Topic: Most Influential Games of All Time

I'll make this a thread as BAFTA released it's fan poll for most influential game of all time... and it's totally nutso.

Crazy, right?

I think it's clear that some need to be struck off that list on principal (even KCD2 ) because, seriously. Who is voting on this nonsense. Maybe KCD2 is the most influential game for Czech people as it is teaching them about their history, but I think we all know this is supposed to be about a global scale and influence across multiple mediums. Shenmue number 1? I can guarantee 99% of people in the west haven't even heard of it and it has never entered the zeitgeist for even a moment. (I'm sure there are some good arguments in gaming circles for it making lists though, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know what it will have influenced ganeplay wise as I'm literally only aware of the name itself)

Games like Tomb Raider and Pokemon were part of the 90's/00's zeitgeist, with Pokemon still at it today. Games like GTA 3 have influenced 3D game design as well as all manner of life and media and culture. Games like Halo apparently influenced FPS design although I'm not sure on the details of how or why as I never liked it, myself. But I'm aware of it doing so. Baldur's Gate 3 is way too soon to be considered for an overall, although I'd say that it will influence how people write for their games in future, and hopefully how CEO's and companies treat their games as more than just a product to ship. But come on now, all time most influential. No, no.

It'd be interesting to read people's overall thoughts on what games they consider most influential and, if you like, you could also list what you would have selected as the:

10 most influential games overall
10 most influential to the zeitgeist
10 most influential to gaming and game design
(Be it graphics, functionality and gameplay, or things like pushing cinematics and capture/performance to a game changing level.)

There are some glaring absences on the BAFTA list so it will be interesting to see what people really think are the most influential games of all time.

@Ravix number 1 is insane!

@graymamba I mean, Fortnite is a hundred, thousand, or even million times more influential than a lot of those on the list 😅 (for better, or worse) so yeah!

As a Souls player you will probably know that Fort, Night! Has even seen its influence reach player messages. And the less said about TikTok and modern society the better 😬

@Ravix oh wow… yeah, that list is… certainly something. I can’t disagree with some of those but I do think there’s a few that stick out as odd inclusions, Shenmue being chief among them. Since I haven’t played any of the Shenmue games I’ll have a hard time passing an educated judgement, but I can’t see it as being the most influential game of all time, or really even in the top 10. I do know it was a really early pioneer of open world design, QTE’s, and storytelling but can a commercial flop that had to have sequels crowd funded have really influenced developers to pattern after it? I don’t know my gaming history well enough but I assume other games pushed the open-world formula more.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to be convinced otherwise by the Shenmue disciples.

As far as my own lists, I really think it’s an interesting assignment. I will have to mull it over. I do think that a “influential to gaming zeitgeist” and “influential to game design” are different, as you suggested. Although there will definitely be come overlap because popular products that sell a lot of copies and excite masses tend to make developers copy their design.

I’ll come up with a list after taking some time to think it over.

I assume you’re working on your list?

@Th3solution I think in the back of my mind I am. I'm not going to worry if I can't get a tight 10, as I'm not really a list person, but I'll definitely be forming opinions of the types of games I'd fit in all categories. And hopefully seeing things from multiple perspectives, as that is how we grow.

It's just a shame that my open perspective so far includes Fortnite. But I can't argue against it being THE 'Zeitgeist Gen Z' game. The stupid dances and the fact that every IP wants in on their action is undeniable. And the fact that everyone has wanted the next Fortnite hit for the last X years.

I can also be won around to Shenmue being in a top 10 of some kind if the things I've read are true. As it seems to have some of that KCD and RDR type of design where characters are their own people. Quick-time I'm less convinced about, but who knows.

Maybe we can invite @get2sammyb and the PushSquare team along to have a discussion here (and convince us of Shenmue maybe making a top 10, at a pinch ) and then based on feedback Push can launch a proper poll with a curated long-list of games and put it to the PushSquare readers to decide. As BAFTA are clearly incapable of filtering and coming up with a tight enough list of choices so that people don't go totally insane whilst voting 😅

Most influential for me would be games that actually created genres or sub-genres. Then I’d look for games that catapulted a particular long-standing genre into the public-sphere in a way that all previous games within that genre never accomplished. Then the final (and lowest on the totem pole) would be games that introduced incredibly prevalent game mechanics, while not inventing or reinventing any specific game type.

Off the top of my head… and therefore without devoting too much thought or research in to it, my top 10 would probably be something along these lines.

