The 15 Most Influential Video Games of the 2020s

15. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

Open-world games have spent years selling the fantasy of absolute freedom, but very few actually trust players enough to let that freedom become messy, inventive, and a little ridiculous. Nintendo built a world where experimentation mattered more than obedience, and where the best moments often came from ideas that looked stupid until they somehow worked. That is where The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom changed the conversation, because it pushed physics, traversal, and creativity into the same playground without making any of it feel restrictive. A lot of studios are still trying to catch up with that level of systemic confidence. Even now, it remains one of the clearest examples of modern design giving the player room to surprise the game itself. | © Nintendo

14. Dragon’s Dogma 2 (2024)

Dragon’s Dogma 2 felt influential for the simple reason that it refused to smooth out all the rough edges modern RPGs usually sand away. Travel could be inconvenient, encounters could go sideways fast, and the world often seemed more interested in surprising the player than politely guiding them forward. That unpredictability gave it a personality that stood apart in a genre increasingly built around comfort and efficiency. The pawn system added another layer to that identity, making the adventure feel social, strange, and a little unpredictable even when playing alone. Not every design choice was friendly, but the game reminded the industry that friction can be memorable when it comes from conviction instead of carelessness. | © Capcom

13. Animal Well (2024)

At first glance, this looked like the kind of indie release people praise for a weekend and then quietly move on from. Instead, it turned into one of those rare games that kept expanding in the public imagination the more people talked about it, traded discoveries, and realized how much had been hiding beneath the surface. Its influence comes from resisting the current obsession with over-explaining everything and trusting curiosity to do the heavy lifting. That made the whole experience feel more communal, because progress often came from comparison, theory, and shared obsession. Plenty of games want mystery, but very few make it spread through a player base the way Animal Well did. | © Shared Memory

12. Street Fighter 6 (2023)

For years, fighting games kept colliding with the same problem: newcomers were curious, veterans were demanding, and too many releases struggled to satisfy both groups at once. This one managed to lower the barrier without draining the genre of its competitive edge, which is a harder trick than it sounds. The controls helped, the presentation helped, and the full package felt unusually alive from day one instead of stitched together around ranked matches alone. Street Fighter 6 also gave other developers a practical model for how accessibility can exist without turning depth into an afterthought. That balance made it more than a successful sequel; it made it one of the defining fighters of the decade. | © Capcom

11. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (2025)

Big RPGs often chase scale by making everything louder, flashier, and easier to digest, which is exactly why this one stood out. Warhorse leaned into social realism, grounded conflict, and a version of medieval life that feels built from texture rather than spectacle, with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II using that commitment as its strongest identity marker. The result is a world that asks the player to pay attention instead of just sprinting from objective to objective. That matters in the 2020s, because so many expensive games are terrified of letting immersion breathe on its own terms. Its growing influence comes from proving that a historical RPG can feel huge without relying on fantasy shorthand to do the work. | © Warhorse Studios

10. Hades (2020)

Roguelikes had already earned a loyal following, but they still carried a reputation for being intimidating, repetitive, or too punishing for players on the outside looking in, and Hades helped crack that image wide open. Supergiant found a way to make repeated failure feel rewarding by tying progression to character, dialogue, and momentum instead of treating every setback like lost time. That structure made the loop easier to love, but it was the polish that really pushed the game into another league. Combat stayed sharp, the writing stayed lively, and the art direction gave the whole thing a distinct personality from the first room onward. Since then, plenty of developers have borrowed from its rhythm, but very few have matched the same elegance. | © Supergiant Games

9. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)

Timing gave this release a huge push, but timing alone does not explain why it became such a lasting cultural force. People used it as a social hub, a design toy, a comfort routine, and for a while even a replacement for hanging out in person, which gave the game a presence far beyond the usual Nintendo audience. That kind of reach changed the way publishers looked at cozy games, community features, and low-pressure play loops. Its impact was not built on competition or spectacle, but on habit, warmth, and the pleasure of shaping a space that felt entirely your own. Years later, developers are still chasing the same kind of broad, sticky appeal that made Animal Crossing: New Horizons impossible to ignore. | © Nintendo

8. Helldivers 2 (2024)

Multiplayer hits come and go fast, but this one landed with the kind of chaotic energy that turns a good co-op shooter into a full-blown online event. What really pushed it into another category was Helldivers 2 turning its galactic war into a shared performance, where every mission felt connected to a bigger joke, a bigger failure, or a bigger community story. Players were not just grinding for loot; they were spreading memes, mourning lost planets, and treating patch notes like frontline news. That made the whole thing feel alive in a way live-service games keep promising and rarely deliver. Its influence is already obvious in the renewed obsession with co-op design that values unpredictability, player storytelling, and collective nonsense over sterile seasonal checklists. | © Arrowhead Game Studios

7. Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

The most influential games are not always the ones people admire without hesitation, and this decade has no better example of that than this release. Cyberpunk 2077 became the industry’s loudest lesson in what happens when marketing momentum outruns technical reality, especially when expectations have been inflated for years. At the same time, its long recovery turned it into one of gaming’s biggest case studies in post-launch rehabilitation, showing how much a broken reputation can shift with enough work and enough time. That split legacy is exactly why it still matters so much. Whether people bring it up as a warning or a comeback story, its shadow is still hanging over how players judge ambitious launches. | © CD PROJEKT RED

6. Alan Wake 2 (2023)

Alan Wake 2 arrived like a reminder that big-budget games do not have to sand off every strange edge to feel important. Remedy leaned into horror, live-action weirdness, fractured storytelling, and outright theatrical confidence, then somehow made the whole thing feel coherent instead of indulgent. In a market that often mistakes safety for polish, that kind of creative nerve stands out. Its influence is not about raw sales alone, but about proving there is still room for prestige gaming that feels authored, eccentric, and visually fearless. Plenty of studios want cinematic ambition, yet very few commit to it with this much style or this little embarrassment about being genuinely odd. | © Remedy Entertainment

5. Wordle (2021)

Not every influential game needs flashy graphics, console wars, or a hundred-hour campaign to leave a mark on the decade. This tiny daily ritual slipped into people’s mornings with almost embarrassing ease, then rewired how the internet talks about casual play, because suddenly everyone had one puzzle, one score, and one neat little box of colored pride or shame to share. The genius was not complexity, but restraint: one challenge a day, no bloat, no endless grind, and no real barrier to entry. It reminded the industry that frictionless design can travel further than expensive spectacle when the hook is clean enough. An absurd number of imitators followed, and that alone says plenty about the shadow cast by Wordle. | © Josh Wardle

4. Elden Ring (2022)

Open-world games had already conquered the industry long before this release, but a lot of them were starting to feel over-designed and over-explained. Then FromSoftware came in, stripped away the hand-holding, and made discovery feel dangerous again instead of procedural. The result was a game that trusted curiosity more than convenience, and that trust changed player expectations almost overnight. Once Elden Ring hit, it became harder to look at map-marker overload and endless guidance systems without seeing them as a little cowardly. Its reach goes beyond the Soulslike label, because it helped prove that scale, mystery, and difficulty could coexist inside a mainstream blockbuster without one diluting the others. | © FromSoftware

3. Vampire Survivors (2022)

At a glance, it looked almost too simple to matter this much, yet that simplicity turned out to be the whole revolution. The loop was brutally easy to understand, the runs were dangerously easy to restart, and Vampire Survivors helped turn “bullet heaven” into one of the defining indie crazes of the decade. After it broke through, the market filled with games chasing the same hypnotic mix of auto-attacks, escalating chaos, and numbers going delightfully out of control. That does not happen unless something lands in exactly the right way at exactly the right moment. Its influence came from proving that spectacle can come from accumulation, rhythm, and smart progression rather than technical flash. | © poncle

2. Balatro (2024)

A poker-inspired roguelike deckbuilder should have been too niche to explode the way this one did, which is part of what made its rise so fascinating. People who do not usually touch card games got hooked, strategy fans lost entire weekends to it, and suddenly the familiar “one more run” trap had found a new shape. What made the obsession stick was how cleanly the game translated risk, reward, and improvisation into something instantly readable but dangerously replayable. It never needed giant production values to dominate conversation, because the design itself did the heavy lifting. By the time everyone started chasing the next indie sensation, Balatro had already shown how far a brilliant mechanical idea can travel. | © LocalThunk

1. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)

Modern RPGs have spent years talking about player choice, but very few were prepared for what happened when one game actually delivered it at this scale. Larian built an experience so reactive, so generous with possibility, and so confident in its own complexity that Baldur’s Gate 3 ended up shifting expectations for the entire genre. Players stopped accepting the usual illusion of freedom quite so easily once they had seen how much this world was willing to account for. It also gave turn-based design a huge mainstream boost at a time when plenty of publishers still treated that style as a commercial risk. More than anything, it reminded the industry that ambition does not have to mean simplification, and that depth can still become a genuine event. | © Larian Studios