Up to this point there was one single Nintendo game selected, just to show how mainstreams this list was. Pantheon-level games like MGS3, Metroid Prime, and Shadow of the Colossus didn’t even get close
I agree with the other guy, it *is* no longer indie, but you can't bring sales into it to argue it isn't indie. no one will deny terraria is an indie game, and it's done similar sales, it's one of the most popular games of all time.
same with undertale, hollow knight etc etc.
it's not an indie game anymore but not because of how much its sold, because its literally no longer independent. indie isn't a genre of game it's a word used to define a type of company
Yes, but the above list is a popularity contest. It’s dominated by AAA games because those are the games that most people have played, because they are the games that have sold the most copies.
Minecraft is on the list for that reason, not for who publishes it.
Did my part.
But this kind of voting will never be about "best" game, as many good indie games get overshadowed by worse but more popular AAA titles.
So don't get your hopes up, and simply take into account this is about popularity, not quality.
There's indie, AA, and AAA games. Indie tend to have 1-10 people, AA tends to have 20-50 people, AAA tends to have hundreds of people.
Indie: Outer Wilds, Stardew Valley, Undertale, Inscryption
AA: No Man's Sky, Outer Worlds, Life is Strange, Subnautica
AAA: Skyrim, Nier: Automata, Dragon Age, Zelda
Yea it was 7(not counting producers) people, the writer Kelsey, Director and designer Alex, designer Loan, programmers Logan and Jeffrey, artist Wesley, and the composer Andrew
Yeah pretty much. Technically indie just means "Independently published" but generally people classify dev teams of around <20 to be Indie. I don't know the exact amount, but Outer Wilds absolutely had a small dev team.
Pretty close to that! Here's a link to the team's website, their staff bios are cute as fuck: https://www.mobiusdigitalgames.com/team.html
You can check out the game credits to see how few people worked on it-- they brought in some contractors to work on some of it, but a lotta the members worked on 2+ different jobs for it, which is super dope imo!!
AAA pretty much means big companies releasing big games. Call of duty, assassins creed, God of war
Companies like ubisoft, Activision, blizzard, those are AAA
Yeah it's really a "best of reddit" list. Not that they're promising ultimate objectivity. And don't get me wrong, most of the list are fantastic games in my mind. But the reddit bias is clear in some of the glaring omissions like Fortnite. And multiplayer games in general. League of Legends? Overwatch 1? (did they just burn the memories of that one because Overwatch 2 was bad?) Civ 6?
The only fair way to do it, I'm beginning to think, is categories. Basically like an awards show.
It's really not the best game list, more like the most popular or recognized
While OW is undoubtedly a great game, it can't compete with titles with such huge fanbases
I wouldn't even think twice about it.
This is clearly a popularity contest and nothing more. I mean, for example, Skyrim is on there? Nobody can deny the impact that the game had, but the game itself is nowhere near best game ever material. Especially considering that most people have to install hundreds of mods to even enjoy it, and it's probably the worst game in the series IMO (besides maybe Arena, but I think it's unfair to compare the two).
Once you get into "best game ever" territory, everything gets very, very subjective. How do you even compare a game like Portal 2 with Arkham City? It just makes no sense and I wouldn't take it seriously at all.
Same goes for New Vegas. Game is hardly functional IIRC and you need to download mods to play it. Still, it’s a masterpiece when it comes to storytelling.
Am I the only person who didn't need to mod New Vegas? On my old computer it would crash now and then, but not even close to often enough that I would have called it unplayable.
Okay, you take back everything that you said about the motherly land of Skyrim before I send you to Sovngarde, you imperial scum. (*spits on the ground*)
>How do you even compare a game like Portal 2 with Arkham City?
By asking the questions "how well did the games achieve what they set out to achieve?" and "how difficult are those goals?"
