This article refers to an older Version of the Video Game Canon. View the Top 1000 to see the most recent changes to the list.
The 2022 Update (Version 6.0) to the Video Game Canon is here… and it’s more or less a maintenance update.
I was able to add a handful of newly-published lists from 2021 (including Games Radar, IGN, and Shacknews), as well as a GamesTM list from 2018, but little changed about my ranking of gaming’s top tier. With these additions, the Video Game Canon is now comprised of 70 Best Video Games of All Time lists that were published between 1995 and 2021.
The Video Game Canon’s scoring system, known as the C-Score, has remained the same for the 2022 Update. This formula ranks each game against the rest of the field by adding together a title’s Average Ranking across all lists with the complementary percentage of its Appearance Frequency.
For a good example, look at Tetris, which yet again landed in the #1 spot on the Video Game Canon. The puzzle game has an Average Ranking of 17.63 across all lists and, because only four publications chose to exclude it over the years, a staggering Appearance Frequency of 94.29%. Plugging those numbers into the formula gives us a C-Score of 23.34, considerably lower than any other game.
But nearly every other title in the Top 10 was shuffled around, though nothing else managed to break into the absolute top tier of the Video Game Canon. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, A Link to the Past, and Super Mario 64 all moved up slightly, while Red Dead Redemption and Ocarina of Time dipped. And after flipping places in 2021, Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil 4 flipped back in 2022. Capcom’s survival horror masterpiece slid back into the #3 slot, while Valve’s shooter sequel reclaimed the #2 ranking…
- 1. Tetris
- 2. Half-Life 2
- 3. Resident Evil 4
- 4. The Last of Us
- 5. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 6. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- 8. Red Dead Redemption
- 9. Super Mario 64
- 10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Most of the other changes to the Video Game Canon were almost equally imperceptible. For starters, games that made big jumps were almost exclusively measured in single digits. Bloodborne rolled five slots closer to the top by going from #28 to #23, Resident Evil (1996/2002) shambled forward from #80 to #74, EarthBound moved up from #82 to #75, and a consensus is finally coalescing around Civilization IV, which went from #108 to #100.
While critics have finally stopped splitting votes among the six Civilization games, other franchises have gravitated together in the Top 100. It feels almost impossible to choose when presented with 1989’s SimCity and 1993’s SimCity 2000. Both games are important landmarks, with one bringing the city-building genre to prominence and the other perfecting it. So it makes sense that they’ve both floated around the Top 100 since the first update to the Video Game Canon. But after a steady rise from the original game, they’re both sitting in nearly identical spots, SimCity at #68 and SimCity 2000 at #69.
You can also see this interesting bit of symmetry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise as well. Grand Theft Auto V (#19), Grand Theft Auto III (#53), and Grand Theft Auto IV (#73) represent the franchise in most lists, but Vice City and San Andreas have been receiving more accolades over the last few years. Both games broke into the Top 100 for the first time in 2020, and now they’re sitting in nearly identical slots at #98 (Vice City) and #99 (San Andreas).
The Video Game Canon excludes all games released within the last three full calendar years, so any game released after December 31, 2018 is ineligible for the list. With the previous update ushering in 2017’s biggest hits, Version 6.0 saw strong debuts from Sony Santa Monica’s God of War (2018) (#30), Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 (#46), and Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (#65).
With all these changes noted, here’s a more complete look at the rest of the Top 100:
- 11. Super Metroid
- 12. BioShock
- 13. Street Fighter II
- 14. Shadow of the Colossus
- 15. Mass Effect 2
- 16. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- 17. Doom (1993)
- 18. Halo: Combat Evolved
- 19. Grand Theft Auto V
- 20. World of Warcraft
- 21. GoldenEye 007
- 22. Portal
- 23. Bloodborne
- 24. Final Fantasy VII
- 25. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- 26. Chrono Trigger
- 27. Super Mario World
- 28. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- 29. Metal Gear Solid
- 30. God of War (2018)
- 31. Portal 2
- 32. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- 33. Super Mario Kart
- 34. StarCraft
- 35. Journey
- 36. Super Mario Bros. 3
- 37. Metroid Prime
- 38. Minecraft
- 39. Dark Souls
- 40. Rock Band (Series)
- 41. Deus Ex
- 42. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- 43. Final Fantasy VI (AKA Final Fantasy III [US])
- 44. Super Mario Bros.
- 45. Diablo II
- 46. Red Dead Redemption 2
- 47. Counter-Strike
- 48. Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow (1998) / Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (2004)
- 49. Half-Life
- 50. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (Series)
- 51. Sonic the Hedgehog
- 52. Tomb Raider (1996) / Tomb Raider Anniversary (2007)
- 53. Grand Theft Auto III
- 54. Silent Hill 2
- 55. Super Mario Odyssey
- 56. Ico
- 57. Inside
- 58. Donkey Kong
- 59. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- 60. Batman: Arkham City
- 61. Ms. Pac-Man
- 62. Overwatch
- 63. Fallout 3
- 64. Super Mario Galaxy 2
- 65. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- 66. System Shock 2
- 67. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- 68. SimCity (1989)
- 69. SimCity 2000
- 70. Braid
- 71. The Legend of Zelda
- 72. Undertale
- 73. Grand Theft Auto IV
- 74. Resident Evil (1996) / Resident Evil (2002)
- 75. EarthBound
- 76. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
- 77. The Walking Dead
- 78. Grim Fandango
- 79. Pac-Man
- 80. The Sims
- 81. Mega Man 2
- 82. Okami
- 83. Space Invaders
- 84. Batman: Arkham Asylum
- 85. Super Smash Bros. Melee
- 86. Lemmings
- 87. NBA Jam (Series)
- 88. The Secret of Monkey Island
- 89. X-COM: UFO Defense (AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown)
- 90. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- 91. Galaga
- 92. Final Fantasy Tactics
- 93. Secret of Mana
- 94. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (1987) / Punch-Out!! (1990)
- 95. League of Legends
- 96. Assassin’s Creed II
- 97. Super Mario Galaxy
- 98. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- 99. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- 100. Civilization IV
When everything is calculated, a grand total of 1,424 games received at least one mention across the 70 lists that make up Version 6.0 of the Video Game Canon. There are a lot of amazing titles to discover beyond the Top 100, and you should definitely check some of them out while I start work on the 2023 Update (a receptionographer’s work is never done).