Box art from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
© Nintendo
Games

The 10 best games of the decade

From blockbusters to indies, the past 10 years have seen gamers spoilt for choice with classic titles of all shapes and sizes. Here’s our pick of the decade’s finest.
Written by Ben Sillis and Jamie Hunt-Stevenson
12 min readPublished on
A lot can happen in a decade. The 2010s saw the indie scene blossom into the brilliant behemoth it is now, turning out incredible titles on an almost weekly basis, while console giants dropped truly game-changing platforms (bless you, Switch), while testing the power of these platforms to deliver experiences that once would have seemed impossible in their scale and ambition.
We can only hope that the next 10 years are as fruitful as the last, but for now, we raise a glass to the 2010s, and champion our favourite games of the decade – in no particular order.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

(CD Projekt Red, PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)
Sometimes sequels are derivative. Sometimes they’re iterative. For CD Projekt Red, it took three goes at making a game around Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy novels to stick the landing. The first two games are forgettable, arguably even unplayable now, but the third? Oh boy.
Where do we start? Is it the vast, beautifully realised open world to explore? The deep combat, the fearsome foes? Is it the side quests that don’t actually feel like an afterthought, but an extension of the central story? Is it the card battler Gwent, the greatest in-game game ever made (So good in fact, it received its own multiplayer spin-off)? Is it the two absolutely massive DLC installments that are as essential as the game itself?
The Witcher 3 was ostensibly the conclusion of the story of Geralt, a super-powered soldier who also likes to have sex in strange places. But really, The Witcher 3 was the first triple A blockbuster built from the ground up for the (then) new generation of consoles, the first to show us that open world roleplaying games could be as polished as they were epic in scope (looking at you Bethesda). It was a bold, incredibly expensive gamble, one that paid off, for Projekt Red, gamers and the industry as a whole many times over. While Netflix have striven to make clear their new fantasy series is based on the original Witcher books, make no mistake, it’s this game that’s put the franchise on the cultural map, the reason that show exists. Do yourself a favour and find out why – it’s even out on Nintendo Switch now, so you’ve really got no excuse.

Celeste

(Matt Makes Games, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC)
This incredible twitch platformer from Matt Makes Games blends incredibly tight controls with stunning, pixel-rich visuals and a deeply lovely soundtrack, but that’s really only scratching the surface of what makes the game great. Climbing the titular mountain as teen Madeleine, each short stage represents a litany of challenges to overcome, only to be tested afresh once you finally draw breath and finish the level.
You’ll die, a lot, but it doesn’t seem to matter – embracing each failure and learning from them, the immense satisfaction Celeste offers is from taking something that, at some points, you feel could genuinely be impossible, and mastering it just a few (or a few dozen) tries later. Marry this with a sweet, heartfelt story with a great deal to say about mental health and self-acceptance, and Celeste becomes as surprising and moving an experience as it is a testing one. If you’ve not scaled the mountain yet, we really don’t know what you’re waiting for.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

(Nintendo, Switch)
Where to start with a game that not only warrants a spot on this list, but has a genuine claim to the title of GOAT? It’s easy to shower BOTW with superlatives which barely touch upon why it’s such a joy. Yes, its scale is immense, and yes, the ambition is huge, and yes, its world is sprawling and beautiful and on and on. But the Switch’s flagship release deserves better than descriptors that can be issued to any number of open world adventures – mainly because it’s so much more than that.
Open world games all offer their claims of freedom, so much so that BOTW seemingly defies description simply because it truly does deliver what has now become a cliché. In BOTW, you’re given so much freedom, that very few gaming experiences can even come close. Want to go climb that enormous mountain? Knock yourself out. Fancy wearing a monster’s head to infiltrate their squad? Sure! Interested in trying to fight the final boss from the very beginning of the game? You can even do that!
In fact, it’s worth skipping discussions of the plot (OK, fine: get to the castle, free the princess), to instead touch upon the unique joys of BOTW, like being dropped into a landscape with no weaponry, no clothes and no clue – and simply being told to get on your way and sort things out for yourself. Or the sense of achievement when you throw on that warm doublet and take to icy peaks in search of the glowing warmth of a shrine. Or the sheer life-affirming joy of standing atop a tower, seeing something vast and stunning and mysterious way, way in the distance, and just thinking, ‘OK, let’s go’, before launching yourself towards it, and never being sure what you’ll see or achieve on your way.
In a genre teeming with open worlds, none have felt as open as Breath of the Wild. Put simply: we’ve never had it this good.

