Tetris earned the top spot in the first version of the Video Game Canon, and easily repeated in the Version 2.0 update I put together earlier this year. But what happens if you limited the formula to just Best Games lists that have been published this decade?
Not much, it turns out.
No other game was able to knock Alexy Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece off the top of the heap, though Valve’s Half-Life 2 (#2) came very close. The remainder of the Top 10 also looks fairly familiar, with Resident Evil 4 at #3, Super Mario 64 at #4, BioShock at #5, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #6, Super Metroid at #7, The Last of Us at #8, World of Warcraft at #9, and Grand Theft Auto V at #10.
However, using only the 27 Best Games lists that were published between 2010 and 2017 does produce a few interesting swings. Some games moved up (like Portal from #19 to #11), while others slid down (Street Fighter II went from #16 to #28).
Other games made bigger leaps, which might lead to some massive changes to the Video Game Canon’s Top 100 in future updates. For example, Nintendo’s EarthBound may have launched to a rocky reception in the mid 90s, but critics in the 2010s are coming around on it as it moved to #62 (it was #119 on the regular Video Game Canon) Likewise, Myst had a strong showing, and landed at #87 versus #137 on the regular ranking.
See where the rest of the 1,041 games from Version 2.0 of the Video Game Canon landed after the break.
Zoom in on specific portions of the Video Game Canon and explore alternate sorting options from the Version 2.0 Update with Listology 2.0.
This Listology article is based on an earlier Version of the Video Game Canon. Visit the Top 1000 to see the most recent changes to the full list.
Video Game Canon (Version 2.0): The Best Games Using Only Modern Best Games Lists Published After 2010 (Expand)
C-Score = Average Ranking + (100 – Appearance Frequency)