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 latest update to the Video Game Canon, Version 4.0, has arrived!
The Video Game Canon now includes a total of 1,232 games, which were pulled from 59 Best Video Games of All Time lists published between 1995 and 2020. Each game was ranked against the rest of the field using the C-Score, a formula that takes into account a game’s Average Ranking and the complementary percentage of its Appearance Frequency across all lists.
Finally, games released after December 31, 2016 were excluded from the ranking because of their newness.
Three brand new lists were added to Version 4.0 of the Video Game Canon, including “The 100 Best Video Games in History” from GQ Spain, a “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” ranking from Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, and a massive look back at “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born” from Popular Mechanics. Alongside these new additions, updates to IGN’s “Top 100 Video Games of All Time,” Popular Mechanics’s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time,” and Slant Magazine’s “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time” were also added to the calculation. Thanks to reader CriticalCid for providing research assistance with some of these new lists.
But even with all this new data, there was surprisingly very little movement near the top of the Video Game Canon, and the Top 3 was once again represented by Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris (#1), Valve’s Half-Life 2, and Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 (#3). There was some slight shuffling in the rest of the Top 10, but no new titles were able to crack the highest tier. Nintendo’s classic quartet of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (#4), Super Mario 64 (#5), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (#6), and Super Metroid (#10) all hung around, as did Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us (#7), Irrational’s BioShock (#8), and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (#9).
Things get more interesting as you move further down the Top 100, especially for the 2015 and 2016 releases that now qualify for inclusion in the Video Game Canon.
CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (#12) just missed out on a spot in the Top 10 after receiving support from 14 (out of 17) Best Games lists that were published after its release. From Software’s Bloodborne (#34) received similarly broad support, and was ultimately selected by 13 (out of 17) publications. They were followed by Playdead’s Inside (#51), Blizzard’s Overwatch (#54), Toby Fox’s Undertale (#94), and Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone’s Stardew Valley (#96).
The rest of the Top 100 can be seen here:
- 1. Tetris
- 2. Half-Life 2
- 3. Resident Evil 4
- 4. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- 5. Super Mario 64
- 6. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- 7. The Last of Us
- 8. BioShock
- 9. Red Dead Redemption
- 10. Super Metroid
- 11. Street Fighter II
- 12. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 13. Shadow of the Colossus
- 14. Grand Theft Auto V
- 15. Halo: Combat Evolved
- 16. World of Warcraft
- 17. Mass Effect 2
- 18. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- 19. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- 20. Portal
- 21. GoldenEye 007
- 22. Super Mario World
- 23. Final Fantasy VII
- 24. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- 25. Doom (1993)
- 26. Chrono Trigger
- 27. Journey
- 28. StarCraft
- 29. Super Mario Kart
- 30. Rock Band (Series)
- 31. Metal Gear Solid
- 32. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- 33. Portal 2
- 34. Bloodborne
- 35. Minecraft
- 36. Dark Souls
- 37. Metroid Prime
- 38. Super Mario Bros. 3
- 39. Deus Ex
- 40. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- 41. Super Mario Bros.
- 42. Final Fantasy VI (AKA Final Fantasy III [US])
- 43. Pokemon Blue / Red / Yellow (AKA Pokemon FireRed / LeafGreen)
- 44. Half-Life
- 45. Counter-Strike
- 46. Ico
- 47. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (Series)
- 48. Tomb Raider (1996)
- 49. Diablo II
- 50. Sonic the Hedgehog
- 51. Inside
- 52. Silent Hill 2
- 53. Grand Theft Auto III
- 54. Overwatch
- 55. Donkey Kong
- 56. Ms. Pac-Man
- 57. Super Mario Galaxy 2
- 58. Fallout 3
- 59. The Walking Dead
- 60. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- 61. Braid
- 62. SimCity 2000
- 63. Grand Theft Auto IV
- 64. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- 65. Batman: Arkham City
- 66. The Sims
- 67. Grim Fandango
- 68. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
- 69. Mega Man 2
- 70. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- 71. The Legend of Zelda
- 72. System Shock 2
- 73. Secret of Mana
- 74. Super Smash Bros. Melee
- 75. Batman: Arkham Asylum
- 76. SimCity
- 77. Okami
- 78. Resident Evil
- 79. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (AKA Punch-Out!!)
- 80. NBA Jam (Series)
- 81. Galaga
- 82. God of War (2005)
- 83. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- 84. X-COM: UFO Defense (AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown)
- 85. The Secret of Monkey Island
- 86. Final Fantasy Tactics
- 87. Team Fortress 2
- 88. EarthBound
- 89. Pac-Man
- 90. Lemmings
- 91. Assassin’s Creed II
- 92. Advance Wars
- 93. Space Invaders
- 94. Undertale
- 95. League of Legends
- 96. Stardew Valley
- 97. Guitar Hero (Series)
- 98. Spelunky
- 99. Pong
- 100. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
As with the Top 10, a lot of familiar favorites filled out the rest of the spots, but there were a handful of older games that continued to receive renewed support from newly published Best Games lists. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City became the fifth entry from the franchise to enter the Top 100, vaulting all the way from #108 to #83 (it even surpassed San Andreas in the process). Also on the move is Nintendo’s EarthBound, which moved up from #106 to #88. The cult RPG has slowly been adding new members to its fandom for the last 25 years, and it looks like a reappraisal of its merits has finally reached the mainstream.
If you’d like to dig through the rest of the games that qualified for the Top 1,232, please head over to the Version 4.0 page to view the full list.