It’s been slightly more than 40 years since Space Invaders transformed video games from a niche hobby into a global phenomenon. Picking up a year later from that point, Wired recently teamed up with curators from the Strong Museum of Play (which is also home to the World Video Game Hall of Fame) to determine “Every Year’s Most Iconic Video Game Since 1979.”
Jon-Paul Dyson and Shannon Symonds from the Strong Museum of Play dive into the last 40 years of video game history and come up with a list of some of the greatest games of all time. With memorable titles like Halo, Super Mario Bros., The Last of Us, Doom, The Sims and more, see which games were chosen as the most memorable and iconic of the year they were released.
Handpicking the “Most Iconic” game from any given year is not an easy task, and it’s one that’s arguably even harder than picking the titles for “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born,” a similarly-styled list that was published by Popular Mechanics earlier this year. But Jon-Paul Dyson, the Strong Museum’s Vice President for Exhibits, and Shannon Symonds, a Curator with the World Video Game Hall of Fame, were certainly up to the task.
Rather than always making the obvious choice, they zigged when others would zag, and didn’t always settle for the best game from each year. That rebellious streak included selecting the game most emblematic of the “Video Game Crash,” Atari’s ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, for 1982, as well as pushing back the inclusion of Tetris until 1989 to match up with its launch for the Game Boy and NES. Likewise, choosing the somber That Dragon, Cancer over the boisterous Overwatch for 2016 is not a choice that everyone would make.
You can hear their rationale in the video above, and all the iconic picks can be seen right here:
Wired/The Strong Museum of Play – Every Year’s Most Iconic Video Game Since 1979
- 1979 – Asteroids
- 1980 – Pac-Man
- 1981 – Donkey Kong
- 1982 – ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
- 1983 – MULE
- 1984 – King’s Quest
- 1985 – Super Mario Bros.
- 1986 – The Legend of Zelda
- 1987 – Tecmo Bowl
- 1988 – Wasteland
- 1989 – Tetris
- 1990 – Windows Solitaire
- 1991 – Sonic the Hedgehog
- 1992 – Mortal Kombat
- 1993 – Doom
- 1994 – Super Metroid
- 1995 – Command and Conquer
- 1996 – Tomb Raider
- 1997 – Final Fantasy VII
- 1998 – Pokemon Red and Blue
- 1999 – Shenmue
- 2000 – The Sims
- 2001 – Halo: Combat Evolved
- 2002 – Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- 2003 – Call of Duty
- 2004 – World of Warcraft
- 2005 – Guitar Hero
- 2006 – Wii Sports
- 2007 – Portal
- 2008 – World of Goo
- 2009 – Angry Birds
- 2010 – StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
- 2011 – Minecraft
- 2012 – Journey
- 2013 – The Last of Us
- 2014 – Destiny
- 2015 – Undertale
- 2016 – That Dragon, Cancer
- 2017 – Fortnite
- 2018 – Celeste
At only 40 titles, “Every Year’s Most Iconic Video Game Since 1979” is too small for inclusion in the Video Game Canon, but it does give us a window into which games the World Video Game Hall of Fame might chose to nominate for induction over the next few years.