PC gaming is the foundation and backbone of nearly every part of the video game industry. Without the technical advancements and monumental game releases that were made for personal computers, we wouldn’t have many of the special things that are present in gaming today. But for as much as PC gaming has changed over the years, it continues to push the limits of what’s possible with many different game releases. Whether people are playing their games through Steam or any other digital storefronts that are accessible through a PC, gamers will continue to boot up their computers to experience some of the latest and greatest titles their systems can run.
But even with so many digital releases that are downloadable on a PC, there are games that get physical releases for the platform that have become incredibly rare. These games, while also available in other places, have become elusive gems that game collectors love to hunt for and add to their collections. You may be surprised at how valuable and rare certain PC games might be. It’ll take more than a few extra bucks to grab these PC gaming treasures. Here are the five rarest PC games you may never get to own in your collection.
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5 Dark Souls III (Prestige Edition)
An intimidating, yet prestigious collectible
The Dark Souls series is very popular among gamers, especially those who play the games on home consoles. While it’s debatable which entry in the series is considered the best or most popular, Souls fans are crazy for any collectibles related to the franchise. Dark Souls III is the third and final entry in the series that released in 2016 for multiple platforms. The game has players take on the role of a nameless warrior who is on a dire quest to prevent the end of the world. Like its predecessors, the game has a heavy emphasis on challenging boss battles and exploration that will test the limits of anyone’s patience. The game adds more abilities and weapons for players to use, which further increases the customization of builds to put together for combat. Upon release, Dark Souls III was both a critical and commercial success, and eventually received two expansions that added more content.
One version of the game that is highly coveted is the Prestige Edition. This bundle comes with a number of collectible items with the game, including an art book, metal case, and special packaging. But the best part of the Prestige Edition is a 40cm Lord of Cinder figure that is exclusive to this edition. A loose or incomplete version of this bundle can be valued at around $782, which is a bit more than when it was first sold to the public. But a version that is complete-in-box with all of its contents skyrockets in value, often being priced at more than $2,000 on average.
4 Garage Bad Dream Adventure
A surreal PC gem
Source:Â Sakuba Metal Works
The PC platform has a ton of point-and-click adventure games, which have been part of the platform’s history for decades. But while some have been seen as classic titles that shaped the genre, others have been far more obscure. Garage Bad Dream Adventure, also known as just GARAGE, is a surreal horror game that was released by Toshiba-EMI in Japan in 1999. The game eventually made its way to North America for Steam and mobile devices in 2022. The plot of Garage Bad Dream Adventure follows a young man named Yang who is hooked up to a therapy machine called a Garage. The machine creates a world within his mind that players must explore and find Yang’s shadow, a part of his mind that is a dark reflection of him. The gameplay involves solving puzzles and looking for resources as players control a small machine to go deeper into the city within Yang’s mind.
Garage Bad Dream Adventure had a limited release when it first came out, with only around 3,000 copies of the game being made. The game has since become extremely rare, even in Japan. While digital versions of the game have become available for Steam users, as well as mobile device users, the physical version of the game is a highly sought-after collectible. A remastered version of the game was also released on the Nintendo Switch in 2024. A loose copy of the original release is valued at over $1,000 alone, but a complete copy of the game is worth far more. Complete versions of Garage Bad Dream Adventure can be priced for anywhere from $1,500 to over $3,200 in some auctions. But good luck trying to find someone to sell it, because this game is still very hard to find.
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3 Rockford
Going classic arcade
Source: (YouTube) The VideoGames Museum
Rockford is an arcade game that was ported to home computers in 1988. It was made as a spin-off to the Boulder Dash series that was for home computers prior to then. The game is pretty simple to play, with the goal being to collect a number of treasure objects before reaching the exit of a stage. Along the way, players need to pick up or push objects around to get pass enemies and certain obstacles that block their way. There’s a time limit to each stage, so every treasure needs to be collected to reach the exit before time runs out. There are 20 stages to play through, which are broken up into 5 worlds with 4 levels each, and contain a lot of different obstacles and gimmicks that switch up how players collect treasures and reach the end of a stage.
Although the game itself is a simple arcade game from the late 80s, the physical release of the game for PCs is a valuable collectible. Loose copies of the game can go for more than $1,000 online, but a complete-in-box copy of Rockford can be valued at more than $2,500. Some auctions online for the game have seen it sell for more than $5,000 by the time they finished. That’s a lot for an older PC game from 1988.
2 Wolfenstein 3D
The original FPS classic
Before the gaming world was rocked by Doom, the first big FPS title for the PC was Wolfenstein 3D. The game was developed by Id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1992 for DOS. It’s the third entry in the Wolfenstein series, which began in 1981. However, Wolfenstein 3D is a very different game from its predecessors, being a first-person shooter instead of a stealth game. The plot involves players taking control of an Allied spy named William Blazkowicz as he escapes the Nazi prison known as Castle Wolfenstein. Players have to shoot their way through overwhelming numbers of Nazi forces through multiple stages, which often involve finding an escape elevator or taking down a boss that is fighting for the Nazis. Wolfenstein 3D is famous for being the second major game released by Id Software and the precursor to the classic Doom franchise.
The original six episodes of Wolfenstein 3D were released at retail in 1993, which were then followed up by more episodes released for the game in the years that followed up to 1998. The original retail release of the game is highly valued by collectors, specifically the big box release from Apogee Software. Loose copies of Wolfenstein 3D are valued at around $1,400 without their original contents. Complete copies of the game are much more valuable, with the average price being around $3,200, and in some cases a lot more.
1 Nora Princess And Stray Cat Heart
An expensive adult visual novel
Source: Harukaze
Sometimes the most valuable games are weird releases from an unexpected place. Nora Princess And Stray Cat Heart (also known as The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart) is a Japanese adult visual novel for PC that was released in 2016. The game was later ported to the PlayStation Vita in September 2017, and also received a 12-episode anime series adaptation in Japan that same year. The gameplay is exactly what one might think it is: an adult visual novel with frequent sex scenes between characters. Players have a number of text options to pick from during dialogue, which has various outcomes during the story. Nora Princess And Stray Cat Heart has multiple endings depending on the choices made throughout, which encourages multiple playthroughs to see them all. There are four main plot lines to go through, with different heroines that appear to interact with.
The game is geared towards a very niche market, so it had a limited release. There was a free edition for people to download and play just before the game’s limited physical release in 2016, and a sequel to the game was released in October 2017. Physical copies of the original Nora Princess And Stray Cat Heart are very expensive because of how limited they were when the game first came out. A loose copy of Nora Princess And Stray Cat Heart alone is worth more than $3,000. But if you manage to find a complete-in-box version of the game, it can be worth more than $7,000. Certain online auctions that have put a complete version of the game up for sale have reached numbers as high as $14,000 at the time it was sold.
Pursing the PC collectibles
Those who play games on PC know how diverse and abundant the options can be. There are so many games to boot up on one’s personal computer, with even more options for expanding upon them and taking the experience further. And while most of that part of the industry has shifted towards digital releases for games, the ones that were released physically have become hot commodities for game collectors. If you wanted to add these PC games to your collection, you’ll have to pay out a lot more than a bit of extra cash to get them. And because of that, you may never get to own them.
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