The Best Video Game of Each Year, 2000-2025, According to Inkhaven
A modified list
Earlier I posted my list, and then wrote it in the common space of Inkhaven to be modified. (Earlier, Jenn wrote a list of songs which pioneered this game, and then there was a list of blogposts, which I believe hasn’t been published yet.) There was significant controversy, much lamenting of years with a glut of fantastic games, and some breaking of the rules. (People could erase my opinions to replace with their own, but were supposed to leave the replacements alone.) I wrote slightly different pitches down on the board, mostly for space reasons; I’ll transcribe the surviving pitches here.
1998: I would’ve put Baldur’s Gate or Starcraft, replaced by Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Defined what a 3D adventure game could be.
1999: I would’ve put Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Dungeon Keeper 2, without justification.
2000: Diablo II. Action-adventure RPG that defined the genre for years. Endless maps and loot and a satisfying skill tree.
2001: Super Smash Bros. Melee. Classic party fighting game. Expanded the original’s simplified formula without becoming too large.
2002: TES3: Morrowind → Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. The first Zelda game where the overworld was “explorable” out to the shadows on the horizon. The “Sailing Simulator” was subsequently broken all to hell in speedruns. Superswimming was first TAS-only, then with storage, and finally with the power of PAUSA!
2003: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Bioware in its glory days. An RPG using a modified D&D system, with interesting companions and a classic plot.
2004: World of Warcraft. Probably the best MMO ever made.
2005: Civilization IV. Probably the high point of the Civ series.
2006: TES4: Oblivion. Overshadowed by its siblings, it nevertheless is a charming and sprawling world.
2007: Mass Effect. The first Sci-Fi RPG to fully embrace cosmicism. Better than its sequels, even if you can’t kiss Garrus yet.
2008: Fallout 3 → Left 4 Dead. A 4v4 asymmetrical zombie shooter. Requiring coordination even more than FPS skill, focused on ambush mechanics that created unique gameplay and intense team-bonding.
2009: Minecraft. An idea beautiful in its simplicity. Someone commented: “Laid the foundations of my agency. <3”
2010: Fallout New Vegas. Action RPG by Obsidian instead of Bethesda. Rich factions, engaging world.
2011: TES5: Skyrim → Bastion. Supergiant’s breakout title is a perfect game. Extraordinary art and unique music, a story that’s moving and can be completed in a single sitting, and the gameplay is just *fun* at each moment. Plus, it’s stable. (Sorry Skyrim)
2012: Crusader Kings 2 → Journey. The soundtrack and atmosphere.
2013: Bioshock Infinite → Pocket Card Jockey for 3ds → GTA V. You race cute mechanical horses but also it is about shooting people. (This used to say Pocket Card Jockey for 3ds. Whoever changed it, you’re pretty funny but this doesn’t mean you’re not on my shitlist forever.)
“Fair, but consider also Don’t Starve, a horror-survival exploration game with procedurally generated worlds. The visual style is unique Edward Gorey-esque 2D sprites projected in 3D, use of parallax, sanity mechanics… it’s very charming & coherent for how fucking hard it is.”
Ok yeah, that’s valid.
2014: Hearthstone → Titanfall. West and Zampella made Call of Duty, and then took that experience to create the best twitch shooter bar none. This game feels so good to move and run and maneuver in. And then someone drops a titan or maphack and gives a brand new angle on it all.
2015: Undertale. Indie RPG. The core skill in getting along with hostile people is not being hurt by them while listening.
2016: Stellaris → Dark Souls III, also without justification.
2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild → Hollow Knight.
The person who wrote the title later gave a spoken justification which I will attempt to do justice: “Hollow Knight had great visuals, great music, kicked off the metroidvania renaissance and was good at gating exploration behind unlocks.”
[Vaniver’s note; Personally, I got ~2 bosses in and then got stuck. Perhaps now that I’ve gotten ok at this style of game, b/c of Elden Ring and Silksong, I’ll give it another try.]
2018: Among Us → Celeste, which a protest vote for Beat Saber. Best precision platformer, kick-ass music, loads of content, iconic.
2019: Disco Elysium. The writing! The writing. A skill system that shapes the character’s personality.
“I can’t in good faith erase this one, but we ought also to note Outer Wilds.”
“It’s actually Slay the Spire.”
2020: Hades. The culmination of Supergiant’s art. Hades is a perfect pairing of theme and its roguelike gameplay.
[Vaniver’s note: Like with 2019, this was also a year when several good games came out—but there was less willingness to note them.]
2021: Valheim. Survival crafting RPG with excellent art direction and theming. Cold, wet, and scary at times.
2022: Total War: Warhammer III → Pentiment. The Name of the Rose meets Andrei Rublev: the visual novel. Art! Murder! Madness! Period accurate 16th century woodcut graphics!
2023: Baldur’s Gate III → Baldur’s Gate III. That pale vampire twink can suck me dry I mean who said that?
(It was a legal move to replace my justification with another to lock in a game.)
2024: Balatro → Factorio: Space Age. Redefining the factory game from the OGs. It’s not just more Factorio, it’s 4 new Factorios and a massive jump in quality (*rimshot*). (Also, Hades was in 2020 [the Factorio 1.0 year] and erasing that was beyond my courage.)
THE FACTORY MUST GROW
2025: Hades 2 → Hollow Knight: Silksong.
[Vaniver’s note: Hollow Knight Silksong was announced years ago, and fans would continually hope in vain for it to come out. Then suddenly they announced it was coming out in 2 weeks, and the release brought down Steam, because they didn’t allow preorders and too many people tried to get it at once. One of the rare sequels that views itself as a sequel instead of the same game a second time; many joked that the tutorial for Silksong was the original Hollow Knight.]
Only 6 out of 25 of Jenn’s picks for songs survived, compared to 14 of my picks for video games. Some reasons that might be:
Many more songs are released per year than video games, and so there’s much stiffer competition, and it’s much harder to identify the ‘clear winner’ for that year.
More people have opinions on songs than video games.
Relatedly, I think my list was up for less time than Jenn’s (with the Bodega Bay Beach Episode of Inkhaven as the endpoint for my list)
People were more willing to argue or fight over keeping things on the list. (“What, you want to replace X with Y? You’re crazy!”)
People could listen to a song in <5m and compare it to the one that they wanted to put on the list. But erasing a game they’d never played (and which might take a hundred hours to play!) in order to put a game that they did play on the list required more confidence than people had, in some cases.