The Best Video Games of All Time, According to… Everyone?

For years now, Metacritic has served as the de facto judge for what are considered the greatest video games of all time. That is because ranking the greatest games of all time is a tricky process; so tricky that it’s beyond the capacities of any individual, or indeed any one publication. Metacritic recognises this and, instead of publishing its own reviews, aggregates reviews by other publications and assigns a score based on a weighted average.

So why doesn’t Metacritic’s list of best games resemble the kinds of all time lists published elsewhere?

Part of the reason is because Metacritic doesn’t take these lists into account. Anywhere. At all. Metacritic looks only at scored reviews, meaning that an important data point is missing when they do their calculations. There are also inherent problems with scored reviews if you assume that they are directly comparable to each other without context. A game might score 80 on one website and 4/5 on another, yet both carry wholly different weights and comparisons in their own publication.

My friend James and I have discussed this repeatedly, and how a better system would involve lists as well as scored reviews. We knew that such disparate data could be combined in an elegant and fair way because we’d seen it done before (see AcclaimedMusic.net), but no one had ever attempted it for video games (at least not to our knowledge). So partly to rectify this problem — and also partly as a lockdown project — James made it happen.

The following list was made by collating almost 250 end of year lists, best of decade lists, and all time lists from a wide variety of publications. The project is still in its infancy, so this is not the final list. You can expect the places to shift around significantly as more data is added. Ultimately, we were just keen to get this first set of results out for people to see and discuss.

So on that note: Here are the top 100 best games of all time, according to as many lists as we could find at present.

1. Tetris (1988)
2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The (1998)
3. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1989)
4. DOOM (1993)
5. Half-Life 2 (2004)
6. Resident Evil 4 (2005)
7. Chrono Trigger (1995)
8. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The (1992)
9. Street Fighter II (1991)
10. Portal 2 (2011)
11. Super Metroid (1994)
12. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
13. Super Mario 64 (1996)
14. Bioshock (2007)
15. Super Mario World (1991)
16. Final Fantasy VI (1994)
17. Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow (1998)
18. Ms. Pac-Man (1982)
19. Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
20. Metal Gear Solid (1998)
21. Shadow of the Colossus (2005)
22. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The (2017)
23. StarCraft / BroodWar (1998)
24. Mass Effect 2 (2010)
25. World of Warcraft (2004)
26. GoldenEye 007 (1997)
27. Witcher III: Wild Hunt, The (2015)
28. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The (2011)
29. Dark Souls (2011)
30. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
31. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
32. Minecraft (2011)
33. Last of Us, The (2013)
34. God of War (2018)
35. Silent Hill 2 (2001)
36. Super Mario Kart (1992)
37. Portal (2007)
38. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)
39. Bloodborne (2015)
40. Metroid Prime (2002)
41. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
42. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)
43. Donkey Kong (1981)
44. Red Dead Redemption (2010)
45. Super Mario Bros. (1985)
46. EarthBound / Mother 2 (1995)
47. Wii Sports (2006)
48. Sim City 2000 (1993)
49. League of Legends (2009)
50. Overwatch (2016)
51. Diablo II (2000)
52. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
53. Journey (2012)
54. Sims, The (2000)
55. Gone Home (2013)
56. Left 4 Dead 2 (2009)
57. Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009)
58. Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001)
59. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
60. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
61. Half-Life (1998)
62. Zork (1977)
63. Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (2007)
65. Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
66. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (1995)
67. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, The (2003)
68. Counter-Strike / Counter-Strike 1.6 (2000)
69. Fallout 3 (2008)
70. Myst (1993)
71. Oregon Trail, The (1971)
72. Sid Meier’s Civilization II (1996)
73. Legend of Zelda, The (1987)
74. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (2000)
75. Galaga (1981)
76. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018)
77. Nier: Automata (2017)
78. NBA Jam (1993)
79. Sim City (1989)
80. Outer Wilds (2019)
81. Final Fantasy Tactics (1998)
82. Katamari Damacy (2004)
83. Guitar Hero (2005)
84. Spelunky (2012)
85. Resident Evil (1996)
86. Undertale (2015)
87. Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (2005)
88. Streets of Rage 2 / Bare Knuckle II: The Requiem of the Deadly Battle (1992)
89. Halo 3 (2007)
90. Rock Band (2009)
91. Burnout 3: Takedown (2004)
92. Stardew Valley (2016)
93. Tekken 3 (1997)
94. Space Invaders (1978)
95. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
96. Pong (1972)
97. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
98. Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 2 (1993)
99. Mother 3 (2006)
100. Quake (1996)

A quick reminder: this is not a personal list, and the opinions of neither James or I are present (as if the absence of Morrowind or Baldur’s Gate 2 didn’t make that obvious). We’re very eager to hear feedback and commentary on this project, so please be sure to let us know what you think.