The Last of Us

(Naughty Dog, PS3, PS4)
Mention the names Ellie and Joel to the right audience and chances are you’ll be greeted with a flood of emotion usually reserved for a popular family member’s funeral. Such is the narrative skill, character building and emotional heft of Naughty Dog’s 2013 classic, The Last of Us.
You almost certainly know the story already, but if you’ve somehow avoided it, TLOU sees you take on the role of Joel, a beardy sadsack (OK, with good reason) tasked with escorting a young Ellen Page-alike across the post-apocalyptic U.S. in a bid to find a cure for an epidemic which turned the majority of the population into frankly disgusting monsters (we’re looking at you, Clickers).
While this may be a story now well-worn in modern pop culture, the warmth of the writing and sheer affection for these damaged characters makes The Last of Us so much more than just another post-apocalyptic adventure. It also plays brilliantly – mixing stealth and brutal combat to express the desperation of the protagonists’ actions, but this almost feels like an aside for what is a true feat of storytelling, in any medium.

Portal 2

(Valve, PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360)
A screenshot of Portal 2

Find your way in Portal 2

© Valve

The cake may be a lie, but it’s an important one. Portal 2 might just be the smartest game of the decade. It’s certainly one of the funniest. Valve took the polish it always brings and mixed it with the witty, charming style it was also once known for to come up with quite the most delightful puzzle game of all time. The first game’s central gimmick is just as appealing as ever: you can fire portals that appear on walls for you, or cubes, or paint, or cakes, to teleport through. But this time the puzzles, the plot and the jokes escalate to new heights, and depths, and heights again, and sometimes rapidly alternates between the two depending on where you’ve placed your portals. And when you’re done, the fantastic co-op mode is there waiting for you.
In retrospect, what made Portal 2’s impact so bittersweet was that, despite the critical acclaim the game received, it also marked the end of Valve’s interest in narrative led singleplayer games, pivoting as it did to focus on its multiplayer hits and its Steam download service instead. As good as these are, what we wouldn’t do for Portal 3 right now. Perhaps Valve’s recent announcement of the VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx marks the start of another new chapter in the company’s history. Good things come in threes, right?

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

(Bethesda, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)
A screenshot of a clash in Skyrim

Swords clash in Skyrim

© Bethesda

The single player game on this list that we’ve sunk more time into this decade than any other, Skyrim is now slightly dated looking, somewhat janky, but remains glorious. Its open ended fantasy story, the flexibility it allows you with characters, all the dragons you get to kill; it’s the sort of game that lures you into its many systems until one day your significant other comes home and finds that you’ve neglected to do the real world chores in favour of getting better at virtual smithying. But what would they know? Armour bonus is life.
It’s probably not fair to Skyrim to simply put it in our best games of the decade list. Perhaps more than any other game in this list, even the multiplayer ones, it’s more than that: it’s a way of life. It’s a meme generator (Remember “Arrow in the knee?” “Fus ro dah”? Good times). It’s a time sink. It’s the game you go to whenever you’re stuck for anything else. You finished the main story years ago, but that’s not even the point. You explore. You replay. You potter. You install a new mod and play it. You mod it yourself. It’s all things to all people. It’s also available on every platform under the sun at this point, so if you haven’t rolled yourself a khajit archer already, what on Tamriel are you waiting for?

The Witness

(Thekla, PC, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, iOS, Android)
A screenshot of a house from The Witness

Ready for some brain teasers?

