP x64 was Wolfenstein: The New Order from 2014, this one was compiled with the older compiler that still targeted XP by default and its engine doesn't have any hard dependencies on Vista+ APIs. Needs getting around Steam DRM though. That applies to Cry of Fear mentioned above as well. They switched to newer compiler for Wolfenstein: The Old Blood.

Wolfenstein: TNO is pretty much reaching into modern era, 64-bit games were becoming the norm if they weren't already, and the fact that it runs on XP x64 makes it special IMO.

The newest game I played on XP x64 was Wolfenstein: The New Order from 2014, this one was compiled with the older compiler that still targeted XP by default and its engine doesn't have any hard dependencies on Vista+ APIs. Needs getting around Steam DRM though.

Question - how did you manage to run Wolfenstein: The New Order on win XP 64-bit? I've been trying to run it a while ago and, despite meeting requirements I never succeeded in doing so.

Come to think about it, the 'XP era' covers one of the very best eras of video gaming. Not because of Windows XP, but because those years saw many fantastic games being made.

That probably depends on your childhood. I haven't really returned to XP-era PC games myself. Loads of marketing of what the best game of the years are in that time on games that get forgotten a decade+ later. Loads of DRM (HI ENLIGHT AND JOSEPH WooD). Loads of dead MMOs. Loads of nVidia problems and severely underpowered video card models that shouldn't have ever been made. Also, loads of layoffs... and dos emulation sucking!!!

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-07-21, 12:42:

A few of my top XP-era games include: […]
Show full quote

A few of my top XP-era games include:

• Battlefield 2
• Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
• F.E.A.R.
• No One Lives Forever 2
• Rainbow Six: Vegas
• SimCity 4

I have all Battlefield 2 PC games/expansions more fun than more modern ones still a few private servers around.
Simcity 4 well I have that but only works on single core CPU's

ze_kniv wrote on 2026-07-02, 20:30:

The newest game I played on XP x64 was Wolfenstein: The New Order from 2014, this one was compiled with the older compiler that still targeted XP by default and its engine doesn't have any hard dependencies on Vista+ APIs. Needs getting around Steam DRM though.

Question - how did you manage to run Wolfenstein: The New Order on win XP 64-bit? I've been trying to run it a while ago and, despite meeting requirements I never succeeded in doing so.

I didn't have to do anything, it just worked. It's one of those games I never bought, it's a release by RELOADED with Update 1. I did not try "installing" on XP, it was installed on newer OS, then just launched the EXE on XP.

I know it works on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti with driver version 368.81, though I don't know about older drivers, much less AMD, but they gave up on XP before NVIDIA and their drivers were an atrocity anyway (I daily-drived Radeon HD 4890 back in the day).

Slightly off-topic, but are games even worth buying these days, considering most of them are on Steam and Steam is a shitty platform that among other things drops older OS versions and relies on bloated fugly monstrosity that is Chromium? Why financially uphold that crap?

UCyborg wrote on 2026-07-19, 05:40:

Slightly off-topic, but are games even worth buying these days, considering most of them are on Steam and Steam is a shitty platform that among other things drops older OS versions and relies on bloated fugly monstrosity that is Chromium? Why financially uphold that crap?

Steam isn't targeting retro hardware enthusiasts. They target reasonably up-to-date systems. They are among the more honest distribution platforms these days. If there is a place to buy games today it's GOG and Steam. GOG if they sell it too, Steam of not, third party sites from where you can activate your key on either of the previous two. Avoid the rest.

On software side, I still consider Win7 reasonably up-to date, especially considering what came afterwards. But it's apparently already retro according to some.

OK, I've heard complaints about the possibility that they MAY take your games for any reason, though it's not something I personally encountered.

But, what about games that lost some soundtrack for licensing bullshit? Or some where you may need specific version for some mods and the fact there's no way to downgrade unless developer published the version under beta feature?

That's why you buy on GOG if possible. You can archive the installer for yourself. It can't be taken from you, it can't be updated against your will. But GOG is also for reasonably up-to-date systems primarily. They are just happened to be more retro-compatible. Still, they don't put any effort into make your 90s retro games be able to run on Win9x. They just do if they do and compatibility breaks if it breaks.

As for Windows 7, it's not reasonably up-to-date. Support, even extended support ended over half a decade ago. No third party support either. Not old enough to be retro, but inappropriate for modern use cases. Whatever still works on it, works, that's it.