Just a few months after hosting a “Best Video Game of All Time Bracket” for their readers, IGN is back with the latest update to their staff-curated “Top 100 Games of All Time” list.
Games in our top 100 have to measure up to a few key metrics: how great a game it was when it launched, how fun it is to still play today, and how much the game reflects the best in its class. While past versions of this list have put a big emphasis on a game’s impact and influence, we’ve essentially taken that out of the equation. Many games that left a mark and inspired future developers may not stand the test of time and be all that fun to play right now. Or, quite simply, they may have been surpassed by other games.
With all of that said, IGN’s list reflects the current staff’s 100 best games of all time – a collection of games that continue to captivate us with their stories, wow us with their revelatory approach to game design, and set the standards for the rest of the industry.
This year’s update is the seventh iteration of the list, which was first published all the way back in 2003. That group of editors and staff writers chose Super Mario Bros. for as the greatest game of all time. Mario’s first super-sized adventure is still hanging around the upper reaches of IGN’s list (it’s at #21), but a different Nintendo-published title claimed the top spot in 2021.
IGN’s current crop of editors skewed more modern in many of their choices, and they picked the universally-acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the #1 spot. Interestingly, IGN’s Brian Altano highlighted the game’s throwback qualities: “Breath of the Wild eschewed the semi-linear, borderline predictable path of the 3D Zelda games before it in favor of a bold, crazy new approach: let players do what they want, how they want, and in whatever order they decide.”
The other interesting thing about IGN’s “Top 100 Games of All Time” is that they’ve included a bunch of paired entries. The curators of many Best Games lists will often limit themselves to a single game from a franchise to spread the spots out among a wider variety of titles. IGN went in the exact opposite direction and paired up many of the games in the top half of the list with a similar game (or games) a bit further down. For example…
| FRANCHISE | TITLES |
|---|---|
| The Legend of Zelda | ▶ Breath of the Wild (#1) ▶ A Link to the Past (#4) ▶ Ocarina of Time (#34) |
| Super Mario | ▶ Super Mario World (#2) ▶ Super Mario 64 (#7) ▶ Super Mario Bros. 3 (#11) ▶ Super Mario Bros. (#21) |
| Portal | ▶ Portal 2 (#3) ▶ Portal (#23) |
| Red Dead Redemption | ▶ Red Dead Redemption 2 (#8) ▶ Red Dead Redemption (#37) |
| The Last of Us | ▶ The Last of Us (#17) ▶ The Last of Us Part II (#38) |
| Half-Life | ▶ Half-Life 2 (#9) ▶ Half-Life: Alyx (#26) ▶ Half-Life (#31) |
| Grand Theft Auto | ▶ Grand Theft Auto V (#12) ▶ Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (#66) |
| Halo | ▶ Halo 2 (#15) ▶ Halo: Combat Evolved (#32) |
| Metal Gear Solid | ▶ Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (#27) ▶ Metal Gear Solid (#36) |
| Final Fantasy | ▶ Final Fantasy XIV (#30) ▶ Final Fantasy VI (#44) ▶ Final Fantasy VII (#98) |
But even with this increased focus on franchises, there was still plenty of room for IGN to include a few newer titles, including ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium (#10), Supergiant’s Hades (#13), Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight (#54), Lucas Pope’s Return of the Obra Dinn (#74), Derek Yu’s Spelunky 2 (#75), and NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat 11 (#82).
The titles from IGN’s “Top 100 Games of All Time” will be added to the Video Game Canon’s next update in 2022.