1. Super Mario Bros.
2. Wolfenstein 3D
3. Street Fighter 2
4. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
5. Rogue
6. Demons Souls
7. The Last of Us
8. Super Mario 64
9. Final Fantasy 7
10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

edit. notable mention to PUBG for introducing the modern Battle Royale template and to Renegade for the scrolling Beat ‘em up, Space Invaders, Gradius & Robotron: 2048 for the various schmups, Metal Gear Solid for adult cinematic narrative and stealth and The Legend of Zelda for the 2D action adventures.

edit 2. On reflection I’d probably swap Metal Gear Solid with The Last of Us.

@graymamba really good thoughts on the matter. Certainly more tuned in than BAFTA voters. I can kind of tell the reasons for the games, even ones I'm not myself familiar with. But Wolfenstein will need elaboration, as I have no reference and don't even know when it's from or what it introduced. Other than guessing it's something to do with the 3D element. Although, with that I'd still imagine there would have been a few games being developed concurrently, but I don't know.

Metal Gear Solid going from, I think, a sidescrolling 2D kind of thing you see everywhere to a cinematic 3D experience has to be one of the top 10 for sure.

I swear, even The Chase in the UK is using the MGS Codec noise. But I may have dreamt that 😅
!
is one of the references that still creeps into all forms of media to this day, too.

What is weird about the BAFTA list is, it combines societal impact with gaming impact and then tries to put those games into one list. Not only is it hard to compare the items in the list with each other, but also does it take such a broad definition of influence that the meaning of that word is lost.

If I would make a list, it wouldn't include Tetris (even if it is one of my favorite games of all time). I would rather create a list of games that inspired other games.

10 games in no order

Earthbound: humour in games; so many games use Earthbound's writing as an example of how to make a game quirky and funny, while also still being a narrative game.

Final Fantasy IV: not the first JRPG, but kind of a blueprint for JRPG storytelling.

Shenmue: Deserves to be on this list to be honest. You can't play Red Dead Redemption, Yakuza, Disco Elysium, or so many games without seeing its influence. Not one of my favorite games, though.

Super Mario Bros. 3: all platformers are like this one

Street Fighter 2: with its combos, style goes even beyond influencing its genre

Half-Life: also a game I don't like too much personally, but it's the number one cinematic shooter (and many other sci fi games)

Super Mario 64: start of 3d gaming, let's be honest

Metal Gear Solid: stealth plus the ambition that games can be Hollywood too

Dark Souls: open ended games without handhelding and unfurling worlds, lore as you go. This, or demon souls if you're a purist, is the game every game in 2025 tries to emulate.

Ocarina of Time: linear open worlds, targeting, the vibe

@Ravix Wolfenstein 3D was the first real first person shooter. It was made by id, who then evolved the formula with Doom. I remember the only one of our friendship group who had a PC would invite us around his at lunch time to show off the advent of 3D gaming. Think I was about 14 at the time and pretty damn impressed as I only had a Megadrive at the time.

There are some great and valid inclusions on this list but yeah, some real head scratchers as well. Notable omissions:

Sim City spawned an entire empire of sim building games. Dune II essentially birthed the RTS, with Westwood’s follow-up Command and Conquer series maturing it. Street Fighter II solidified the fighting genre as we know it. How is Skyrim on here but not Morrowind? What about PAC-Man, the first real mascot gaming ever saw? Quake was hugely influential in ushering in the 3D rendered and modding era.

Can’t help but feel that there was a bit of a misunderstanding in the voting process with the word “influential.” 😄

@Ravix I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days and really finally decided that I’m not qualified to give a very good list. However that’s not going to stop me! 😅

So I broke it down into the two categories, “influence of future game design and development”, and “influence on the zeitgeist and gaming culture and popularity.”

I’m not well versed in retro gaming nor in other gaming ecosystems (namely Nintendo) so this is all through the lens of a modern PlayStation gamer. I am trying to be as objective as possible through, based on what I’ve read, heard, and seen about many of these games that I’ve never played.
Also, because most of these I’ve never played (and only played modern equivalents which were inspired by them) in many cases I just cited an entire series. However, I have tried to mentioned a prominent entry in that series that I feel may be the linchpin for that series’s influence.

Also, each game (or series) only was included in one of the lists, despite many of them easily belonging in both, since it may have been both a cultural phenomenon and also an inspiration for future game development. I tried to make a decision on which area it was more heavily influential though, and then place it on that respective list.