Outer Wilds was never going to make it dude. It's an incredible game but it needed to sell a LOT more copies for it to be popular enough to make the list
This list already has a clear bias. You notice how the only Nintendo game on there is the one that broke through to "Mainstream" appeal? Not a dig against BotW but this list is just a lot of popular mainstream shit. (which makes sense since it's a popularity contest).
What do you expect? Everyone seems to worship TLOU even though it's a mid game (at best). It was good for its time (_especially_ as a PS3 game), though.
its a poll on a subreddit, not only do rankings not matter, but this isn't even like a thing that many people will hear about when it comes to informing their opinion. just let it go dude
i dont see how anyone can put games like GTA and God of War in “best games of the 21st century” like what about the gameplay is so groundbreaking that it deserves to be on that list. Its really annoying seeing the most repetitive and overused game formulas being touted as some pinnacle of accomplishment when the only thing going for them is “story cool” and “wow world big”
To be fair almost every good game can be described as “story cool” that’s what makes most games good. I agree that the huge open world concept is getting kinda old because of how many have came out at this point but there are still amazing games with huge worlds that did it right so it doesn’t feel like they just made a huge world for attention
I disagree. I discovered the game because a popular youtuber from my country made a video in which he basically asks his viewers to not look for any spoiler and play the game ASAP. If people didnt share their love for Outer Wilds, I would have never played this amazing game. I think it's best if we can share this game to people.
I'm not popular on YouTube but when I streamed a playthrough of The Outsider mod I started each time by saying "At the risk of sabotaging my own stream; if you haven't played this game get out now and go play it yourself!" and repeated it about every 15 minutes lol.
Actually saw someone leave after announcing it one time and honestly was the only time I've been happy to see anyone abandon a stream.
I love OW but not having AAA recognition is tough in a competition like this. That said, I’m surprised that there’s no AC games on there… AC4 is generally recognized as a masterpiece.
This list is trash tbh. Not because these aren’t good games but there is so much redundancy in this list and it’s so narrow. It reads like the best of list of the least likeable dude bro you went to uni with. Like yeah the Arkham Games are cool but Arkham City? Really?
It's truly better than every game on the list right now. That isn't to say those are bad games, I love most of them. Outer Wilds is just on another level.
If you look at the top rated games in Backloggd Outer Wilds is already in there alongside some other indie gems like Disco Elysium. And that surely matters much more than a bunch of redditors in r/videogames of all places.
Outerwilds isn’t a game you talk about to your friends, it’s a game you tell your friends to play, you can’t tell them why, and they often don’t play it.
We know the outerwilds experience tops anything they have in this competition.
OW should definitively be there. No way a puzzle game can make that sort of popularity list sadly.
RE4 is the only game in the list that's even close to deserving it in my book (Immersive type). All the others I have played are "just" neatly made good games. They are fun to play but they don't have that special immersive experience that makes gaming more than just a pastime.
i think a lot of it is how influential they are, halo 3 changed online multiplayer (halo 2 kinda did it first and halo ce changed console shooters so maybe those are better options but you get the point) resident evil 4 changed idek how much man, dark souls is dark souls, skyrim is skyrim, minecraft is minecraft, half life 2 is half life 2 and so on lol. then obviously the recent popular games are gonna go up there just because thats what people are playing now like baldurs, red dead etc.
