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Top Video Game Franchises of All Time (2026 Edition)

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The heavy hitters.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

Gaming - August 9th 2026, 15:00 GMT+2

Doom — 15. DOOM (1993-)
DOOM basically invented an entire genre and then spent years as the thing every other shooter got measured against. id Software stripped the concept down to speed, shotguns, and demons pouring out of hell, then let players share it through shareware floppy disks passed around offices and college dorms. That spread is part of the legend, since it got banned on corporate networks for eating up bandwidth and productivity in equal measure. Decades later the franchise still leans on that same identity, proving that fast and brutal never really goes out of style. | © id Software

14. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991-)
Sonic the Hedgehog showed up in 1991 with one job: prove Sega could out-cool Nintendo, and for a while it actually worked. The speed was the pitch, loops and springs turning platforming into something closer to a pinball machine than a careful puzzle box. That identity carried the franchise through decades of wildly uneven 3D experiments, werehog transformations, and at least one infamous human-hedgehog kiss. Somehow the brand survived all of it, and recent movies and Frontiers have Sonic in a stronger spot than fans expected a few years back. | © Sega

13. The Witcher (2007-)
Geralt of Rivia started out as a niche PC hit before The Witcher turned into one of gaming's biggest success stories. CD Projekt built a world where every choice came with a gray area instead of a clear right answer, and that stubborn refusal to be simple paid off. By the time The Witcher 3 arrived, the series had gone from cult favorite to genre benchmark, praised for writing that treated monsters as the least complicated part of the story. Few franchises have grown this much between their first entry and their peak. | © CD Projekt

12. Street Fighter (1987-)
Street Fighter turned the arcade cabinet into a battleground where quarters disappeared fast and reputations got made. Capcom refined a clunky 1987 original into Street Fighter II, a game so popular it reportedly saved arcades in the early nineties. Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile became instant icons, but the real legacy is the genre itself, since nearly every fighting game since owes it something. Decades later, Street Fighter 6 still draws massive tournament crowds who treat frame data like scripture. | © Capcom

11. Halo (2001-)
Halo turned the original Xbox into a machine people bought specifically to play one game. Bungie built a shooter where the guns felt weighty, the AI enemies actually flanked and reacted, and the vehicles made every firefight feel different from the last. Master Chief never talked much, but that silence let players project themselves into a story about faith, sacrifice, and an ancient ring built to kill everything alive. Two decades later, split screen couch matches with three friends and a pile of pizza still define what the series means to people. | © Xbox Game Studios

10. Metal Gear Solid (1987-)
Metal Gear Solid turned sneaking around a military base into something closer to a philosophy lecture with cardboard boxes. Hideo Kojima built a series where stealth mechanics mattered less than codec conversations about nuclear deterrence, genetics, and the nature of war itself. Snake became gaming's most famous whisper, crawling under radar dishes while Psycho Mantis read your actual memory card. Few franchises have ever made hiding in a locker feel like a statement on modern warfare. | © Konami

The Elder Scrolls IV — 9. The Elder Scrolls (1994-)
The Elder Scrolls built its reputation on letting players wander off the main quest and never come back. Arena started the series small in ambition but Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim turned that idea into a genre-defining formula of open worlds stuffed with lore, side quests, and weird emergent chaos. Bethesda's games are famous for buggy launches, yet somehow the jank became part of the charm instead of a dealbreaker. A decade after Skyrim's release, people are still buying it on new platforms, which says everything about how deep the obsession runs. | © Bethesda Softworks

8. God of War (2005-)
God of War started as a bloody Greek mythology revenge story, with Kratos ripping apart gods and monsters using the Blades of Chaos. The original trilogy built its reputation on brutal combat and over the top boss fights that made the PS2 and PS3 look untouchable. Then the 2018 reboot completely changed the formula, trading rage for grief and pairing Kratos with his son Atreus in Norse mythology instead. That reinvention turned an aging action series into one of the most respected stories in gaming, proving the franchise could grow up without losing its edge. | © Sony Interactive Entertainment

