What are the best video games of the decade? Recently, we discussed the best movies of the 2010s, but there are other uses for screens, and we here at ScreenRex will talk about all of them, regardless of our competence.
So let’s talk video games!
#10: Slay the Spire (2017)
Roguelikes have existed for a long time, but the 2010s saw a major renaissance within the genre. Everyone is going to have their favorite roguelike from the decade, and they’re all great. The biblical body horror of The Binding of Isaac, the slapstick adventuring of Spelunky, the punny shoot-em-up of Enter the Gungeon, the dungeon-crawling rhythm madness of Crypt of the Necrodancer: All excellent. But for me, there was one entry that stood just a bit above the rest: Slay the Spire. Technically a roguelike deck-building game, in Slay the Spire, you play as one of three characters, each of whom has a unique set of cards and abilities, and try to climb a tower. The paths are randomized, the enemies are randomized, the rewards are randomized, and you try to make the best of each individual run.
The best roguelikes have a lot of levels of depth to them. Slay the Spire nails all of them. There’s routing, figuring out the best path through a given floor. Interaction, where you try to make a coherent, strong suite of abilities from a completely random and unpredictable set of rewards. There’s the fight-by-fight gameplay, where you have to make the right choices in the moment. The resource management aspect, where you have to manage a limited pool of health and rare opportunities for upgrade. And you have to walk this tightrope all while the next floor could throw a completely unexpected challenge at you.
If you don’t have a favorite roguelike, I highly recommend experimenting with the genre. There’s something for everyone there, and for me, that something was Slay the Spire.
#9: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
Nintendo has some of the most iconic franchises in video game history. It also has a nasty habit of letting longrunning series’ like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid lie moribund for years (or, in Metroid’s case, decades) at a time. The Legend of Zelda wasn’t in amazing shape coming into the 2010s. After the universally beloved Ocarina of Time in 1998, the series saw a string of cult hits like the controversial Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker. While Twilight Princess was liked, it hewed close to the Ocarina formula, and after it, the 2010s largely saw a series of remasters and rereleases of classic Zelda games. And then Breath of the Wild hit.
If Ocarina of Time was the franchise updating for the 3D era, Breath of the Wild was its take on the open world adventure games that dominated the 2010s. It was better than all of them. The individual mechanics of your typical Ubisoft open world game were all present, but Breath of the Wild reinvented many of them with Nintendo’s exceptional art direction and a willingness to let you go long stretches without encountering… much of anything, really. And yet, few gaming experiences charmed me as much as climbing a random mountain just because I could, only to find a gargantuan island maze on the other side. There was no side quest leading me there, no HUD marker I was following. Breath of the Wild‘s greatest feat was getting players to explore for the sake of exploration, and making it feel like a grand reward.
#8: Hotline Miami (2012)
Take Nicholas Winding Refn’s iconic film Drive and put it through a Super Meat Boy-inspired grinder of fast-paced, no-mistake, quick-restart gameplay challenges and you get Hotline Miami. Hotline Miami has a retro-neon aesthetic and an absolutely banging soundtrack that I guarantee you’ve heard before. It’s aesthetically gorgeous, with rich, deep gameplay and a simple but evocative story. In many ways, Hotline Miami plays like a criticism of violence in video games, forcing you to reckon with the highs and lows of the thrills of murder-as-mechanic. There are a lot of games that can match Hotline Miami‘s aesthetic excess, but few managed to pair it with such precise, engaging mechanics.
Hotline Miami is an ultraviolent action puzzle game, a blend of things I had never really considered before. Each level presents you with a floor of a building filled with enemies and asks you to find a way to kill them all. Do you use a gun, make some noise, and risk bringing them on faster? Throw your weapon to get a quick kill but leave yourself defenseless? Did you pay attention to what doors are open? What windows enemies might spot you through? Where chokepoints are? Even if you make a mistake, you’re just a half-second away from your next attempt.
#7: Papers, Please (2013)
Do the best video games all have to be fun? That’s a tough question. For some people, the answer (very reasonably) is, “Yes.” That’s the ‘game’ part. The rise of gaming-as-esport, with the worldwide popularity of Overwatch and League of Legends prioritize the sportiness of that answer, a system in which the moment-to-moment appeal is not unlike that of a basketball game. And yet, the 2010s may be the best decade ever for video games that are deeply, even profoundly not fun, and for my money, none are better than Papers, Please.
