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Level up: the greatest video games of all time
Timeless classics, genre-defining gems and everything in-between — these are the titles that shaped gaming history
If you ask any gamer what is the best game ever, the answers will vary. Over time, video games have evolved from simple pastimes enjoyed by children to vehicles for layered storytelling with lush graphics that transport players. What qualifies as the best may be more complicated in an era when games can rival movies in quality. Still, some of these titles have yet to be knocked off their top spots.
Tetris (1989)
Tetris (Nintendo, Nov 1989) - NES Gameplay HD - YouTube
Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzle game, as simple as it is, has had millions of fans around the world who know that the “simple act of turning geometric shapes and fitting them together” is “at once stimulating and meditative,” and the “drive to beat a high score could be a lifelong fixation,” said Rolling Stone. For 40 years, the “act of placing Tetrominoes has been iterated to exhaustion,” with multiple crossovers in popular media. The game continues to stand the test of time. Whether you’re “playing an older monochrome version on Game Boy” or using a VR headset to “gaze into surreal worlds as you chase a higher score,” Tetris is “still Tetris.”
Super Mario World (1991)
Super Mario World (Nintendo, 1991) - SNES Gameplay HD - YouTube
As a “character and a franchise,” Mario has been at the “forefront of just about every innovative leap in gaming,” said Rolling Stone. There are many Mario games, but Super Mario World is the “perfect sweet spot.”
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Its “ tight controls and inventive level design” are the “gold standard that others have been chasing for decades.” There are a “whole bunch of reasons” for Super Mario World’s “iconic status,” said GQ. Not only did it launch with Nintendo’s SNES console, but it also featured a “joyous abundance of platforming trickery” and an “effervescent soundtrack that absolutely slaps.” Plus, we got the “debut of a charming green dinosaur called Yoshi.”
People have different favorites in this series, but the original release of Metal Gear Solid “set the blueprint” for what the franchise “grew to become in later years: prescient, politically infused stories met with supernatural, fourth wall-breaking sequences,” said Rolling Stone.
The “stealth gameplay and clever enemy AI” were impressive, pushing audiences to “think on their toes to outwit potential threats.” Beyond the “cat-and-mouse bits,” there was a “deeper soul to everything in the game.” Inventive moments in the game became “historic emblems that shaped not just the series” but also the “unique elements video games can offer as a medium.”
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may have shaken up gaming when it was released for the Nintendo Switch, but there is another Zelda game that stands out as the series’ crown jewel. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is “indisputably one of the greatest games ever made,” said IGN.
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Not only did it “redefine action/adventure games,” but it also “completely changed the way the industry thought about 3D combat and exploration.” This version of Zelda “took what was great about its predecessors” and “expanded on those themes and ideas exponentially.”
Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
Microsoft needed a “killer app” to ensure that the original Xbox would “make a strong impression on gamers,” and it got one with Halo: Combat Evolved, said SVG. A sci-fi first-person shooter with an “epic campaign mode and frenetic multiplayer,” the game introduced players to the “iconic protagonist Master Chief.”
25 years later, it still “ranks highly among the best Halo games of all time.” The start of a “long-running franchise” that also heralded the “arrival of the Xbox,” Halo: Combat Evolved “shook up the industry.”
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Skyrim captured both “hardcore and casuals” with its “streamlined role-playing design,” said GQ. Its “snowy mountain peaks” are an “incredible discovery space with 100s of hours of quests and secrets” and — “like all Bethesda games” — thousands of “fan-made mods created entire new quests and systems” to “elongate the game’s life for over a decade.”
Although The Elder Scrolls has been a “highlight of roleplaying games for years,” it wasn’t until the fifth installment that its “deeply mechanical vision of first-person fantasy broke through into the mainstream,” said Rolling Stone. Skyrim is “one of the few games that lives up to the premise that no two play-throughs will ever be the same.”
Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
The fifth entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise has had a “profound effect on video games as a whole,” through its “staggeringly realistic open-world design” and “eclectic mix of storytelling and goofiness,” Rolling Stone said. To this day, the game has a thriving “online ecosystem” that encourages “everything from role-playing as cops and robbers to pulling off a daring casino heist.”
The single-player campaign is “revolutionary on its own,” but GTA Online “spread the game’s influence further” and helped “define the idea of a live-service multiplayer.” With its “timely commentary” and an “unstoppable multiplayer machine,” GTA V has “easily secured its spot among the greats.”
Full of “weighty choices, complex side quests,” and a “cornucopia of deadly monsters,” The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is probably “as close to the perfect fantasy role-playing game (RPG) as we’ve gotten,” Rolling Stone said. With its “shockingly dense open world” filled with “threads to unfurl,” it’s a game that “refuses to hold your hand.”
The Witcher 3 is “rarely easy,” but its challenges demand that “players meet the game on its own footing,” said Rolling Stone. By doing so, audiences will find “one of the richest stories in all of gaming and an unforgettable role-playing experience.”
Disco Elysium (2019)
DISCO ELYSIUM - The Final Cut Official Launch Trailer - YouTube
Despite being a more recent game, there is “nothing else quite like Disco Elysium,” said IGN. The 30-hour story at the core of the game, which remembers your choices, is a “unique blend of noir detective fiction, traditional pen-and-paper RPGs” and a “large helping of existentialist theory.”
Its “twisting plot,” cast of memorable characters, and “sheer depth of choice” combine to create an “experience that begs to be savored in a world riddled with crime, poverty and violence,” said IGN. Somehow, it manages to “make all of this fun” and, “surprisingly often, funny.” A “gorgeously designed isometric RPG,” Disco Elysium is “truly a unique experience,” and one that will “surely live long in the memory of any who have for many years to come.”
Elden Ring is the newest game on the list, and although it’s “built off the bones of the Dark Souls series,” it remains an incomparable gem, said Rolling Stone. Developer FromSoftware’s “chilly open-world fantasy,” partly conceptualized by Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin, is “dripping with gothic style.”
FromSoftware games are “notorious for their unrelenting difficulty,” but Elden Ring’s “pivot from smaller, puzzle box-like catacombs” to a more “languidly paced sandbox adventure” makes “every encounter feel more alluring.” Elden Ring’s unfriendly world, teeming with enemies, is the most “beautifully depressing space you’ll ever want to occupy for a hundred hours or more.”
Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.
