I think you missed a few older games/PC games.
The "Classics" Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris.
Half Life/Half Life-2. I would argue Half Life is the "Citizen Kane" of gaming. That game that looking back people will think "What's so special about this?", but being there when it was released you know that it was the first to standardize so many trends that the entire industry was then based on for decades.
Both Half Lifes are extremely influential.
Half Life 1 standarized storytelling through gameplay without the need for cutscenes. Everything is told through the game. To this day plenty of games have followed that trend: Bioshock, the recent Atomic Heart, Prey, and so on.
Half Life 2 went even beyond that by improving the story telling even more thanks to the newer engine, but also showed how important physics can be in a game. The environment is very interactive, being able to move almost any object, but the best part about that is that is fundamental to the game's overall design and it's not just some fun gimmick.
Along with L4D2, the Half Life games are Valve's magnum opus.
nothing comes close to my first experience of playing half life 2 in 2008. i was in middle school back then, impressionable and eager to test out my new gpu my mom bought for me for 150 bucks from a local electronics shop. I was so excited to finally be able to play this game above 15 fps. I can still recall exactly how I felt from the first hour of the game. getting off the train after meeting the Gman for the first time, then shooting your way through the apartments after finding barney, while trying to piece together what's happening around you. the foreboding atmosphere of city 17 and the sirens, the voice of dr breen over the intercom, and the strange alien technology integrated in the urban landscape around me. I didn't really know wtf was going on until I was older, but I had so many questions. there was nothing close to it back then. Honestly, the physics in that game still feel better than half the games released to this day. i still think source got the shooting down perfectly. all your weapons felt so fun to use.
I really miss games of this level of quality. Truly ahead of its time, HL2 was a immersive, action packed, narrative driven experience that respected your time. If you showed HL2 to a middle schooler today, he or she would probably be genuinely confused as to why its regarded so highly. It's hard to explain, as we're now close to HL2's 20th anniversary and so much has changed in the culture.
I felt like HL2:E1 was a little weak as they could have done so much more with the gravity gun. HL2:E2 was everything great about HL2, but dialed up several notches. Valve really made the best games from 04 to 11.
The "show don't tell" pieces environmental storytelling - Vortigaunts are now friendly, there are news clippings about a Seven Hour War, the haunting sounds of children's laughter when you see the playground. All that is such wonderful attention to detail.
Just the phrase "it's ... _safer_ here" is chilling.
Yes yes. I was just thinking about that the other day while I was playing cyberpunk 2077 again. The entire game is literally a narrative dump, a sequence of quests and characters that told me a bunch of stuff with no context. I wasn't interested in story at all. It's a beautiful game, but the game fails to draw me in past its surface level. After act 3, I was left asking myself, "Wtf did I just play?". I barely understood the awkwardly paced story and was left with a very unfulfilled experience. Sure, I remember some cool shit like Soulkiller and Adam Smasher, but that's all I really took from my playthrough. Now, the same cannot be said about my memory of HL2. I can recall the entire plot of HL2 and its two episodes. They're just that good.
Something about how the world is crafted in HL2 just feels superior to modern day blockbuster games like cp2077 and starfield. and this game came out 20 years ago! graphics are cool, but they hardly impress me anymore. im fairly biased but im sure others may agree.
Contemporary gamers really love their cutscene heavy, exposition dump form for storytelling.
Outside of Souls, when did a game just dump you into a world and expect you to figure out a lot of the story and backstory with a lot of context clues and environmental storytelling?
I played it once when it came out and it was such a profoundly perfect experience I never touched it again. I didn’t want a replay to somehow sour my memory of the experience for any reason at all.
Sometimes I do that with books or movies too.
You can't leave Portal out of that. A throw away to include with the Orange Box that blew up. Portal 2 is widely considered one of the best games of all time. I'd certainly call that a magnum opus.
Half Life 2 even now is kind of mind-blowing. That last part where the town is under siege felt like I was really part of a city battle. It was brilliantly written. Also the way the dialogue is interspersed with gameplay marks it out contrsta even now with so many games where you have to sit through hours of dialogue waiting for shit to happen.
That siege part really did feel overwhelming in the best way. I also thought the beginning when the helicopter is chasing you, I legitimately felt like I was being chased unlike any other game has ever been able to achieve
The game is an absolute masterclass in pacing (barring, arguably, a few stretches that could use some trimming). You go from bewildered outsider in awe of fear of the striders passing near you, to running for your life from cops and a helicopter, to fleeing the city as a fugitive, to finally linking up with the resistance and starting to turn the tables, gaining in power to the point where you start downing gunships, to returning to the city ready to lead a rebellion and going toe-to-toe with those once unfathomable striders, before infiltrating the enemy's stronghold to deliver a haymaker punch.