© Thekla

The Witness is so simple, and yet, so fiendishly difficult. You stride around a compact, Myst-style island, solving puzzles on grids by drawing a line from start to finish, which sounds almost boring, but with each passing puzzle indie auteur Jonathan Blow and his team rip up the rules and your expectations, until suddenly you’re hours in, have ploughed through an entire notepad of graph paper (Be warned, you’ll need a few reams) and are starting to see grids and lines everywhere, even the sky.
The Witness makes our best games of the decade list though for being something even more than this. It’s Blow’s answer (as well as story consultant Tom Bissell’s) to the discourse around video game narratives. Neither are happy with how the medium has handled them until now, as wraparound for gameplay, endlessly copying cinematic tropes: The Witness is something brave, different, tangential. Something best left inferred. There actually is a story, but we’re not going to tell you where. Just be sure to complete the game’s second, secret ending for one of the most breathtakingly pretentious – and inspired – finale videos in any video game ever.

Inside

(Playdead, PC, PS4, Xbox One, iOS, Switch)
A screenshot from the underwater section of Inside

Escape the horror of Inside

© Playdead

Had Playdead’s previous game, Limbo, released just a few months earlier, it would have been a surefire candidate for lists like this 10 years ago. Its impact when it landed on Xbox Live on 2010 was immediate, igniting the thriving indie scene still going strong today.
The reclusive studio’s 2016 followup, Inside, is on paper very similar game: you guide a nameless character through a monochromatic world, solving puzzles and avoiding being killed by guard dogs, shot or blown up. But Inside is somehow thematically much more ambitious, a 2D puzzle-platformer that transcends its genre and setting, moving from merely creepy into something absolutely extraordinary by the end of its several hours of playtime. To say much more will spoil it, but suffice to say you will be put through the ringer of emotions along the way (but mostly scared silly).
A note of caution: If you start this game, you absolutely must see it through to the finish. On no account should you give up on it before reaching the ending. You’ll see.

Soma

(Frictional Games, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac)
Horror comes in all shapes and sizes. Something like Until Dawn offers jump-y, cat-leaping-out-of-a-cupboard horror that’s purely focused on spiking your adrenalin (and ace for it). There’s the doom-laden oppression of the Silent Hill series, pushing the boundaries of discomfort in all its psychosexual glory. And then there’s Soma. Soma is unquestionably terrifying. The elevator pitch makes it sound a bit like BioShock bred with Frictional Games’ previous effort, Amnesia. After a brief prelude, you’re plunged into a dilapidated underwater facility, seemingly overrun with insane robots. We’ll stop there to avoid spoilers, but it’s fair to say, that what follows is perhaps one of the most surprising, horrifying, and morally challenging game narratives of recent times.
Practically helpless against your robotic foes, the sneak-and-hide gameplay offers sweaty-palmed tension in abundance, but what gives this the edge over its genre mates is its willingness to frighten through asking the player questions they’d really rather not answer. How far would you go to escape an inescapable situation? What do you consider it is to be human? And how do you justify actions that may challenge this? It’s a tough, complex game that fits a great deal into its short running time, and as your character searches for any one of a way out, the truth, or a semblance of hope, you’ll realise how few titles there are quite like Soma. Oh, and if the ending doesn’t keep you awake at night ­– well, perhaps you’re less human than you think. Dive in.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

(Valve, Hidden Path, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac)
A screenshot from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Fight fire with fire in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

© Valve

Counter-Strike has been the connoisseur’s choice for online shooters since its arrival 20 years ago, with the original’s mix of brilliantly simple set-up (terrorists vs counter terrorists, GO), superbly-designed maps and nail-biting combat built upon and refined with each passing instalment. This perhaps reached its apex with its fourth iteration in 2012’s Global Offensive, which delivered some of the best levels multiplayer FPS games have ever seen, introduced brilliant new modes in Arms Race and Demolition, and tweaked existing and introduced new weaponry to bring even greater intensity to firefights. Its establishment as an esports phenomenon only furthers its case for being one of the best multiplayer shooters of the decade, and perhaps ever.