The most influential games of the last decade

Mass Effect

Say what you want about BioWare, they can tell a story. The plot may not be exactly original, but the cinematic angles, fully animated and voice-acted dialogues sell whatever story they are trying to tell.

Although Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire experimented with this, it wasn’t until Mass Effect that the formula clicked. And for that Mass Effect should be remembered.

Mass Effect

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Assassin’s Creed

I know, but hear me out. AC was an example of what a solid product concept looks like. The core remained virtually unchanged over a decade of the AC franchise’s existence, receiving only relatively minor tweaks.

AC1 was Ubisoft at their peak. And yeah, later they took to peppering their games’ maps with “Collect a hundred feathers” and “climb the tower to synchronise”. But it wasn’t like it was at a core a bad idea, even if collecting the flags in AC1 never made much sense to me. Also: excellent, fluid traversal. Parkour FTW.

Assassin’s Creed

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Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

The second game of Arkane Studios, after Arx Fatalis and before Dishonored. It showed some great foundations to what later became three incarnations of “That game where you can actually do unscripted stuff with your abilities”.

DMoMaM had fantastic interaction between player character’s abilities and the environment. There were always spikes to kick your enemies at, water to freeze, or platforms to crush orcs with.

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

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Demon’s Souls

It gets the spot mostly for one thing: revealing, or maybe even creating the market for almost prohibitively hard action games with RPG elements.

There was also an interesting, somewhat-dynamic difficulty expressed via World and Character Tendencies.

Demon’s Souls

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Batman: Arkham Asylum

BAA admittedly sounds like a distressed sheep, but the game itself was a neat, interesting experience worthy of the Dark Knight.

The thing that is the most memorable is the combat system. It was rather easy to get the hang of, but also responsive, varied (almost every Bat-gadget was a new combat manoeuvre), and visually impressive.

The world itself was gorgeous to look at, and after a while we could access all of it all the time, with just minimal loading screens hidden behind doors and gates.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

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Heavy Rain

Press X to Jason. Heavy Rain was an odd game, especially when you didn’t actually get to play it and could only see videos about it.

As it is, Heavy Rain kept up and arguably mastered the tropes its director David Cage tested in Fahrenheit (AKA Indigo Prophecy). It’s even more of an interactive movie, and has paved one of the ways stories can be told in interactive media such as video games. And probably had more QTEs than Asura’s Wrath.

Heavy Rain

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Red Dead Redemption

The Western video games for years have been mostly OK, though not very memorable. There was GUN, Call of Juarezes have been occasionally cool… and then came Red Dead Redemption.

Effectively it was the Unforgiven of the Western genre in gaming. It showed that a gripping, emotional tale CAN be told in an open-world, half-sandbox environment. It also allowed you to channel your inner Snidely Whiplash, if you wanted.

Red Dead Redemption

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Human Revolution substituted the original’s cyberpunk with transhumanism to keep up with the times.

It also gave the player a huge bundle of abilities and large maps with many scripted places where you could use these abilities to discover secret areas or new solutions. Each power unlocked a new approach, sometimes literally. It was all about ability-assisted discovery.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

This is the game that really burst the bubble and made every other game adopt the open world structure. Sure, Ubisoft’s current formula isn’t without fault here, but Skyrim was everywhere for a while.

Large world with (admittedly samey) dungeons around every corner, more approachable progression. And dragons. There were dragons.

There was a lot of lore, too, but it required some effort to get it. The dialogues weren’t anything very memorable either, but at least we got some knee-slapping memes. Apparently many people didn’t need anything more than that. Skyrim was easily the most important game of 2011.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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Dishonored

This is Arkane Studios’ true breakout title. Dishonored is effectively a goal-oriented playground.

Dishonored allowed you to play with powers without making you “Press E to [something]” or using immersion-breaking half-cutscenes every time you do something cool.

All powers worked within the game’s physics and logic. Crossbows and guns, for instance shot actual projectiles, which you could pick up mid-air when you stopped time with Time Bend, or push away with Windblast. The most important power, however? Passive invisiblity while leaning from behind cover!

Dishonored

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Candy Crush Saga

Let the hate flow through you. Your Jedi training did not prepare you for this. But honestly, when you think about it, Candy Crush is sort of a big deal, and I don’t even mean it in a financial sense.

