We’re still waiting to see how a few of this Fall’s biggest new releases turn out, including Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Game Freak’s Pokemon Sword/Shield. But the editors of Paste Magazine’s Games section, Garrett Martin and Holly Green, have poured over the digital publication’s last ten years of coverage to compile “The 100 Best Videogames of the 2010s.”
This list was crafted by two people: I and my assistant editor, Holly Green. We didn’t write all the words in the blurbs below—so many writers helped with that over the years, and deepest thanks to you all—but we decided what games made the list, and what order they’d be arranged in.
The goal isn’t to capture what was the most popular or best selling or best reviewed games of the decade, but to serve as a guide to what the people who oversee Paste’s games coverage—myself and Holly—consider to be the best and most important games of the last 10 years.
Paste – The 100 Best Videogames of the 2010s
- 1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 2. Thumper
- 3. Kentucky Route Zero
- 4. Spelunky
- 5. Mass Effect 2
- 6. Control
- 7. Dark Souls
- 8. Super Mario Odyssey
- 9. Portal 2
- 10. Gone Home
- 11. Bastion
- 12. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- 13. Papers Please
- 14. Outer Wilds
- 15. Minecraft
- 16. Alan Wake
- 17. Undertale
- 18. Return of the Obra Dinn
- 19. Florence
- 20. No Man’s Sky
- 21. Nier: Automata
- 22. Stardew Valley
- 23. Animal Crossing: New Leaf
- 24. Cuphead
- 25. Titanfall 2
- 26. Overwatch
- 27. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- 28. Night in the Woods
- 29. The Last Guardian
- 30. Journey
- 31. The Walking Dead
- 32. Firewatch
- 33. Super Mario Maker
- 34. Into the Breach
- 35. Splatoon
- 36. Fallout: New Vegas
- 37. Plague Tale, A: Innocence
- 38. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- 39. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
- 40. El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
- 41. Minit
- 42. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- 43. Pokemon Go
- 44. Bloodborne
- 45. Gorogoa
- 46. Life Is Strange
- 47. Dyad
- 48. The Binding of Isaac
- 49. Horizon: Zero Dawn
- 50. Proteus
- 51. Threes
- 52. Nidhogg
- 53. VVVVVV
- 54. FTL: Faster Than Light
- 55. Hellbalde: Senua’s Sacrifice
- 56. Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- 57. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
- 58. Heaven’s Vault
- 59. Dishonored 2
- 60. Monument Valley
- 61. Rayman Legends
- 62. Super Mario Galaxy 2
- 63. Limbo
- 64. Celeste
- 65. Super Meat Boy
- 66. Dear Esther
- 67. Superhot / Superhot VR
- 68. Xenoblade Chronicles
- 69. Deadly Premonition
- 70. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- 71. Old Man’s Journey
- 72. Everything
- 73. Ori and the Blind Forest
- 74. Fantasia: Music Evolved
- 75. Ridiculous Fishing
- 76. Oxenfree
- 77. Dance Central
- 78. The Long Dark
- 79. Rock Band 3
- 80. Saints Row IV
- 81. Dandara
- 82. Gris
- 83. Tearaway
- 84. Downwell
- 85. Sound Shapes
- 86. Spider-Man
- 87. Guitar Hero Live
- 88. Tetris Effect
- 89. Transistor
- 90. Super Hexagon
- 91. Year Walk
- 92. Disney Infinity / Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes / Disney Infinity: Star Wars
- 93. Fire Pro Wrestling World
- 94. Holedown
- 95. Spec Ops: The Line
- 96. Dragon’s Dogma / Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
- 97. Dying Light
- 98. Fez
- 99. LA Noire
- 100. Metro: Last Light
Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was named the best game of the decade, and the remainder of the top ten showed just how different some of the best games from the 2010s were from each other.
There’s the “rhythm violence” of Thumper at #2, the reality-bending action of this year’s Control at #6, the pure platforming joy of Super Mario Odyssey at #8, and the strong storytelling of Gone Home at #10. And in what’s sure to be a trend, Spelunky, which was originally released in 2008 but remade in 2012, appeared at #4.
There’s still a few more months left on the calendar, but Paste’s look back at the best games of the decade is worth a look.