In Frame: Lessons learned from ranking the greatest video games

Over the past month or so, I’ve really tried to come up with something resembling a definitive list of the greatest video games of all time. Of course, it’s a reductive exercise, as subjective rankings tend to be. Who cares? It’s fun to make a list, and I’ve long been interested in the video game canon.

I approached this exercise from an outsider point of view. Though I’ve played a good amount of games in my day, I never would have — nor do I currently — think of myself as a gamer. I’ve only heard of a vast majority of the games on my list, and there’s actually quite a few that I had never heard of when I began the project.

Due to my significant gaming blind spots, the compilation of the list was completely removed from my opinion. I researched other lists and took in as much as was readily available. From there, I developed an algorithm to determine which games are most frequently cited as the greatest, whether that be based on gameplay, story, influence, or any number of other factors.

My favorite game, “Kingdom Hearts” from 2002, was left off the list.

But this column is less about the list, and more about the lessons I learned while piecing it together. Lists of the greatest films of all-time, for example, are much different in their makeup in terms of franchise diversity, originality, and embrace of the modern. Crafting a video game list that aims to be all-encompassing is both more liberal and conservative in these regards than its counterparts in other art forms.

That’s the last thing I’d like to mention before really diving into the formal lessons. Perhaps the single most important thing I learned in creating this list was recognizing that video games are, indisputably, an art form. It’s hard to imagine a reasonable case against this. The famed film critic Roger Ebert once tried to dismiss video games as an art form, and he failed in embarrassing, public fashion. Even as an outsider to the video game space, I knew gamers were experiencing art. This project only deepened that belief, and I’m prepared to defend it… some other time.

Zelda and Mario dominate

In lists of the greatest films of all time, the only films from the same series you’ll typically see listed together are “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II.” In more populist lists, you might see two films from “The Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars” series, but the general rule is that there is only room for one film per franchise on a list.

That’s not the case on the video game list.

Games from the mainline “Legend of Zelda” and “Super Mario” franchises take up the top three spots on the list and 13 total slots. If you toss in Mario’s first appearance in 1981’s “Donkey Kong,” the two “Mario Kart” games listed, and the two “Super Smash Bros.” — which feature characters from both franchises — you get 18 of the 100 spots on the list taken up by two mammoths of the industry. Their dominance runs deep and allows for less diversity than I would have expected.

Still, good for Nintendo, which is behind both “Zelda” and “Mario.” Their entries on this list are separated by decades, showing a willingness to have their most important properties evolve with the medium.

Sequels are given their due

As mentioned under the previous subheading, you’ll not see too many sequels override their original iterations on film lists, except for those limited examples posed earlier. Again, the video game list is quite different. In the top ten games on my list, only “The Last of Us” is not an entry in an already established series (though, ironically, the high-profile sequel to “The Last of Us” is mentioned further down the list).

This is an incredible statistic, but I think it makes sense. Video games have, as far as I can tell, become more sophisticated over the years, and that sophistication is rewarded with critical and popular acclaim. The sophistication has grown with hardware advancements. When a new game system is released, visions can be realized more vividly. It would track that sequels, which are naturally released on more sophisticated hardware, would often rise above their more primitive predecessors.

For a different reason, this lesson has reinforced something I’ve felt about movie lists for a long time. It seems to me that it is tough to crack into a “great movies” list if the film was released after 1980 or so. The old guard has kept the gates shut tightly, and it’s considered fairly ambitious to seriously refer to a modern film as one of the greatest of all time. There’s perhaps too much sucking up to the 1940s and 1970s to properly appreciate the 1990s, let alone the 2000s and beyond.

Likewise, unless a game is released within the shadow of one of the massive franchises, its road to the video game canon is difficult. Exceptions exist, but the big dogs still have a stranglehold over the industry, from what I’ve gathered.

Mixing the new with the old

To double down on that point regarding modern films often being disregarded in “greatest” lists, I want to commend the video game world for embracing new releases. Five games released in the 2020s have already shoved their way into the top 100 games list I’ve compiled, and comfortably so. Only 16 games on the list were released before the year I was born, and I’m really not that old.

Like before, this isn’t a huge surprise to me. Yes, there are the hardware improvements that were previously mentioned, but very modern video games also have the advantage of the industry’s relative youth. It’s interesting that the video game list in chronological order begins just about where a film list often begins — the 1980s. That’s not connected, but there is something to video games’ recency on the scene. The canon is still very much being written.

What will a greatest game list look like in 2080, about 100 years after the industry really took off? Will this progressive outlook persist, or will the canon stagnate in about 2040? I want video games to stay balanced. Maybe it’s a futile goal in exercises such as this, but you’d ideally see a list that reflects the fuller spectrum of the games out there. I’ll be keeping my finger on the pulse.

The full list

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

2. Super Mario 64 (1996)

3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

4. Resident Evil 4 (2005)

5. The Last of Us (2013)

6. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

7. Half-Life 2 (2004)

8. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

9. Final Fantasy VII (1997)

10. Mass Effect 2 (2010)

11. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

12. Tetris (1985)

13. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

14. Super Mario World (1990)

15. BioShock (2007)

16. Minecraft (2011)

17. Portal 2 (2011)

18. Shadow of the Colossus (2005)

19. Metal Gear Solid (1998)

20. Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

21. Bloodborne (2015)

22. Dark Souls (2011)

23. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)

24. World of Warcraft (2004)

25. God of War (2018)

26. Super Metroid (1994)

27. Doom (1993)

28. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)

29. Elden Ring (2022)

30. GoldenEye 007 (1997)

31. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)

32. Chrono Trigger (1995)

33. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)

34. Pokémon Red and Blue (1996)

35. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)

36. Portal (2007)

37. Red Dead Redemption (2010)

38. Street Fighter II (1991)

39. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

40. Batman: Arkham City (2011)

41. Silent Hill 2 (2001)

42. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)

43. Disco Elysium (2019)

44. Half-Life (1998)

45. Hades (2020)

46. Metroid Prime (2002)

47. StarCraft (1998)

48. Halo 3 (2007)

49. Fallout 3 (2008)

50. Super Mario Galaxy (2007)

51. Persona 5 (2016)

52. Journey (2012)

53. Final Fantasy VI (1994)

54. Diablo II (2000)

55. The Last of Us Part II (2020)

56. Super Mario Kart (1992)

57. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

58. Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

59. Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)

60. Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001)

61. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018)

62. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

63. Super Mario Bros. (1985)

64. Ms. Pac-Man (1982)

65. Undertale (2015)

66. Hollow Knight (2017)

67. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000)

68. Grand Theft Auto III (2001)

69. Deus Ex (2000)

70. Mario Kart 8 (2014)

71. Nier: Automata (2017)

72. Halo 2 (2004)

73. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002)

74. Assassin’s Creed II (2009)

75. Outer Wilds (2019)

76. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)

77. Stardew Valley (2016)

78. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

79. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

80. Fortnite (2017)

81. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)

82. Inside (2016)

83. Pokémon Gold and Silver (1999)

84. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)

85. Final Fantasy X (2001)

86. The Legend of Zelda (1986)

87. Ico (2001)

88. Civilization II (1996)

89. Spelunky (2008)

90. Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)

91. EarthBound (1994)

92. Dishonored 2 (2016)

93. Resident Evil 2 (1998)

94. Left 4 Dead 2 (2009)

95. Donkey Kong (1981)

96. Final Fantasy IX (2000)

97. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)

98. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

99. Celeste (2018)

100. Wii Sports (2006)