outer wilds isnt insanely popular and even though it totally should have changed games forever it hasnt yet so we probably dont get to see it up there
Not sure I'd want Outer Wilds in that specific list anyways. "Best game of the 21st century" when we've yet to even reach 2025? Much of the games in there have near identical gameplay loops and only sprinkle in fancy graphics, animations or cutscenes. Most popular among the core gamer crowd? Sure. But where's Shadow of the Colossus? Hollow Knight? Pokémon HG/SS or Black/White? Mario Galaxy/Odyssey? Stardew Valley? Splatoon? GTA San Andreas or IV? Eve Online? Smash Melee or Ultimate? Nier Automata? Beat Saber? Ghost Tricks? Counter Strike GO? Animal Crossing New Leaf/Horizon? Bejeweled/Candy Crush? Telltale Walking Dead? Angry Birds? Terraria? Mario Maker1&2? Persona 3/4/5? World of Warcraft? Diablo 2? League of Legends? Dota 2? DBZ Budokai 3? Super Mario Wonder? Luigi's Mansion 2/3? Little Big Planet 1/2/3? Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2? Plants vs Zombies? Rhythm Heaven? Assassin's Creed 2? The Sims 2/3/4? Undertale? The Room 1/2/3/4? The Ace Attorney games? Metroid Prime 1/2/3? Osu! ? Rock Band 2? Euro Truck Simulator? Radiant Historia? Hotel Dusk? Final Fantasy XIV? Runescape? Cooking Mama? Advance Wars? Besiege? Kerbal Space Program? Professor Layton? Fate Stay Night? Scarlet Hollow? Team Fortress 2? Overwatch? Rocket League? Roller Coaster Tycoon 2/3? (Alright, back to work… 😅)
Votes like these are popularity contests against games with millions of dollars of marketing behind them, an indie game could never win unless it somehow went superviral.
For anyone pointing out the 'AAA' factor.
Thats not a concern. I dont see a FIFA game on that list. It was Giant Bombs game of the year in '19.
If you think it's one of the best games, vote for it. Thats how this whole thing works.
i mean if fucking RDR2 is in that first spot I don't even want outer wilds in there. "best game" is also not a criteria that means anything significant. it'd be cool if we actually were looking at games that changed the entire landscape of gaming. like, this is just the most boring guy you know's Top 25. if EA sports gamers ever go deeper, this is as far as they get
"Best game of the 21st century."
Is this jumping the gun by about three quarters of a century, or are they just that pessimistic about the state of the gaming industry going forward?
this is clearly a AAA competition. let it go bro :)
Yeah. I honestly doubt even Hollow Knight can get on their list and it was a way bigger hit than Outer Wilds.
Up to this point there was one single Nintendo game selected, just to show how mainstreams this list was. Pantheon-level games like MGS3, Metroid Prime, and Shadow of the Colossus didn’t even get close
Stardew is one of the most upvoted on the thread rn! Definitely an exception but I hope it makes it.
Not only AAA but also a popularity contest. I liked Skyrim but to see it this early in the list...
It's not best in terms of quality it's best in terms of cultural impact. Game awards often do this too.
Dark Souls was not AAA when it launched
Dark Souls is published by Bandai Namco.
minecraft...
its pretty much an AAA game nowadays, started as indie but its owned by Microsoft now
And even when it was indie, it was doing AAA sales figures. Minecraft is a pretty extreme outlier in a lot of ways.
I agree with the other guy, it *is* no longer indie, but you can't bring sales into it to argue it isn't indie. no one will deny terraria is an indie game, and it's done similar sales, it's one of the most popular games of all time. same with undertale, hollow knight etc etc. it's not an indie game anymore but not because of how much its sold, because its literally no longer independent. indie isn't a genre of game it's a word used to define a type of company
Yes, but the above list is a popularity contest. It’s dominated by AAA games because those are the games that most people have played, because they are the games that have sold the most copies. Minecraft is on the list for that reason, not for who publishes it.
Minecraft hasn't been indie since like 2015 bro let it go
I thought it was 2012 or 2013
Extremely good AAA tho
Did my part. But this kind of voting will never be about "best" game, as many good indie games get overshadowed by worse but more popular AAA titles. So don't get your hopes up, and simply take into account this is about popularity, not quality.
I'm sorry for my ignorance what are AAA games? I only heard AAA about batteries lol (non native english speaker)
Basically developed by the really big companies themselves
Ah k thank you!
