7 of the Best Commodore 64 Games to Play Today

The Commodore 64 was a 1980s home computer primarily dedicated to video gaming. It was the highest-selling single computer in history, mainly because of its great games library. The release of the Commodore 64 Ultimate in 2025 has revived the C64’s games library. These are some of the best Commodore 64 games you can play today.

Bubble Bobble

Bubble Bobble is today a legendary retro co-op arcade game, and the Commodore 64 had one of the best BB ports. In this game, players control two adorable bubble-blowing dragons across various levels. Bubble Bobble was one of the best Commodore 64 games because of its simple but deep gameplay, groovy music, great level design, and unique co-op gameplay for its era.

The Commodore 64 port perfectly captured the physics and joy of the Bubble Bobble arcade game. Although the C64 had more limited hardware, the developers still managed to squeeze in all 100 levels from the arcade game Bubble Bobble into the Commodore 64 version. With its SID chip, the Commodore 64 faithfully regenerated the music from the arcade version without matching its exact audio fidelity.

Boulder Dash

Boulder Dash is an action-puzzle C64 game in which players collect diamonds in caves within set time limits with the Rockford digger. Players loved Boulder Dash for how it mixed action with puzzle-based gameplay. This is also one of the best Commodore 64 games to play today because of its simple ruleset and deep strategic gameplay.

The Last Ninja

The Last Ninja was a technical marvel that pushed the Commodore 64 to its limits with its innovative isometric visuals. This action-adventure game places players in feudal Japan for some thrilling, tactical martial arts combat. Aside from its amazing 8-bit graphics, Last Ninja was one of the best Commodore 64 games because of its tactical gameplay, which mixed action with puzzles, and legendary music.

Note that you don’t need a Commodore 64 Ultimate to play Last Ninja. You can instead play this game on the Nintendo Switch with The Last Ninja Collection + Bonus Games. That game pack includes the original C64 Last Ninja, LN 2, LN 3, and Ninja Remix alongside other classic fighting games for the Commodore 64.

Elite

Elite was the game that invented the space trading and open-world genre. The C64 Elite was a revolutionary game as one of the first to utilize 3D wireframe graphics for introducing a truly open-ended universe. Elite tossed level-based arcade play out of the window in an open-world game in which players could be traders, space pirates, or bounty hunters by flying their spaceships throughout the Milky Way.

Paradroid

Paradroid is a game in which players purge rogue robots in space freighters with a weak 001 droid. It incorporates frantic, real-time hacking for taking over the weaponry of stronger robots. Many players rate Paradroid among the best Commodore 64 games for its unique action shooting and puzzle mixture that added an engaging strategic dimension to its gameplay. This game also had an incredible atmosphere with its eerie, metallic level design and frightening 476 robots.

Maniac Mansion

Text-based adventure games were all the rage in the 1980s, and the Maniac Mansion game from Lucasfilm raised the bar on the Commodore C64. With its SCUMM engine, Maniac Mansion introduced a clean point-and-click UI to replace clunky text-parser commands. That SCUMM engine remained the gold standard for adventure games into the early 1990s.

Aside from its revolutionary engine, Maniac Mansion offered unique multiple-character selection for assisting Dave. Playing with different character combinations changed how the game played out with variable narratives, paths, and puzzles. The unprecedented amount of player agency in Maniac Mansion was ahead of its time, making it one of the best Commodore C64 games to play for sampling point-and-click adventures.

Turrican II: The Final Fight

Turrican II: The Final Fight was (and still is) the ultimate raw action game to play on the Commodore 64. This run-and-gun platforming shooter epic enthralled players with its intense gunplay, open-level design, and genre-bending gameplay. Although primarily a run-and-gun platformer, it also shifted to vertical and horizontal scrolling space shooter.

Aside from its explosive gameplay, Turrican II was one of the best Commodore 64 games because of its legendary music and mind-blowing graphics. This was a technical marvel with some of the most colorful and intricate backgrounds seen in a C64 game. The adrenaline-pumping soundtrack in Turrican II also pushed the C64’s sound to its limits.

Those best Commodore 64 games above pushed back the technical boundaries of gaming innovation on the C64. Replaying those games on the Commodore 64 Ultimate today is more than just a retro gaming nostalgia trip. You can explore some of the most deeply rewarding, timeless gameplay mechanics by discovering those C64 games.