In Papers, Please, you play a border guard at the edge of an authoritarian state tasked with examining passports of people trying to enter. You aren’t a true-believer, necessarily; this is just a job. You need money to take care of your family, and this is where you wound up. Initially, the tasks are easy. If someone has a forged passport, don’t let them in. But then it gets harder. Maybe you’re asked to exclude people from a specific region. Then anyone who has even visited that region. The rules start piling up, and your pay gets docked for mistakes. Then, maybe a family member gets sick. You’re offered a bribe. What happens next?
There is no game in existence that’s better at portraying the banality of evil. Papers, Please is a stressful, gripping, insightful game that everyone should experience at least once.
#6: Nier: Automata (2017)
A glorious mess. Nier: Automata is… a lot of game. With 26 different endings (though 21 of them are joke endings) that warrant multiple playthroughs on the same account, there’s just a lot more happening in Nier: Automata than you expect. In some ways, it reminds me of shows like Riverdale, which tend to burn through plot at such a breakneck pace that every time you think you’re a step ahead of where the game is going, you find that you’re actually just barely keeping up with its ambitions. On its face, Nier: Automata tells the story of 2B and 9S, two android warriors protecting the last colony of humans on the moon by making war on the alien robots that have conquered Earth. That alone ends up being a surprisingly gripping story.
But eventually, the game opens up and becomes something altogether stranger, and that’s where Nier: Automata really shines. A mix of phenomenally evocative iconography and design-work with some of the finest twists and turns of the decade, Nier: Automata is something you just need to experience. Combine that with the gripping, precise combat that Platinum Games perfected in (excellent) games like Bayonetta, and you have a high-concept sci-fi masterpiece that’s a delight to play and a joy to watch. And, as a bonus, it’s the only game this decade that even comes close to ending as strong as another game coming up on this list….
#5: Bloodborne (2015)
If Dark Souls created a genre-defining update of the Metroidvania and rejection of the all-things-to-all-people nature of modern AAA games, then Bloodborne perfected it. Sick of watching people hide behind shields and playing too passively? Bloodborne forces you to learn how to play these games actively, rewarding risks and speeding up combat in fascinating ways. Similarly, the game limits the number of weapons, largely does away with armor and magic, and tries to push you to a single, “idealized” play style. While not everyone will click with it, Bloodborne is also the game that is most likely to help new players come to love FromSoft’s punishing style of gameplay, so its limitations are clearly purposeful and smart.
As gameplay, Bloodborne is a masterpiece. As a story? If anything, it’s even better. Perhaps the best riff on H.P. Lovecraft ever made, Bloodborne decolonizes cosmic horror and turns its iconography into a more modern tragedy. While it has Dark Souls‘ dedication to dense environmental storytelling and reverence for history, it is more traditionally story-driven. You play as a Hunter in one long night in Yharnam, a Victorian city populated with monsters and madmen. As you come to unravel the story of the Healing Church, Byrgenwerth College, and the Pale Blood, you witness tragedy become horror in front of you. Anyone looking for the definitive riff on Lovecraft for the 21st century to date need look no further.
#4: Celeste (2018)
Platforming is so deep in the history of video gaming that it may very well be in its DNA. Nearly everyone alive has heard of Mario, star of the most successful platforming franchise of all time, and for many their introduction to gaming when they were young. Platforming is one of the rare genres that has stayed vital and relevant even as gaming has undergone radical transformations in the last decades. And yet, despite the prevalence of the genre, I’ve never played something quite like Celeste.
In Celeste, you play as Madeline, a troubled young woman climbing Celeste Mountain in Canada seemingly out of spite. Madeline is angry at the world and clearly has some issues with family, but as she progresses up the mountain, she’s forced to reckon with her relationships, her confidence, and her internalized sense of self-loathing.