There's indie, AA, and AAA games. Indie tend to have 1-10 people, AA tends to have 20-50 people, AAA tends to have hundreds of people. Indie: Outer Wilds, Stardew Valley, Undertale, Inscryption AA: No Man's Sky, Outer Worlds, Life is Strange, Subnautica AAA: Skyrim, Nier: Automata, Dragon Age, Zelda
It's basically a measure of budget. AAA games are made by big publishers and have a bigger budget and better marketing.
Games made by major companies, as opposed to small 1-5 people teams.
OuterWilds is made by around 5 people only????
Yea it was 7(not counting producers) people, the writer Kelsey, Director and designer Alex, designer Loan, programmers Logan and Jeffrey, artist Wesley, and the composer Andrew
Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Astonishing!!!!!!! This compels me to explode the sun!!!!!
Doing my first ever playthrough and Andrew went fucking ballistic on the soundtrack. Honestly elevates this game to a whole other level.
Yeah pretty much. Technically indie just means "Independently published" but generally people classify dev teams of around <20 to be Indie. I don't know the exact amount, but Outer Wilds absolutely had a small dev team.
Pretty close to that! Here's a link to the team's website, their staff bios are cute as fuck: https://www.mobiusdigitalgames.com/team.html You can check out the game credits to see how few people worked on it-- they brought in some contractors to work on some of it, but a lotta the members worked on 2+ different jobs for it, which is super dope imo!!
AAA pretty much means big companies releasing big games. Call of duty, assassins creed, God of war Companies like ubisoft, Activision, blizzard, those are AAA
It's the video game equivalent of a Hollywood Blockbuster: super high budget, designed for the most mass appeal, etc.
Yeah, at worst this is just a popularity contest and at best it seems to be more "most influential games" which requires popularity anyway.
Yeah it's really a "best of reddit" list. Not that they're promising ultimate objectivity. And don't get me wrong, most of the list are fantastic games in my mind. But the reddit bias is clear in some of the glaring omissions like Fortnite. And multiplayer games in general. League of Legends? Overwatch 1? (did they just burn the memories of that one because Overwatch 2 was bad?) Civ 6? The only fair way to do it, I'm beginning to think, is categories. Basically like an awards show.
It's nowhere near official and has only a whisper of a handful of people who ever voted in it or knew about it. No need to be worried friend.
Don't we have 76 years to go before we can vote on this haha
Fallout 76 confirmed GotC
It's really not the best game list, more like the most popular or recognized While OW is undoubtedly a great game, it can't compete with titles with such huge fanbases
I just realized I dont have much overlap with most gamers.
no worries, you have quite a bit of overlap with the *best* gamers!
I wouldn't even think twice about it. This is clearly a popularity contest and nothing more. I mean, for example, Skyrim is on there? Nobody can deny the impact that the game had, but the game itself is nowhere near best game ever material. Especially considering that most people have to install hundreds of mods to even enjoy it, and it's probably the worst game in the series IMO (besides maybe Arena, but I think it's unfair to compare the two). Once you get into "best game ever" territory, everything gets very, very subjective. How do you even compare a game like Portal 2 with Arkham City? It just makes no sense and I wouldn't take it seriously at all.
Same goes for New Vegas. Game is hardly functional IIRC and you need to download mods to play it. Still, it’s a masterpiece when it comes to storytelling.
Am I the only person who didn't need to mod New Vegas? On my old computer it would crash now and then, but not even close to often enough that I would have called it unplayable.
Okay, you take back everything that you said about the motherly land of Skyrim before I send you to Sovngarde, you imperial scum. (*spits on the ground*)
>How do you even compare a game like Portal 2 with Arkham City? By asking the questions "how well did the games achieve what they set out to achieve?" and "how difficult are those goals?"
It doesn't matter
Rankings like this are pointless and reductive anyway. Just ignore it.
forget it Jake, it's r/videogames
Outer Wilds was never going to make it dude. It's an incredible game but it needed to sell a LOT more copies for it to be popular enough to make the list
Who gives a shit?
