Tag: The Elder Scrolls

Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026

The World Video Game Hall of Fame has announced the games that will be competing for induction as part of their Class of 2026, and with five returning finalists, this year’s theme seems to be second chances.

So which games will get another chance to earn a plaque on the wall at the Strong Museum of Play’s World Video Game Hall of Fame? Rovio’s Angry Birds, Electronic Arts’s FIFA International Soccer, and Konami’s Frogger will all be going through the voting process for a third time, while NanaOn-Sha’s PaRappa the Rapper and Konami’s Tokimeki Memorial are both getting their second shot at induction.

That leaves seven newcomers to the process and they’re pretty impressive bunch. Konami’s Silent Hill could probably be considered something of a frontrunner after the excellent showing of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill F in recent years. But the Hall of Fame will also consider Enix’s Dragon Quest (released in North America as Dragon Warrior) for the first time, as well as Bethesda’s oft-re-released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Namco’s Galaga, Riot’s League of Legends, Capcom’s Mega Man, and Jagex’s RuneScape.

The vote now goes to the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee, but the public will also get two chances to have their say in the final inductees.

As always, the Player’s Choice Ballot will be available until March 13th, giving the three games that receive the most votes equal standing with the ballots from the rest of the committee members. And for the first time this year, the World Video Game Hall of Fame is taking a road trip to the Game Developers Conference, where attendees will have the opportunity to vote for the games they’d like to appear on another public ballot.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 will be announced on Thursday, May 7, at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time). And if you’re unfamiliar with any of this year’s finalists, you can learn more about them after the break.

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The Washington Post Picks Ten Titles as “The Most Influential Games of the Decade”

The calendar is nearing the end of January, but here I am sifting through yet another “Best Games of the Decade” list. This time around, the Launcher team at The Washington Post gets their time in the sun, as they chose ten games to stand tall as “The Most Influential Games of the Decade“:

Gaming is now humanity’s favorite form of entertainment, and the medium’s legacy was cemented this past decade. While the early 2000s saw video games honing their ability to tell stories and build worlds in 3-D, this last decade built off those nuts and bolts of game making and propelled the medium toward bigger ambitions like open-world design, virtual and augmented reality and an influx of new genres such as battle-royale multiplayer.

The chronological list begins with 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent, continues through the middle of the decade with 2014’s Destiny, and ends with 2017’s Fortnite. In between, you’ll find a few other familiar titles, as well as a more unusual choice in King’s Candy Crush Saga:

The Washington Post’s Launcher – The Most Influential Games of the Decade

  • Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  • Candy Crush Saga
  • Dark Souls
  • Destiny
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Fortnite
  • Minecraft
  • Pokemon Go
  • The Walking Dead
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Apologies to all the games from 2018 and 2019 that didn’t make the cut for The Washington Post’s list.

GQ Looks Backs at the 2010s in “The 17 Best Games That Shaped the Decade”

Just before the end of the year, the editors at GQ got together and published a look back at some of the “most important and best games” of the last decade. Here’s how they decided on which games to include:

Some of the best games we’ve ever seen came out in the past decade, but the 2010s were also the most turbulent, transformative, and revealing years for video games. Game development costs skyrocketed to new, unsustainable heights. Some games became never-ending, always online, services that you pay for in subscriptions. As advancements were made in public health care, indie game development flourished, and then regressed accordingly as it was dismantled. Games also reached beyond what was previously thought possible, delivering beautifully detailed worlds, touching and intimate narratives, and shared cultural experiences unlike any others. Here, according to the GQ staff, are the most important and best games of the decade.

“The 17 Best Games That Shaped the Decade” zigzagged it’s way through many of the titles that reshaped the game industry over the last ten years, as well as two that originally launched in Early Access in the previous decade (Derek Yu’s Spelunky and Mojang’s Minecraft). But which other games made the cut?

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“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.

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.