My laptop has similar specs...

Factorio
Rimworld
AI war
All Good strategy games

Dominions 5
Might scratch your total war itch, gameplay over graphics. (last one I played was the original Rome)

not sure on RPG's.... Caves of Qud is very good, but also basic on the graphics.
wasteland 2 might work on your system. Not sure. Neverwinter knights might work.

Half life and Portal should as well.

Hope that helps.

For city builders, Banished is nice and not too heavy. It doesn't have official linux support, but if you enable steamplay it works. Rimworld works and it's light, but it is quite a different type of "colony building".

As for strategy games, Crusader Kings 2 should work, though it might be slow. It is free so you can just try it; it has quite a steep learning curve, but it is a good game. At the Gates is a great game and quite light, but also buggy. Both AI War and The Last Federation are stupidly light; they are quite weird, more than a bit hard, but are good. Just to suggest something that isn't incredibly niche and hardcore, older Civilization 4 (through steamplay) still holds up nicely.

As for RTS, the really really good ones are just a tad outside your reach (Northgard and Offworld Trading company barely run on my i5 with HD4000). But Age of Mythology and Rise of Nations work with steamplay (I think you only need to skip the launchers), and being older games you are well within the requirements (they explicitly say HD3000 should work, and even weaker processors). Both good games, and of the AoE family of RTS.

I can't really comment on shooters and action rpgs. If you are open to different stuff, try other famous indies, they tend to be stupidly light and just awesome: slay the spire, stardew valley, terraria, baba is you, ftl, braid, binding of isaac, undertale, factorio...

Or, well, just play games that are old and good. People are still playing Age of Empires 2 today, it was just remastered for the second time (the definitive edition - the first remaster was the hd edition from 2013, that works well with steamplay; the new one does not).

Quoting: denyasiswasteland 2 might work on your system

but probably be playable on mins only
it's an unoptimized resource hog

If you fancy a classic adventure game just look up what SCUMMVM/ResidualVM can run (LOTS of games) and see if something piques your interest.
Scores of FPS's old and new have natives ports - from DOOM to Serious Sam.
For a QUALITY tingle of your nerves check out Penumbra or Amnesia survival horrors

OpenXCom (runs the original), VCMI (HoMM3), JA2-stracciatella (Jagged Alliance 2), various Beamdog's Enhanced Editions of Interplay's RPGs (I'd defo try Planescape, if you're into that sort of thing)

There's lots of possibilities. Hard to fit into a post.

Be wary - I see ppl recommending stuff that's IMO out of contention for *comfortable* gaming on a modest 8 yo laptop.

Hello. Assuming you buy titles directly on Steam, then you could take advantage of the game refund policy. Namely, you buy, try out for up to 2 hours, and get a refund within 2 weeks of purchase. That way you can make some more risky purchase decisions with a fall-back. Also, Steam provides play of Windows titles via built-in Proton technology. GOG and itch.io are worth checking for DRM-Free downloadable titles.

Tropico -> Well there's more modern Tropico versions out now, e.g. Tropico 5 runs natively on Linux. (Tropico 6 is the latest but probably too resource heavy.)

Shogun Total War -> Company of Heroes 2. Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War (I, II, III)

Age of Empires -> Age of Wonders III has native Linux version.

Pharaoh -> You could potentially even play the old Windows version of the game using Steam's Proton technology.

Diablo -> Torchlight 2 - I'd recommend that isometric RPG. ATOM RPG.

Arcanum -> Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity (1 and 2),

Doom -> There are some retro-style pixelated shooters that might have decent performance on Intel HD, for instance Hedon, Amid Evil, Turok remastered, Dusk,


Here are some personal favourites which probably don't fit ideally into your categories, but they are all good for a low performance rig:

FTL: Faster Than Light
Slay The Spire
Pathway
Sky Force Anniversary (and Sky Force Reloaded)
Chaos Reborn
Serious Sam's Bogus Detour
Dungeon Warfare
Legend of Grimrock

Quoting: g000hTropico -> Well there's more modern Tropico versions out now, e.g. Tropico 5 runs natively on Linux. (Tropico 6 is the latest but probably too resource heavy.)

Shogun Total War -> Company of Heroes 2. Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War (I, II, III)

Age of Empires -> Age of Wonders III has native Linux version.

I can say that most of those are not reasonable for those specs. AoW3 is native, but quite heavy (and I think the port has worse performance by a bit); I can barely run it. DoW 1 probably works, but needs proton; 2 might work, but it is a big stretch; 3 shouldn't be a consideration, it is so much heavier. Company of Heroes 2 probably runs, but it will also be very slow (again, can barely run it). Tropico 5 probably will work as the computer is just a bit below the specs, but it is pushing the envelope already.

My regular machine has only slightly better specifications (x230 with an i5 and HD 4000). At present, I'm happily running:

- Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition
- Streets of Rogue
- Xonotic (snap version)
- Flatout 2
- Quake 3
- Morrowind via OpenMW (flatpak version)
- Tales of Maj'Eyal (snap version)
- Celeste (from the recent itch.io bundle)
- Broforce
- Super Hexagon
- Lots of ScummVM games (using the snap, and the new cloud storage feature to synch with my phone)

Running acceptably but not brilliantly:
- Divinity Original Sin
- a few others I can't think of just now

I think there's a lot you'll be able to try.

Hello, there are already good advices in this thread, but I add Into The Breach to it! (by the devs of FTL, the Linux version released in April)

I playing it a lot these days, it's a great game.

How about the original Age of Wonders via Wine? Its a wonderful game, and it'll run on any PC.