101 Video Games That Everyone Should Play At Least Once

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Over the years, we’ve ranked entire franchises, applauded critical darlings, and publicly shamed those that let themselves down. What we’ve never done, however, is curate a list of the games that are, in our humble opinion, nothing short of brilliant. TO BE CLEAR, this isn’t a list of the best games ever according to the likes of Metacritic, nor are we actually ranking them, so the game featured in the top spot isn’t necessarily any better than the game at number 101. Instead this list is our way of chronicling 101 fantastic titles that will always have a place in our hearts. The only thing we’ve stipulated is that they must be available on either current-generation hardware or the previous one, i.e., any console released since 2012, or on a PC. After all, it wouldn’t be very cool of us to recommend games that it’s near-impossible to get hold of. Here are the 101 Video Games that Everyone Should Play At Least Once.

VO: Peter Austin (@ThatPeterAustin) & Ben Potter (@Confused_Dude) & Ashton Matthews (@ScrambledAshton)
Script: Cat Elliot (@cat_elliott_)
Video Editor: Ciaran Henry (@CiaranHenry268)

101 Video Games That Everyone Should Play At Least Once:
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Assassin’s Creed II
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• BioShock
• Borderlands 2
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Cave Story+
• Celeste
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
• Dark Souls
• Dead Space
• Deadly Premonition
• Detroit: Become Human
• Deus Ex
• Devil May Cry
• Disco Elysium
• Doom
• DuckTales
• Elden Ring
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
• Fallout 3
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy X
• Gears of War
• Ghost of Tsushima
• God of War
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grim Fandango
• Half-Life 2
• Halo 3
• Halo Reach
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Heavy Rain
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Hollow Knight
• Journey
• Katamari Damacy Reroll
• Kirby’s Adventure
• L.A. Noire
• Life is Strange
• Limbo
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Mass Effect 2
• Mega Man 2
• Metal Gear Solid
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Metroid Prime
• Minecraft
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Nier: Automata
• Outer Wilds
• Perfect Dark
• Persona 5 Royal
• Pikmin 3
• Pokémon Yellow
• Portal
• Portal 2
• Quake
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Resident Evil
• Resident Evil 4
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2
• Soulcalibur II
• Spider-Man
• Spyro the Dragon
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
• Stardew Valley
• Super Mario 64
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• System Shock 2
• Tetris Effect: Connected
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Last of Us
• The Last of Us: Part II
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Sims 3
• The Walking Dead
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• TimeSplitters 2
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
• Undertale
• Unpacking
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• World of Warcraft
• Yakuza 0

#MustPlayGames #EssentialVideoGames #TripleJump

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45 thoughts on “101 Video Games That Everyone Should Play At Least Once”

  1. REMINDER: This is not a definitive list of the best video games ever made but rather our personal picks for titles we reckon you NEED to play, and as such is in *no particular order*. These games have been selected with availability in mind, so a title won't make the cut if you can't easily get your hands on it today! OH, and Marvel's Spider-Man is coming to PC on August 12th & Persona 5 Royal is coming to Xbox Series/Nintendo Switch on October 21st (recent announcements).

    🎮With that said, how many of them have you played, and what would make your personal list? 🎮

    Reply

  8. Great to see Sonic 2 on the list. 20 years ago, you could always be sure that either Sonic 2 or 3(and Knuckles) would show up on lists like these, but over the past decades a notion has popped up that "Sonic was never great to begin with". The crappy modern Sonic games have tainted the classics games so much that a lot of people (especially younger people) simply cannot comprehend that the Sonic series was ever in a state where most of its games were masterpieces. But back in the day, Sonic was just as critically acclaimed as the likes of Mario, Zelda and Metroid.

    Reply

  14. There's some top games on that list. Also, Super Metroid (Metroid Samus Returns is ace as well), Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island (snes), Tomb Raider, Goldeneye, Splinter Cell chaos theory.

    Reply

  15. I still despise MGS V for being unfinished. Spent hours doing mission after mission to be forced to replay the start of the game….just to get a slightly diff cut scene. Wow what a waste of my f'n time.

    Reply

  18. Hmm honestly, i think that the list is too narrow and kind of biased in favour of consoles.

    You introduce jrpg games like ie persona, let you forget absolute european classic like planescape torment, or divinity original sin or dragon Age.

    3 halo titles and not for example half life? Come on 🙂

    Faar too many 3pp titles, very similar to each other.

    If these are games to try, to must play, , then why not introduce more genres? Sims? Football manager – series that has 30 years ? Maybe some visual Novel? No hack n slash like diablo? Tekken? Or even some crazy wii controller sport game?

    I would expect more hmm genre diversity 🙂 no arcade space shooter to try?

    I think you played too safe 🙂 tons of obvious console games recycled every year – castlevania, kirby, mario kart, metroid etc. Why not spelunky for example?

    Reply

  19. absolutely fantastic albeit very safe list. I wished Destiny 2, Death Stranding, Rockband 4 and a few more lesser known J-Rpgs would have somehow made it. And A Link to the Past should replace Wind Waker… but of course it‘s all just opinion 🙂

    Reply

  20. While this is a great list, you could find one almost similar in many places. What I want from you guys is the top 50 hidden gem list — the games you, maybe didn't "love", but really enjoyed that not enough people have played.

    Reply

  26. Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my literate heart, for pronouncing "automata" correctly. Almost nobody does, and it's infuriating and tragic.

    EDIT:… Aaaand then you went and botched "Yakuza." smh.

    Reply

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