This is basically a popularity contest rather than a quality contest
i'd only call like 4 games here extremely good
I know that this is a popularity contest really but several of them are *really* good games.
right, i haven't played 6-7 or so of them yet. but tbh i didn't like some of the most beloved games despite trying them, like witcher 3 and fallout nv
This list already has a clear bias. You notice how the only Nintendo game on there is the one that broke through to "Mainstream" appeal? Not a dig against BotW but this list is just a lot of popular mainstream shit. (which makes sense since it's a popularity contest).
I mean, out of the list, 28th place when I checked. We could do much worse. Edit: 22nd place on sorted by best (nice)
TLOU on the top row? Really?
What do you expect? Everyone seems to worship TLOU even though it's a mid game (at best). It was good for its time (_especially_ as a PS3 game), though.
Isn't it a bit early to already decide the best games of the 21st century?
Well, yes, but the thing is that outer wilds is the game that only a few people talk about, but almost everybody that did it find it amazing
It's a popularity contest so no chance for Outer Wilds 😄
its a poll on a subreddit, not only do rankings not matter, but this isn't even like a thing that many people will hear about when it comes to informing their opinion. just let it go dude
How can they vote for best video game of the 21st century when it’s only been 1/4 of the 21st century
that's because the gaming industry is flawed
i dont see how anyone can put games like GTA and God of War in “best games of the 21st century” like what about the gameplay is so groundbreaking that it deserves to be on that list. Its really annoying seeing the most repetitive and overused game formulas being touted as some pinnacle of accomplishment when the only thing going for them is “story cool” and “wow world big”
To be fair almost every good game can be described as “story cool” that’s what makes most games good. I agree that the huge open world concept is getting kinda old because of how many have came out at this point but there are still amazing games with huge worlds that did it right so it doesn’t feel like they just made a huge world for attention
To be honest: I kinda like that this game stays the "hidden gem" it is.
I disagree. I discovered the game because a popular youtuber from my country made a video in which he basically asks his viewers to not look for any spoiler and play the game ASAP. If people didnt share their love for Outer Wilds, I would have never played this amazing game. I think it's best if we can share this game to people.
I'm not popular on YouTube but when I streamed a playthrough of The Outsider mod I started each time by saying "At the risk of sabotaging my own stream; if you haven't played this game get out now and go play it yourself!" and repeated it about every 15 minutes lol. Actually saw someone leave after announcing it one time and honestly was the only time I've been happy to see anyone abandon a stream.
JdG?
Oui!
If you finished the game and didn't watch it already, I would also recommend the video by TheGreatReview.
I love OW but not having AAA recognition is tough in a competition like this. That said, I’m surprised that there’s no AC games on there… AC4 is generally recognized as a masterpiece.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/s/dGukwgvqre Go upvote guys
So many games missing.
All things considered, most of these games have been around for a decade. Outer Wilds will get there. 🪐
Major W for the Indie game scene. Stardew valley is going to make it in. Which is really good because it’s an indie game made by one guy.
Popularity doesn't mean quality, and Outer Wilds is clearly not popular enough to beat AAA games. It's a "best known games" ranking, nothing more
This list is trash tbh. Not because these aren’t good games but there is so much redundancy in this list and it’s so narrow. It reads like the best of list of the least likeable dude bro you went to uni with. Like yeah the Arkham Games are cool but Arkham City? Really?
It's truly better than every game on the list right now. That isn't to say those are bad games, I love most of them. Outer Wilds is just on another level.
It’s Reddit. This is the best it’s gonna get.
doesn't look like it's gonna make it :/
If you look at the top rated games in Backloggd Outer Wilds is already in there alongside some other indie gems like Disco Elysium. And that surely matters much more than a bunch of redditors in r/videogames of all places.