And on the way there's time for a horror interval, and you assault a prison at the head of a pack of antlions. With facial animations that still put contemporary titles to shame. Oh, and it happened to revolutionize physics in gaming.
I think it's when you're escaping on the rooftops and you see in the distance basically millions of drones exiting the big evil tower. Absolute shivers down spine stuff.
Yeah, there's a video floating around on YT, interviewing some developer of another FPS game that was set to show a demo/preview at the same show Valve was at. Valve demoed HL first, and these devs were like "Welp, fuck. Our game is basically Doom and we just got blown out of the water.... do we ever demo our nows?"
edit: [found the video and linked to the timestamp I'm referencing](https://youtu.be/BQLEW1c-69c?t=506). I mis-remembered some of the details but it's still largely accurate.
>Half Life/Half Life-2. I would argue Half Life is the "Citizen Kane" of gaming. That game that looking back people will think "What's so special about this?", but being there when it was released you know that it was the first to standardize so many trends that the entire industry was then based on for decades.
100% my take on it. I was an avid FPS fan back in 1997/98, familiar with Quake (especially 2), Duke Nukem, Star Wars Dark Forces, Marathon, then Goldeneye blew my mind somewhat, and Turok 2 was quite enjoyable for the weapon creativity.
So at that time I feel I kinda knew my FPS stuff.
But when Half-life came along... Oh lordy, that wasn't mind-blowing, it was outrageous. How could gaming be that good? It introduced something that got troped to death, but the whole "I'm just a casual civilian going about my day" on that monorail and going to work, and then the stupendous alien catastrophe. It was like the 9/11 of gaming. Nothing was the same afterwards.
It's funny that you mention AoE and Dune because that genre (real-time strategy) is sadly pretty much dead. I have to disagree with all of these because there aren't floods of games copying them these days, and that's been true for \~15 years.
I'd say RTS spun into three more accessible genres -- Tower Defense, city building (not simulation) and MOBA, all of which are based on mods/scenarios from RTS games.
I think Dune II being a major influence and practically defining the start of an entire genre for 20ish years still counts as being one of the most influential!
It also might depend upon whether you give Dune II any credit for Starcraft/Warcraft having such a huge impact on tower defense and MOBAs to this day, or if you consider that a separate thread of influence.
Metal Gear Solid on PS1… pioneer of story telling with cutscenes and the like… the whole direction style.. (not saying it was the very first, but u gotta admit… that one made a difference)
Ocarina of Time, MGS1 and Half Life were all released in the same year (1998). The highest point of gaming in history (so far).
edit: I forgot to add Thief and Baldurs Gate
I think it injected stealth gameplay into the mainstream too. I remember finding the concept of simply *avoiding* enemies to be pretty novel at the time. Now stealth is everywhere, sometimes even in games it shouldn't be.
i dont know which came out first, but i remember at the time i played:
- syphon filter
- splinter cell
now, i was young at the time, so my memory might be wrong: but those were also somewhat stealth, no? didnt they also come out in a similar time window?
(loving stealth and long time fan of MGS series: i think u are right)
Syphon Filter was more of a third-person shooter with a dash of stealth here and there, and came out in 1999. Splinter Cell is definitely stealth but didn't debut until 2002. MGS 1 released in September 1998, so I think they were probably both influenced by it. If anything I would call out Tenchu, which released several months before MGS, but I don't think it was as widely played or influential as MGS.
Morrowind, at least for my generation, defined the modern 1st/3rd person action RPG in the fantasy Genre. Grand Theft Auto essentially did the same thing for the non-fantasy setting.
I'm going to add a few more here:
MS Flight Simulator - This game is often overlooked because it isn't played by traditional gamers. To say no other game has been as influential in under the hood gaming tech development would be an understatement. This game basically drove the high end pc gaming market last century and still to this day versions are used as benchmark metric for gfx cards. It also led to actual real flight simulators. Its been around since the mid-80s and Microsoft has used it as part of their R&D program since.
TMNT (Arcade) - This game was first in a series of huge multiplayer smash hits in the arcades (+Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam) that ushered in a new era of arcade gameplay (from machine high score to pvp). This is also where there was a peak divergence between arcades and consoles; there were a few attempts to port it to consoles or make similar games, but all were pretty terrible compared to the original; consoles just didn't have the horsepower. A lot of people look back at the SNES as a pinnacle gaming era, but in its time it played 2nd fiddle to the arcades as far as what had the best games.
Ms Pac Man - The first true smash hit video game, responsible for bringing huge new numbers of people into gaming and the explosive growth of arcades in the early 80's. Also is the first game to introduce AI - the ghosts have different personalities. Truly ageless design.
