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Brandon Sanderson’s 10 Favorite Video Games Of All Time

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - June 21st 2026, 17:00 GMT+2

Katamari Damacy 2004 — 10. Katamari Damacy (2004)

*Katamari Damacy* begins with a cosmic disaster, a tiny prince, and a sticky ball, then somehow gets stranger from there. Namco’s cult classic turns everyday objects into absurd treasure, asking players to roll up thumbtacks, cats, cars, buildings, and eventually reality itself while one of gaming’s greatest soundtracks cheerfully loses its mind. Sanderson has pointed to its ability to make the world feel new, and that is the perfect read: *Katamari Damacy* is not polished into normality. It is joyful nonsense with actual design genius underneath. | © Namco

Cropped Undertale — 9. Undertale (2015)

*Undertale* looks tiny until it starts taking apart the way players think about RPGs. Toby Fox built a game where jokes, bullet-hell dodging, friendship, guilt, menu screens, and save files all become part of the story’s machinery. Sanderson’s admiration for its perspective makes total sense, because *Undertale* is not just telling a story about monsters underground; it is watching the person holding the controller. It is cute, strange, funny, mean when it needs to be, and much smarter than its deliberately scrappy surface suggests. | © Toby Fox

Cropped Fallout New Vegas — 8. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

*Fallout: New Vegas* is what happens when a post-apocalyptic RPG remembers that the best wastelands are political, petty, funny, and morally exhausting. Obsidian’s Mojave is packed with factions that all have arguments, flaws, uniforms, slogans, and enough bad ideas to keep the desert radioactive without help from the bombs. Sanderson’s taste for strong worldbuilding and player choice fits perfectly here, because *New Vegas* rarely treats decisions as decoration. It lets you talk, sneak, gamble, betray, negotiate, or stumble into chaos wearing a cowboy hat. | © Obsidian Entertainment / Bethesda Softworks

Super Mario World 1990 — 7. Super Mario World (1990)

*Super Mario World* has the rare confidence of a game that does not need to explain itself. It gives Mario a cape, introduces Yoshi, hides secret exits everywhere, and then quietly becomes one of the cleanest 2D platformers ever made. Sanderson has said platformers are not usually his main lane, which makes this pick even better: Mario simply barges past genre preferences through pure craft. Every jump, enemy, switch palace, and ridiculous little dinosaur noise feels tuned by people who knew fun is also a design discipline. | © Nintendo

The Curse of Monkey Island 1997 1 — 6. The Curse of Monkey Island (1997)

*The Curse of Monkey Island* is point-and-click comedy at its most confident: pirates, insults, rubber chickens, cursed jewelry, and puzzles that operate on dream logic but somehow still feel fair. LucasArts gave Guybrush Threepwood a gorgeous hand-drawn world, strong voice acting, and jokes that land without needing to elbow the player every two seconds. Sanderson’s love for it makes sense because the game is built on character, timing, and charm rather than brute spectacle. It is silly, yes, but professionally silly, which is the hardest kind to pull off. | © LucasArts

Cropped breath of the wild — 5. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* understands that adventure works best when the player is allowed to ruin the plan in creative ways. Nintendo stripped *Zelda* down to curiosity, weather, physics, cooking experiments, half-broken weapons, and the irresistible urge to climb something that absolutely does not need climbing. For Sanderson, the appeal lines up neatly with nonlinear storytelling and a world that trusts players to assemble meaning through exploration. Hyrule feels ancient, lonely, funny, dangerous, and weirdly peaceful, often within the same five-minute walk. | © Nintendo

Cropped Halo 2 — 4. Halo 2 (2004)

*Halo 2* is often remembered for multiplayer, LAN parties, and people yelling across rooms, but Sanderson’s pick seems much more focused on its campaign. Bungie did something bold by splitting the story between Master Chief and the Arbiter, turning what could have been a straightforward space-war sequel into a stranger, richer look at faith, propaganda, and power inside the Covenant. Add Marty O’Donnell’s thunderous score, sharp pacing, and some beautifully overdramatic sci-fi dialogue, and the game still knows exactly how to make a hallway feel mythic. | © Bungie / Microsoft Game Studios

Final Fantasy X 2001 — 3. Final Fantasy X (2001)

*Final Fantasy X* is the kind of RPG that wears its melodrama proudly, then backs it up with one of the series’ most memorable worlds. Spira has religion, politics, sports, grief, monsters, pilgrimage routes, and enough emotional baggage to fill an airship, which makes Sanderson’s affection for it very easy to understand. It also gave *Final Fantasy* full voice acting, a huge cinematic sweep, and a battle system that still feels clean instead of dusty. Tidus laughing remains internet history; the worldbuilding is the real treasure. | © Square Enix

2. Bloodborne (2015)

*Bloodborne* feels like the FromSoftware game Sanderson was always going to gravitate toward: gothic horror, cosmic nightmares, hidden lore, and a city that explains itself only after you’ve already made several terrible decisions. Its storytelling is buried in item descriptions, architecture, enemy design, and the creeping realization that the monsters may not be the weirdest thing in Yharnam. Sanderson has praised that archaeological style of narrative before, and *Bloodborne* turns confusion into a very elegant form of fear. | © FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment

Sid Meiers Civilization VII — 1. Civilization VI (2016)

Brandon Sanderson putting *Civilization VI* at the top is not shocking; this is basically “one more turn” as a lifestyle choice. Firaxis’ grand strategy game lets players rewrite history with spreadsheets, wars, wonders, trade routes, and just enough diplomatic nonsense to make every empire feel personally offended by your existence. For a writer obsessed with systems, consequences, and massive fictional worlds, the appeal is obvious: this is worldbuilding you can accidentally play until sunrise. | © Firaxis Games / 2K

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Brandon Sanderson’s books are famous for rules, maps, magic systems and the kind of lore fans happily investigate like unpaid scholars, so his favorite video games were never going to be a random pile of comfort picks. From Civilization VI and Bloodborne to Final Fantasy X and Fallout: New Vegas, the Cosmere author’s list makes a lot of sense once you see what he values: worldbuilding, player agency, strange ideas and stories that use the controller instead of pretending to be novels.

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Brandon Sanderson’s books are famous for rules, maps, magic systems and the kind of lore fans happily investigate like unpaid scholars, so his favorite video games were never going to be a random pile of comfort picks. From Civilization VI and Bloodborne to Final Fantasy X and Fallout: New Vegas, the Cosmere author’s list makes a lot of sense once you see what he values: worldbuilding, player agency, strange ideas and stories that use the controller instead of pretending to be novels.