As a story hook, it’s pretty simple; as a game, it’s magnificent. Rapid-fire, single-screen platforming challenges that combine and remix the game’s short list of simple mechanics in phenomenal ways, at times it verges on a puzzle game. And yet, Celeste also has a robust assistance system that allows you to modify the difficulty in a way that’s still deeply satisfying, unlike so many puzzle games (or platformers). Madeline is a remarkable character, and the cast she builds in her climb is similarly memorable, giving this game a potent mix of pure gameplay and lovely, subtle storytelling.
#3: Undertale (2015)
I grew up playing roleplaying games. Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger — some of the best games in the 90s and early 2000s were RPGs. These were big, expansive fantasy epics about war, history, gods, and monsters. But as big budget, 3D graphics became more popular, JRPGs developed a cutscene bloat that, in my opinion, dehumanized the characters and made the stories feel turgid and humorless. People laugh about Hideo Kojima’s excessive cutscenes, but at least Kojima has some interesting visual and sociological ideas. What even was Final Fantasy XIII?
But the 2010s also gave us an indie RPG resurgence. And the undisputed king of these was Undertale, Toby Fox’s sweet RPG mash-up about a human child lost in a kingdom of monsters. Undertale is one of the most warm-hearted, empathetic games out there. For so many RPGs, moral choice is a dialogue option, or pressing one of three buttons at the end of a game. For Undertale, morality is something you live. Playing as a pacifist is challenging and enlightening; playing as a murderer is something the game truly and genuinely judges you for.
Beyond that, the game is fucking funny. From the absurdity of the Mettaton challenges to the excitable rage of Undyne, its bosses are memorable, each with distinctive gameplay gimmicks and recognizable personalities. Hell, even the normal, random-encounter enemies have distinct personalities, which you only learn by taking the time to experiment and talk to them. Few games go so far to make you feel for everyone in it as Undertale, one of the most remarkable storytelling accomplishments of the 2010s.
#2: The Outer Wilds (2019)
I can say with complete honesty that I have never played anything like The Outer Wilds. Part Groundhog Day, part Interstellar, all video game. In The Outer Wilds, you play a nameless astronaut from a small planet in an empty galaxy. You are tasked with exploring the solar system, but 22 minutes into your mission, the sun goes supernova. As the exploding star stuff rushes towards you, you stare at death and — you wake up. This sets up the basic loop of the game, where you have 22 minutes (or until you die) to explore. You carry nothing with you, but your computer does track rumors that you find and explore. Otherwise, everything resets.
What makes the game unique is how expansive and absolutely staggering the space is. There were multiple moments when I just put my controller down and gawked at the majesty of what I was seeing. Those small moments — the first time you enter Brittle Hollow; getting lifted up in Giant’s Deep; finding the Quantum Moon — would have guaranteed the game a spot on any Best of the Year list. But you don’t become one of the best video games of the decade unless you stick the landing.
Holy shit, The Outer Wilds sticks the landing. I won’t spoil how and I won’t say why, but I will say: Give this game your time. This is a truly singular experience.
#1: The Dark Souls Trilogy (2011, 2014, 2016)
Look, there were three games this decade that basically shaped the way games made, played, and discussed. Two of them, while immensely popular, just… weren’t very good, in my opinion. But Dark Souls? Dark Souls is a goddamn masterpiece. The Dark Souls Trilogy is essential on any list of the best video games of the 2010s. And while everyone has their favorite (mine might be DS2, and I welcome your boos), they’re all essential to play if you want to understand the evolution of video games and gaming criticism in the last decade. Bloodborne may have perfected the formula, but the giant, messy Dark Souls created it — and gives players more options, more weirdness, and more ways to play.
But it wasn’t just the Decade of Dark Souls; it was the Dark Souls of Decades. Few games felt as relevant to the political and cultural atmosphere of the decade for me as did Dark Souls‘ story of a world unable to see beyond the myths perpetrated by those in power, a civilization collapsing into hostility as cycles of abuse are perpetrated over and over. But similarly, few games pushed me to view the art of video games as critically as Dark Souls did. Some people claim the ‘story’ of the game is found in the ‘lore’, the item descriptions. But you find so much just by stopping and paying attention to the land you’re walking through.
If you can get past the gatekeeping bullshit of its online fandom and don’t mind a (sometimes deeply frustrating) challenge, Dark Souls and its sequels offer one of the most gripping experiences in gaming history.