It’s certainly one of the most well-known games out there. True, it’s more of a “Justin Bieber” fame than “The Beatles” fame, but it doesn’t change the fact that Candy Crush Saga is a game with a lasting appeal, mostly because it takes all the hints from Hazard 101.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

This game had no business being as fun as it was. And it’s not only because of enjoyable shooting. Gunslinger pushed the limits of how much you can integrate gameplay and story.

Each mission is a tale told by an old bounty hunter, but he’s often called out on his embellishments, so the game changes immediately. Enemies pop into existence or disappear, scenery shifts, or otherwise adjusts to “Not, it’s not how it happened”, all in real time.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

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The Stanley Parable

We’re cheating here, because the game originates from a 2011 Half-Life 2 mod, but 2013 saw the full, stand-alone release. What makes it worthwhile?

It’s a game that explores the idea of player agency in video games in a relentlessly funny, sarcastic way. Do what you’re told. Or don’t. The game will address it. And possibly make you hate games which take your freedom of action and choice away.

The Stanley Parable

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Divinity: Original Sin

Larian has a habit of experimenting. They’ve been making Divinity games since 2002 and every game is different. And their Original Sin is the most sensibly modern way to make a classic RPG.

Bird’s eye view on the full 3D world. Classic-looking, but voice-acted dialogues. Incredible, consistent interactivity of the game world.
D:OS is an amusingly written, brilliantly designed game pushing traditional RPGs into the 21st century.

Divinity: Original Sin

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

There were some before, mostly adaptations of physical games, but Hearthstone set a new standard and brought CCGs to a broader audience. Don’t ask me how, I don’t get card games.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

We’re cheating again, but you can’t talk about 2014 in gaming and not mention the Nemesis system. How no other developer used this concept to some extent is beyond me.

The idea is that everytime your character dies (for a while) at the hands of an orc, the blighter gets promoted and receives a personality. You can then shape him in many way. Make him scared of fire if you defeat him with a fiery explosion, or covered in scars after you sick a beast to savage him. You could effectively shape an entire orc hierarchy this way.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Pillars of Eternity

The second founding father of RPG Renaissance in video games, after D:OS. This one decided to embrace the legacy of Infinity Engine games.

It has beautiful, static 2D maps, classic ability and spell usage, and interface familiar to everyone who has ever played Baldur’s Gate II or Icewind Dale II.

With a sequel in the works, and two moderately successful (at least critically) traditional RPGs released since, we can safely assume it did some good.

Pillars of Eternity

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The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt

The third part of Geralt of Rivia’s journey almost overnight became the new measuring stick for… every genre, really, if some fans were to be listened to.

With a bit more seriousness: The Witcher 3 is an excellent game, taking pointers from different genres and formulas to provide a compelling experience. It also respected gamers’ wallets, with a smattering of free DLC and two fair-priced big expansions.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt

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Overwatch

Another of Blizzard’s smashing hits, and their first foray into first-person shooter territory. Overwatch distinguishes itself with the steadily growing, diverse roster of heroes with very different abilities and playstyles even within one role category, and a clever level design.

A serving of extra materials expanding the lore (comics, animated shorts) is a welcome bonus. It effectively placed “hero shooters” on the pedestal. Easily one of the most heard-of games of 2016, and not only because of a certain feature of Tracer.

Overwatch

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Pokemon Go

For a good while it was everywhere. It had some problems like missing or non-functioning features, and uncommunicative developer, but it came through, mostly.

It managed to reach more people than Niantic’s previous game Ingress, and motivate them to walk around, looking for admittedly cute creatures. The craze is dead, but the game is very much alive.

For Honor

Yeah, the matchmaking, connectivity, and balance were a trainwreck, but For Honor had a solid, engaging, sensible combat system that deserved better support. It was perfectly suited for duels, using a variation of the “rock-paper-scissors” mechanic.

It was all about using one of three stances (abstracted to left, right, top), which informed the direction of your own attack, and which enemy attacks you’ll be able to parry. Much more engaging than counter-fests of Assassin’s Arkham clones, and should be used more.

For Honor

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