Also, I have roughly put them in order of influence, with my feelings of the most influential at the top.

Influential to development:

Doom - popularized FPS, which is a genre they permeates a huge part of modern gaming
Zelda series (The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time) - pioneered open world exploration and freedom of choice
Castlevania series (Symphony of the Night) - helped usher in an entire sub-genre of Metroidvanias, as well as oft copied aesthetic elements
Fortnite - the most effective and powerful modern gaming phenomenon, both in battle royale but also free-to-play and live service models
Metal Gear Solid - Really took stealth gameplay forward
World of Warcraft - brought MMO’s to the mainstream
Pong - it didn’t influence modern game design per se, but basically kickstarted the entire industry
Souls series (Dark Souls would get the nod for biggest influencer within the series) - created a whole popular sub-genre
Assassin’s Creed (AC 2 probably is the most important) - the open-world formula used in many modern games is still patterned after these games
The Witcher (Witcher 3) - as far as influencing narrative storytelling and side questing, it’s the game that is still the standard against which games are compared

—————————

Influential to gaming zeitgeist:

Minecraft - incredibly popular and seemingly timeless in its cultural influence, especially on young gamers, the standard of sandbox creativity
Grand Theft Auto (GTAV) - uniquely popular
Super Mario Bros (SMB3) - defined platforming and an entire cultural landscape of gaming
Tetris - iterations of this game are still continuing to come out, with the core gameplay still intact
Ms Pac-Man - popularized arcade games, ushered in a cultural phenomenon
Final Fantasy (FF7) - brought JRPGs to the mainstream
Street Fighter (SF2) - popularized and innovated fighters
Elder Scrolls (Skyrim) - Deep world building and freedom, deeply popular, Skyrim specifically selling on 3 generations and counting
Tomb Raider - popularized action platforming adventure genre but also the first popular female protagonist (not counting Samus)
Space Invaders - popularized arcade games, specifically score chasing
Resident Evil (RE2) - made horror gaming mainstream, and set the standard for survival horror
Mario Kart (MK64, MK8) - most popular racing game, (and setting a new game pricing standard! 😛)

——————

I’ve probably forgotten some and maybe overvalued some, but doing this is harder than I thought it would be. 😄

@Th3solution wow. I hope you did this as a kind of meditative background activity and it didn't take too much of your free time 😬 time you could have spent gaming!

I definitely find it more interesting hearing other people's takes and cross referencing what I think with those thoughts. I don't think I'm ever going to make a full list, as I'll never be part of the spreadsheet gaming committee, but I still find the topic interesting. What makes games influential to other games, and to people that play them.

I hadn't even realised open-world design went back to the 80's so I'm currently reevaluating what I thought I knew anyway. I think I thought Zelda was from the mid 90's too 🙈 I wonder if people back then thought "one day there will be fully realised worlds that mimic real life in an almost photorealistic way" also another reason why developers should always push forwards, and the next step has to be getting the physics of worlds uo to scratch again, and improve those NPC's that inhabit the worlds. So step up Warhorse, CDPR, Rockstar et al, and even to some extent Ubisoft (they are returning some nice physics based elements with the weather and destructibles, even if their NPC's are still dipsh*ts 😂) because having a game world that looks and reacts like a real world, with people in it that have tailored characteristics and traits and aren't total ***** is only going to make the stories you can tell in those worlds even better.

@Ravix I enjoy these kind of thought exercises and list making. It didn’t take time away from gaming because I jotted down ideas over the last couple days while on downtime at work 😅, when I do most of my ‘Push Squaring.’

I learned a lot about gaming in the small amount if research I did when contemplating this. I still don’t see the value in Shenmue being that high, but as I said, I claim no expertise on the subject.

My ‘influence on development’ list is roughly looking at modern games and tracing them back to the roots of their development ideas. The ‘influence on zeitgeist’ is more just looking at sales and popularity, and the unmeasurable metric of ‘cultural impact.’

I think that’s an interesting thought about what gamers back in the 80’s imagined would be possible. I do think that NPC AI is going to be one area of innovation in the coming years. With the ChatGPT types of programs coupled with AI voice acting, we will likely have dynamic NPCs soon which alter their responses in individualized ways. It’s probably closer than we think.

@Th3solution I like the idea of splitting influence on developers and the zeitgeist. Makes perfect sense now you’ve laid it out, as I felt a little awkward choosing earlier versions of series that had nowhere near the popularity as specific layer entries/iterations. Good work!