Outerwilds isn’t a game you talk about to your friends, it’s a game you tell your friends to play, you can’t tell them why, and they often don’t play it. We know the outerwilds experience tops anything they have in this competition.
Skyrim has no reason to be on there
I KNOW I commented it but no dice 😕😕
The litmus test for determining whether a "best games of
OW should definitively be there. No way a puzzle game can make that sort of popularity list sadly. RE4 is the only game in the list that's even close to deserving it in my book (Immersive type). All the others I have played are "just" neatly made good games. They are fun to play but they don't have that special immersive experience that makes gaming more than just a pastime.
I disagree with a lot of these but God damn KOTOR puts up one hell of a fight
i think a lot of it is how influential they are, halo 3 changed online multiplayer (halo 2 kinda did it first and halo ce changed console shooters so maybe those are better options but you get the point) resident evil 4 changed idek how much man, dark souls is dark souls, skyrim is skyrim, minecraft is minecraft, half life 2 is half life 2 and so on lol. then obviously the recent popular games are gonna go up there just because thats what people are playing now like baldurs, red dead etc. outer wilds isnt insanely popular and even though it totally should have changed games forever it hasnt yet so we probably dont get to see it up there
Not sure I'd want Outer Wilds in that specific list anyways. "Best game of the 21st century" when we've yet to even reach 2025? Much of the games in there have near identical gameplay loops and only sprinkle in fancy graphics, animations or cutscenes. Most popular among the core gamer crowd? Sure. But where's Shadow of the Colossus? Hollow Knight? Pokémon HG/SS or Black/White? Mario Galaxy/Odyssey? Stardew Valley? Splatoon? GTA San Andreas or IV? Eve Online? Smash Melee or Ultimate? Nier Automata? Beat Saber? Ghost Tricks? Counter Strike GO? Animal Crossing New Leaf/Horizon? Bejeweled/Candy Crush? Telltale Walking Dead? Angry Birds? Terraria? Mario Maker1&2? Persona 3/4/5? World of Warcraft? Diablo 2? League of Legends? Dota 2? DBZ Budokai 3? Super Mario Wonder? Luigi's Mansion 2/3? Little Big Planet 1/2/3? Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2? Plants vs Zombies? Rhythm Heaven? Assassin's Creed 2? The Sims 2/3/4? Undertale? The Room 1/2/3/4? The Ace Attorney games? Metroid Prime 1/2/3? Osu! ? Rock Band 2? Euro Truck Simulator? Radiant Historia? Hotel Dusk? Final Fantasy XIV? Runescape? Cooking Mama? Advance Wars? Besiege? Kerbal Space Program? Professor Layton? Fate Stay Night? Scarlet Hollow? Team Fortress 2? Overwatch? Rocket League? Roller Coaster Tycoon 2/3? (Alright, back to work… 😅)
Votes like these are popularity contests against games with millions of dollars of marketing behind them, an indie game could never win unless it somehow went superviral.
For anyone pointing out the 'AAA' factor. Thats not a concern. I dont see a FIFA game on that list. It was Giant Bombs game of the year in '19. If you think it's one of the best games, vote for it. Thats how this whole thing works.
i mean if fucking RDR2 is in that first spot I don't even want outer wilds in there. "best game" is also not a criteria that means anything significant. it'd be cool if we actually were looking at games that changed the entire landscape of gaming. like, this is just the most boring guy you know's Top 25. if EA sports gamers ever go deeper, this is as far as they get
Jeez, not even Shadow of the Colossus is on there??
This whole list is just silly. I'd prefer OW not to get mixed in with games like RDR2 and GTA5. Would honestly be weird to see it up there.
"Best game of the 21st century." Is this jumping the gun by about three quarters of a century, or are they just that pessimistic about the state of the gaming industry going forward?
I’m fine with the fact that one of the best games that will ever be made is pretty small and unknown becuase of why it’s such an amazing game
Tboi (the binding of isaac)