Nintendo EPD
A Hyrule rebuilt as a chemistry-and-physics sandbox where the rules — climb anything, combine anything, burn grass that carries fire — do the design work.
The games that defined the medium.
The games that defined the medium — and where a new player should start today. No hot takes, no hype cycle — a working collection of landmark games across six genres, each with the practical way to play it now and a source for every claim.
How picks are made
Influence
Did it change how games are designed or played?
Craft
Do its systems, writing, or feel still hold up?
Stay
Do people still play, watch, and talk about it?
Start-ability
Can a new player actually enjoy it today?
The collection
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Team Ico
Sixteen boss fights and nothing else: a silent hero, a horse, and colossi the size of buildings to scale and fell.
The Legend of Zelda
1986Nintendo
An open overworld with secrets under nearly every screen, released with a battery backup so progress could be saved for the first time on console.
Celeste
2018Maddy Makes Games
A precision platformer about climbing a mountain, built on a two-button moveset — jump, then air-dash — explored to its limits.
Super Mario 64
1996Nintendo EAD
The first great 3D platformer, built around a free-roaming castle that opens into hand-crafted worlds.
Super Mario Bros.
1985Nintendo R&D4
The game that turned side-scrolling platforming into a worldwide phenomenon and saved the Nintendo Entertainment System's fortunes in the process.
Stardew Valley
2016ConcernedApe (Eric Barone)
A farming-life role-playing game built almost entirely by one person: seasons, crops, fishing, mining, festivals, and a town of neighbors with their own seasons of life.
Portal 2
2011Valve
A first-person puzzle game about connected portals, momentum, and gel-covered walls, wrapped in one of gaming's great comedy scripts.
Minecraft
2011Mojang
A world of blocks with no required goals: mine, craft, build, survive the night, or just build something beautiful.
Tetris
1984Alexey Pajitnov
Seven falling shapes, one well, no enemies and no story — and a claim to being the most-played game ever created.
Elden Ring
2022FromSoftware
FromSoftware's open-world take on its demanding action-RPG formula, built with a world framework by George R.
CD Projekt Red
A monster-hunter's story in a war-scarred fantasy world where even throwaway side quests carry moral weight and consequences.
Bethesda Game Studios
A Nordic province as a fully open role-playing world: every peak climbable, every book readable, every quest discoverable by simply walking a direction.
Final Fantasy VII
1997Square
The role-playing game that carried the genre into the mainstream, with pre-rendered cinematic staging, a setting of eco-terrorism against a corporate city, and the Materia system's endlessly combinable magic.
Chrono Trigger
1995Square
A time-traveling role-playing game made by the era's leading designers — the 'Dream Team' behind Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Dragon Ball — with battles that flow out of exploration instead of random encounters.
Half-Life 2
2004Valve
A first-person game told without cutscenes, where the physics of the Gravity Gun turn scavenged objects into combat tools and puzzles.
GoldenEye 007
1997Rare
A console shooter adapted from the Bond film that proved four-player split-screen on one TV could be the best party ever invented.
DOOM
1993id Software
The game that made first-person shooting a mass medium, distributed as shareware that spread faster than any software before it.
The Sims
2000Maxis
Will Wright's domestic simulator turned watching a virtual household eat, work, and fall in love into the best-selling PC franchise of its era.
StarCraft
1998Blizzard Entertainment
Three asymmetric armies — human, zerg, protoss — balanced so precisely that the game became a professional sport, especially in South Korea.
MicroProse
One more turn: guide a people from a lone settler to the space age across a map that generates its own history.