Resident Evil 0 — 7. Resident Evil (1996-)
Resident Evil put zombies, a creepy mansion, and painfully limited ammo together and basically invented survival horror as a genre. Capcom forced players to make real choices about inventory space, turning item management into its own form of dread. The clunky tank controls that annoyed some players ended up making every hallway feel like a gamble. Decades and countless remakes later, the original still gets credit for teaching an entire industry how to scare people through scarcity instead of jump scares alone. | © Capcom

6. Call of Duty (2003-)
Call of Duty started as a World War II shooter trying to escape the shadow of Medal of Honor, then somehow became the biggest annual release in gaming. The franchise found its real identity once Modern Warfare ditched historical battles for present day spec ops, cinematic set pieces, and a multiplayer loop built around killstreaks and leveling up. That formula turned into a habit for millions of players, with new entries selling tens of millions of copies every single year. Few franchises have been this consistent at making the same basic idea feel worth buying again and again. | © Activision

5. Final Fantasy (1987-)
Final Fantasy almost didn't get a sequel, since the original 1987 game was reportedly named as a last-ditch effort before Square considered leaving the industry. Instead it kicked off decades of reinvention, with nearly every mainline entry changing combat systems, worlds, and casts instead of repeating the last game. That willingness to start over is rare for a franchise this size. Few series can claim both turn based classics like VI and sprawling action epics like XV under the same name. | © Square Enix

Grand Theft Auto V — 4. Grand Theft Auto (1997-)
Grand Theft Auto started as a top down crime game in 1997 and somehow turned into the blueprint for open world gaming as we know it. Rockstar kept pushing the scale with every entry, from Vice City's neon soaked satire to San Andreas cramming three cities into one map. GTA V then stuck around for over a decade, still printing money through GTA Online long after most games would have been forgotten. Few franchises manage to be this controversial and this influential at the same time. | © Rockstar Games

Pokemon — 3. Pokémon (1996-)
Pokémon started as two Game Boy cartridges built around a simple trade gimmick, and that gimmick turned into the highest grossing media franchise on the planet. Catching, battling, and trading creatures gave kids a reason to link cables and talk to each other, which was rare for a portable game in 1996. The anime, the card game, and the endless string of sequels all fed off that same core loop without ever really changing it. Nearly three decades later, new generations still argue over starters like it's the only thing that matters. | © The Pokémon Company / Nintendo

The Legend of Zelda Epona — 2. The Legend of Zelda (1986-)
The Legend of Zelda started as two floppy disk halves on the Famicom Disk System before becoming the template for open world adventure. Nintendo handed players a sword, a map with no hand holding, and a world full of secrets burned into rock walls. Decades later that same formula still shows up in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, just with better graphics. Few franchises can claim they invented a genre and then kept reinventing it every console generation. | © Nintendo

Super Mario World 1990 — 1. Super Mario (1985-)
Nintendo built an entire industry recovery around a plumber jumping on turtles, and four decades later Super Mario still sets the bar for how platformers should feel. Every jump, every pipe, every hidden block in Super Mario Bros. was designed with such precision that speedrunners and toddlers can both find something to love in it. The franchise never leaned on one formula either, moving from side scrolling classics to 3D sandboxes like Odyssey without losing its identity. Few characters in entertainment history carry the same instant recognition as that red cap. | © Nintendo

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Some game franchises don't just sell copies, they shape the entire industry, spanning decades, generations of consoles, and millions of devoted fans. As of 2026, these are the series that have earned legend status and show no signs of slowing down. Here are the top video game franchises of all time.

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Some game franchises don't just sell copies, they shape the entire industry, spanning decades, generations of consoles, and millions of devoted fans. As of 2026, these are the series that have earned legend status and show no signs of slowing down. Here are the top video game franchises of all time.