The good folks at Game Informer published their 300th issue last month, and a big part of the celebration included the unveiling of a brand new Best Games list, “The Top 300 Games of All Time.”
The editors of Game Informer chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as the #1 game, writing this about Link’s third adventure: “Although many of the series’ conventions debuted on the NES in The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past defined the blueprint Nintendo has used for most sequels, and is still one of the most ambitious entries to date.”
The magazine’s previous Best Games list honored the “Top 200 Games of All Time” in 2009, with the original The Legend of Zelda sitting in the top spot. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was ranked #12 in that list, meaning it leapfrogged several very popular games in the intervening nine years.
Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World was the only game from 2018 to make the list (at #293), but dozen of titles were chosen by a publication for the first time thanks to Game Informer’s new list, including Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (#75), Call of Duty: Black Ops (#116), BioShock Infinite (#117), PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (#125), Divinity: Original Sin II (#145), Path of Exile (#148), Amnesia: The Dark Descent (#192), Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege (#210), The Binding of Isaac (#211), Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (#225), What Remains of Edith Finch (#229), Dead Rising 2 (#230), Darkest Dungeon (#232), Mortal Kombat X (#240), Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations (#254), Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas (#258), Axiom Verge (#264), Pyre (#268), Criterion’s Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (#276), Darksiders (#278), The Room (#283), Shadowrun Returns (#286), Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist (#287), Heroes of the Storm (#292), and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (#298).
Game Informer’s “The Top 300 Games of All Time” will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.