Over the past ten years, the PC and console gaming industry has seen hundreds of thousands of new releases, with Steam alone accounting for over 100,000 games. This figure could be even higher if counting smaller and indie releases not tracked by major platforms. However, only a handful of these titles have entered the gaming Hall of Fame.
According to data presented by Betideas.com, the top five highest-rated console and PC video games were all released before 2010.
Only Four out of the Top 20 Titles Were Released in the Last 5 Years
The gaming industry has been flooded with new titles over the past decade. Tools like Unity and Unreal Engine, and gaming platforms Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Live, and the Nintendo eShop, have made video games more accessible than ever, pushing the total number of new releases to record highs. Still, the quantity over quality came with its price, with older titles remaining much more popular among players than the newer ones.
Older console and PC titles remain popular because they have great gameplay, strong stories, and design that set industry benchmarks. On the other hand, many newer games focus more on making money and using the same ideas over and over, which can disappoint players. This has led to a huge gap between older and newer games on the list of all-time favorites.
According to Metacritic, which ranks video games based on aggregate critic scores, the top five most popular titles of all time were all released before 2010, and some were even much older. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, released in 1998, tops this list with a nearly perfect metascore rating of 99 points. SoulCalibur (1999) and Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) ranked second and third, with only one point less than that. The list of the top five video games of all time is rounded by two Nintendo megahits, Super Mario Galaxy (2007) and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010), which both hit 97 points in metascore.
Statistics show that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, released in 2017, ranked the highest among relatively newer titles, reaching 97 points. Only three more titles released after 2010 made it to the top 20 list – Red Dead Redemption 2 from 2018, Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2014, and Super Mario Odyssey from 2017.
The Early 2000s were the Golden age of Video Game Releases
Based on their aggregate critic score, the Metacritic ranking proves that the early 2000s remain the golden age of video game releases, with most top-rated titles released in that period.
Of the 20 games on the list, three were released before 2000, eight in the early 2000s, five in the late 2000s, and only four after 2010, proving that players remain loyal to classics despite all the progress in how games are made.