This article refers to an older Version of the Video Game Canon. View the Top 1000 to see the most recent changes to the list.
Version 5.0 of the Video Game Canon is now available. Aggregating the critical consensus from 66 Best Video Games of All Time lists published between 1995 and 2020, this updated and expanded edition of the Video Game Canon has grown to include a total of 1,396 games.
Seven lists were added to the dataset in 2021, including recent lists published by GamingBible and Hardcore Gaming 101. Several legacy lists that weren’t part of previous calculations were also collected for the first time, including lists from Flux Magazine (1995), Hyper (1999), GamePro (2007), The Irish Times (2013), and Power Unlimited (2015).
As in years past, each game was ranked against the rest of the field using the C-Score, a formula that adds together each game’s Average Ranking and the complementary percentage of its Appearance Frequency across all lists. To give recent titles a chance to build their reputation, a game must also be at least three years old (and released on or before December 31, 2017) to be eligible for inclusion. So a game with a lower C-Score will rank higher on the Video Game Canon.
With these rules established, there was one game that was far ahead of the pack… Tetris (just as it’s been for the last four iterations of the Video Game Canon). Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzler reached the zenith of Version 5.0 of the Video Game Canon thanks to its extremely low Average Ranking (18.09) and extremely high Appearance Frequency (93.94%). Those components give it a C-Score of 24.15, which is well below the average C-Score of 195 and almost 12 points better than the runner-up.
- 1. Tetris
- 2. Resident Evil 4
- 3. Half-Life 2
- 4. The Last of Us
- 5. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 6. Red Dead Redemption
- 7. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 8. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- 9. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- 10. Super Mario 64
While Tetris‘s appearance at the top might feel overly familiar, there was a surprising flip-flop in the Top 3. After toiling away in second place, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 (#2) overtook Valve’s Half-Life 2 (#3), which slid down one to remain in the upper echelons of the Video Game Canon.
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us (#4) rose several spots in this update, as did Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (#6). And CD Projekt’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (#7) catapulted into the Top 10 for the first time.
The rest of the Top 10 was further upended by the arrival of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#5). Link’s newest adventure appeared on 13 lists (out of a possible 15) produced since its release in 2017, good enough for it to debut in the Top 5. Two other games from the franchise, Ocarina of Time (#8) and A Link to the Past (#9), retained their spots in the Top 10.
But for those games to rise, others had to fall, and that means that Super Metroid (#11) and BioShock (#12) now both reside outside the Top 10.
- 11. Super Metroid
- 12. BioShock
- 13. Street Fighter II
- 14. Shadow of the Colossus
- 15. Mass Effect 2
- 16. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- 17. World of Warcraft
- 18. GoldenEye 007
- 19. Doom (1993)
- 20. Halo: Combat Evolved
It’s fair to think of these games as some of the best of all time, but it’s important to remember that the purpose of the Video Game Canon isn’t to dictate the games that people should feel like they need to play. Instead, it should be thought of as a tool that can be used to better explore the many corners of gaming’s complete history. It’s a starting point, nothing more.
After all, it’s impossible to play everything. But it’s very interesting to see which games are included in this discussion again and again, how their support changes over time, and how they influenced and inspired what came after. Nowhere is this more evident than the debut placement of another 2017 release, Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey (#49). The platformer often plays like a compilation of Mario’s greatest hits, and it even includes an extended homage to his first appearance in Donkey Kong (#57).
You can see this push-and-pull between inspiration and inspired throughout the rest of the Top 100. Just look at Dark Souls (#38) to Bloodborne (#28), EarthBound (#82) to Undertale (#64), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (#83) to Assassin’s Creed II (#94), and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (#41) to Mass Effect 2 (#15).
- 21. Final Fantasy VII
- 22. Grand Theft Auto V
- 23. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- 24. Portal
- 25. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- 26. Chrono Trigger
- 27. Super Mario World
- 28. Bloodborne
- 29. Metal Gear Solid
- 30. Portal 2
- 31. StarCraft
- 32. Super Mario Kart
- 33. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- 34. Metroid Prime
- 35. Journey
- 36. Super Mario Bros. 3
- 37. Minecraft
- 38. Dark Souls
- 39. Rock Band (Series)
- 40. Deus Ex
- 41. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- 42. Final Fantasy VI (AKA Final Fantasy III [US])
- 43. Super Mario Bros.
- 44. Half-Life
- 45. Diablo II
- 46. Counter-Strike
- 47. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (Series)
- 48. Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow (1998) / Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (2004)
- 49. Super Mario Odyssey
- 50. Sonic the Hedgehog
- 51. Ico
- 52. Grand Theft Auto III
- 53. Tomb Raider (1996) / Tomb Raider Anniversary (2007)
- 54. Silent Hill 2
- 55. Overwatch
- 56. Batman: Arkham City
- 57. Donkey Kong
- 58. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- 59. Super Mario Galaxy 2
- 60. Fallout 3
- 61. Ms. Pac-Man
- 62. Inside
- 63. SimCity 2000
- 64. Undertale
- 65. The Legend of Zelda
- 66. Grim Fandango
- 67. Braid
- 68. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
- 69. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- 70. The Sims
- 71. System Shock 2
- 72. Grand Theft Auto IV
- 73. The Walking Dead
- 74. Super Smash Bros. Melee
- 75. SimCity (1989)
- 76. Secret of Mana
- 77. X-COM: UFO Defense (AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown)
- 78. Pac-Man
- 79. Resident Evil (1996) / Resident Evil (2002)
- 80. Okami
- 81. Mega Man 2
- 82. EarthBound
- 83. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- 84. NBA Jam (Series)
- 85. Lemmings
- 86. Final Fantasy Tactics
- 87. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (1987) / Punch-Out!! (1990)
- 88. Galaga
- 89. Batman: Arkham Asylum
- 90. Space Invaders
- 91. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- 92. The Secret of Monkey Island
- 93. God of War (2005)
- 94. Assassin’s Creed II
- 95. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- 96. Super Mario Galaxy
- 97. Guitar Hero (Series)
- 98. League of Legends
- 99. Advance Wars
- 100. Pong
Besides the launch of the Switch, 2017 was a fairly banner year for new additions to the Video Game Canon. While Nintendo’s newest console might have been the biggest story of the year, you could argue that the ascension of the battle royale genre was equally as huge. Players have flocked to the genre in the years since, and list curators responded in kind, giving kudos to both PUBG Corporation’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (#351) and Epic’s Fortnite (#510).
Larian’s Divinity: Original Sin II (#193) was the highest-ranked game from 2017 outside the Top 100, with Guerrilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn (#253), Studio HDMR’s Cuphead (#275), Atlus’s Persona 5 (#279), and Platinum’s Nier: Automata (#407) not far behind.
Support was more limited for a final batch of ten titles from 2017 that all appeared as part of the Video Game Canon beyond the bounds of the Top 1000, including Nex Machina (#1253), Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (#1274), Sonic Mania (#1275), Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (#1321), What Remains of Edith Finch (#1325), Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (#1332), Prey (#1334), Yakuza 0 (#1340), Pyre (#1344), and Total War: Warhammer II (#1347).
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back very soon with an investigation into how you’d go about playing all the games from Version 5.0 of the Video Game Canon today, as well as a series of Listology reports that’ll dig further into how the games are sorted. So look forward to a year-by-year breakdown of every title, the mystery of franchise vote-splitters, how the curation of modern Best Games lists differs from those from the past, and more.