Slant Magazine has published a list of the “100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” twice in recent years, and both times they’ve included 2010’s Red Dead Redemption as the highest-ranked game from the previous decade (#4 in 2014 and #2 in 2018). But the publication’s editors went in a different direction for “The 100 Best Video Games of the 2010s,” awarding the #1 spot to Yoko Taro’s Nier: Automata instead.
Rockstar’s western would have to settle for the #8 spot in Slant’s reevaluation of the decade.
For the remainder of the list, Slant’s staff looked to “the games that point the way forward” as they chose to focus on how much the game industry has changed in the last ten years:
This was the decade that saw tiny studios, lone creators, and crazy concepts reign supreme. This was the decade that saw every platform become a viable place for ideas to sprout and bloom. The limits of the medium are seemingly bound only by the human imagination, and at every level, regardless of the horsepower needed, it now feels like anything is possible.
So which other games from the past does Slant think can give us a glimpse at the future? The Top Ten includes a few obvious picks (Mass Effect 2 at #4 and God of War at #5) while also veering off the road less traveled (Outer Wilds at #7 and Superhot at #9).
Further down the list, which is available below, you’ll find titles as varied as PT (#41), Tales From the Borderlands (#51), Gorogoa (#90), and 91 others.
Slant – The 100 Best Video Games of the 2010s
- 1. Nier: Automata
- 2. Disco Elysium
- 3. Super Mario Odyssey
- 4. Mass Effect 2
- 5. Portal 2
- 6. God of War (2018)
- 7. Outer Wilds
- 8. Red Dead Redemption
- 9. Superhot / Superhot VR
- 10. Doom (2016)
- 11. Return of the Obra Dinn
- 12. Titanfall 2
- 13. Kentucky Route Zero
- 14. Binding of Isaac, The
- 15. Bloodborne
- 16. What Remains of Edith Finch
- 17. Hitman 2
- 18. Horizon: Zero Dawn
- 19. Bayonetta
- 20. Last of Us, The
- 21. Witcher 3, The: Wild Hunt
- 22. Journey
- 23. Antichamber
- 24. Legend of Zelda, The: Breath of the Wild
- 25. Dark Souls
- 26. Hellbalde: Senua’s Sacrifice
- 27. Gone Home
- 28. Control
- 29. Spec Ops: The Line
- 30. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
- 31. Undertale
- 32. Batman: Arkham City
- 33. Super Meat Boy
- 34. Baba Is You
- 35. Shovel Knight
- 36. Inside
- 37. Alan Wake
- 38. Hotline Miami
- 39. Fallout: New Vegas
- 40. Spelunky
- 41. Life Is Strange
- 42. Witness, The
- 43. PT
- 44. Pathologic 2
- 45. Octahedron
- 46. Remember Me
- 47. Gris
- 48. Rez Infinite
- 49. Spider-Man
- 50. Subnautica
- 51. Tales From the Borderlands
- 52. Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
- 53. Rayman Legends
- 54. Night in the Woods
- 55. No Man’s Sky
- 56. That Dragon Cancer
- 57. Mortal Kombat (2011)
- 58. DMC: Devil May Cry
- 59. Anatomy
- 60. Driver: San Francisco
- 61. Soma
- 62. Xenoblade Chronicles
- 63. Severed
- 64. Little Inferno
- 65. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- 66. Hypnospace Outlaw
- 67. Cart Life
- 68. Wolfenstein: The New Order
- 69. Saints Row IV
- 70. Child of Eden
- 71. Assault Android Cactus
- 72. SpaceChem
- 73. Metro 2033
- 74. Hyper Light Drifter
- 75. Overwatch
- 76. FTL: Faster Than Light
- 77. Butterfly Soup
- 78. Just Cause 2
- 79. Oxenfree
- 80. Sunless Sea
- 81. Alien: Isolation
- 82. Thumper
- 83. Everything is Going to be OK
- 84. Jazzpunk
- 85. Rock Band 3
- 86. Cibele
- 87. VVVVVV
- 88. Beeswing
- 89. Persona 5
- 90. Gorogoa
- 91. Dishonored
- 92. Yakuza 0
- 93. Iconoclasts
- 94. Death Stranding
- 95. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- 96. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- 97. Downwell
- 98. Overcooked
- 99. Norwood Suite, The
- 100. BioShock Infinite