Tag: Best of the Decade: 2010s

“The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s” Have Been Selected by Time Magazine

The editors at Time Magazine have produced several “Best Games of All Time” lists, and with New Year’s Eve fast approaching, they’ve once again turned their gaze backwards. This time, they’ve selected “The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s,” though like most outlets, they make an exception for two very huge games from 2009:

The video game industry was already a billion dollar behemoth when it rolled into the 2010s. Over the past decade, the cultural cache of video games has grown and its profits are now greater than movies, television or music. The 2010s are when the hobby stopped being something semi-niche, and solidly took its place in the mainstream.

Those games, of course, are Mojang’s Minecraft and Riot’s League of Legends. Describing them as a “global phenomenon” and a “cultural institution,” respectively, Time’s editors argue that the rules should be bent for them as the two games were so important to what gaming became in the 2010s.

Time Magazine – The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s

  • Dark Souls
  • Disco Elysium
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Fortnite
  • Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online
  • League of Legends
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Minecraft
  • Pokemon Go
  • Portal 2

The remaining eight selections went to Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Portal 2 from 2011, Grand Theft Auto V from 2013, Pokemon Go from 2016, Fortnite and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from 2017, and Disco Elysium from last year.

Destructoid is Talking About “The Games that Defined the Decade” This Week

Destructoid’s staff combined forces this week to deliver “The Games that Defined the Decade,” a series of essays that looked back at some of the highlights of the last ten years.

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“The 20 Best Games of the Decade” as Chosen by The Hollywood Reporter

When it came time to choose the best games of the previous decade, League of Legends of Minecraft definitely threw a wrench into the works. Most publications ultimately gave the two titles their due, but others were hung up on the fact that both originally launched in “Early Access” in 2009.

While compiling their list of “The 20 Best Games of the Decade,” the editors and contributors at The Hollywood Reporter went with the latter option and barred both League of Legends and Minecraft from contention.

But don’t worry, the games they did pick as the “most influential, impactful, and memorable” of the decade certainly deserve it.

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The “Extraordinary Diversification” of Video Games is on Display in Eurogamer’s “Games of the Decade”

Deciding what criteria to use when selecting the best games of the 2010s is often just as difficult as picking the games themselves. So far this Fall, many outlets have focused on the ways gaming changed and grew during the decade when making their lists, and Eurogamer appears to be no exception.

The long-running site (they celebrated their 20th anniversary this year), specifically sought out games that highlight the “extraordinary diversification” of the industry when filling out their “Games of the Decade” list.

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Staff of DualShockers Selected Their “50 Best Video Games of the Decade”

The parade of publications picking the best games of the decade continues to roll on this week as DualShockers got their turn in front of the microphone with “The 50 Best Video Games of the Decade (2010-2019).”

DualShockers focused their list on “games that had significant impact on a cultural, artistic, or development level across both the landscape of video games and larger mainstream culture,” while also trying to encompass the rise of live service games, the return of single-player adventures, and nearly a dozen different platforms.

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Edge Honors the “Games of the Decade” in Their Christmas 2019 Issue

The venerable and prestigious Edge Magazine is jumping on the “Games of the Decade” discussion with their Christmas 2019 issue (“E339”), selecting a dozen different games that shaped the “ten industry-changing years” of the 2010s.

As seen on Twitter, each selection has been given its own variant cover, and collectors will even be able to purchase all the variants in a special boxset.

Edge – Games of the Decade

  • Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  • Broken Age
  • Dark Souls
  • Destiny
  • Dota 2
  • Fortnite
  • Gone Home
  • Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Minecraft
  • Spelunky
  • The Walking Dead

Like many of their peers, the editors at Edge selected Derek Yu’s Spelunky, Mojang’s Minecraft, and Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as three of the decade’s best. The outlet also chose to highlight Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Double Fine’s Broken Age, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, Frictional’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent, From Software’s Dark Souls, Bungie’s Destiny, Fulbright’s Gone Home, Epic’s Fortnite, and Valve’s Dota 2.

Edge’s “Games of the Decade” boxset and single issues are on sale now.

Polygon is Closing Out the 2010s With a Look Back at “The 100 Best Games of the Decade”

While there’s still almost two months to go before the calendar flips over to 2020, several outlets have already begun looking back at the decade that was to shine a spotlight on some of the best games of the 2010s.

Back in 2017, Polygon went the extra mile and counted down the “500 Best Games of All Time,” so it’s only fitting that for their decade debrief, they’ve decided to focus on an expansive list of titles that they consider “The 100 Best Games of the Decade.”

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Mashable Selects Their “15 Favorite Games of the Decade”

Yet another publication has thrown their hat in the ring with a look back at the best games of the decade. This time around, it’s Mashable, and the site’s Entertainment editors have sifted through the past decade of new games and selected “Our 15 Favorite Games of the Decade.”

While the listmakers accepted their charge, they also quickly realized that choosing “the best” in a decade that contains games as varied as Pokemon Go, Papers Please, and Fortnite (among others) was too daunting of a challenge:

It’s nearly impossible to choose the best games of this decade because so many provided us with amazing and unique experiences. There are too many factors to consider when thinking about what makes certain games “the best.” Is it story? Gameplay? Innovation? Cultural impact? So instead of debating endlessly about what makes some games better than all the rest, we chose our favorites.

Mashable – Our 15 Favorite Games of the Decade

  • Batman: Arkham Knight
  • Celeste
  • Destiny
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Firewatch
  • God of War (2018)
  • Gone Home
  • Journey
  • Just Cause 2
  • The Last of Us
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Minecraft
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
  • Stardew Valley

In the end, Mashable’s list featured 15 unranked selections: Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Knight, Matt Makes Games’s Celeste, Bungie’s Destiny, Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Campo Santo’s Firewatch, Sony Santa Monica’s God of War (2018), Fulbright’s Gone Home, thatgamecompany’s Journey, Avalanche’s Just Cause 2, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mojang’s Minecraft, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, Capcom’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and ConcernedApe’s Stardew Valley.

Paste’s Editors Glue Together a Ranking of “The 100 Best Videogames of the 2010s”

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.”

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