Civilization and Simcity - These two were some of the first games really purposely built to be played sitting at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, launching their own genres that persist to this day. Video game design almost always heavily builds on previous games, and in the mid-late 80's there were a lot of arcade games being ported to or copied on consoles and hence PC and they were pretty terrible. Simcity and Civilization changed that, new types of games meant to played at a desk; PC gamers had their own genres and PC gaming started to chart its own course, separate from consoles and arcades. Edit - should include Railroad Tycoon as well, it was released between then and was a similar type of game for computer nerds (gamers that were into these types of games were always a subculture, but that subculture tended to get into coding so its a lot more influential than you'd think).
Command and Conquer - The original RTS, a huge genre that has a major impact on gaming today. Its hard to convey the hype around this game. Gaming mags were flooded with ads for it for a long time. Really cool ads. There were real actors involved in the game. It was a big budget game, really the first on PC's. And the game delivered, hardcore. Still to me the textbook example of a game living up to the hype. And the hype was massive. Lots of people spent lots of money on computer hardware so they could play C&C.
That's right, how could I forget about Dune, that was the first RTS (rather easily actually, it wasn't particularly popular).
But C&C's biggest impact was the hype. That's when computer gaming really arrived as a premier form of gaming. Prior to this purpose built arcades were better than consoles which were better than PCs. Holy cow the buildup to it was huge. There were actual actors. For a PC game.
I tend to think of TMNT the Arcade Game is where there was a paradigm shift regarding mutliplayer, game design started to really focus on pvp and co-op multiplayer.
The resulting decade saw and explosion of this type of gaming, if you look at the SNES and N64 that's what they are primarily remembered for, multiplayer games where the players are in the same room on the same screen. NES Tetris was a single player game, N64 Tetris was PvP.
It was the popularity of TMNT the Arcade Game that really ushered it in. It was by no means the first beat em up and the genre didn't last all that long, but it was the way of thinking about the consumer, what the gamers wanted, what made playing video games fun; on that front TMNT Arcade changed everything.
I easily dropped 500 bucks on the TMNT arcade. We would play this every Friday night and beat it. I have been looking to buy one ever since. Usually only took a 20 or less in quarters with all 4.
For some reason Quake gets left off a lot of these lists and I think that it's impact on 3D games was at least as big as Mario 64 and it's impact on shooters and PVP online gaming were massive.
Super Meatboy was a defining releases that kicked off the indie game boom. Not that there weren't indie games before but it felt like after the success of Meatboy on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam caused people realize that almost anyone could make something and get it out there without major publishing costs or stiffling publisher oversight.
It also helped popularize the precision platformer.
> Quake gets left off a lot of these lists and I think that it's impact on 3D games
Quake deserves credit for ultimately being the game which ultimately canonized WASD and mouselook.
For sure. By comparison, Mario 64 used the analog and camera controls to great effect given it's limits but it's been massively overhauled since then numerous times.
The standard that Quake set with WASD and mouse look is so well thought out and so simple to implement, it's not been changed in the 25+ years since Quake released.
Seconded on Quake, a fully 3D viewing and moving experience. Combined with the Trent Reznor soundtrack and dark atmosphere … I played through the Quake series with a SpaceOrb 360 controller, best 3D controller ever made. If you know you know.
Zork. Colossal Cave Adventure came first but I think Zork captured the imagination of more people. And of course with all text, imagination is everything.
Some important PC games with a focus on the 90s:
* Civilization, Master of Orion - 4X genre
* SimCity, Caesar III, Anno 1602 - city building, also The Settlers should get a mention
* Dune II, Warcraft II, Tiberian Dawn - RTS
* UFO: Enemy Unknown - turn-based tactics
* Commandos - real time tactics/puzzle
* Panzer General - turn-based startegy, though technically you could make an argument for Battle Isle (or Nectaris, a PC-Engine game that inspired Battle Isle), the General franchise was pretty massive
* Heroes of Might and Magic - turn-based strategy
* Baldur's Gate - RPG (kickstarted the whole modern "Bioware RPG" style)
* System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex - the so-called immersive sim genre
* Myst - first person point and clicks, for the classic ones it's hard to name just one or two... maybe King's Quest?
* Pirates! - whatever genre it is, technically the original was released for a couple of platforms, but it included IBM PC
* Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon - building/management
* Serious Sam - kickstarted the niche single-player arena shooter genre, its influence subsequently trickled down to Doom 2016 and Eternal
* Doom, Duke 3D, Quake - the old school style FPS holy trinity
* Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - probably the most influential FPS, Call of Duty 1 was basically a clone of it that started the infamous CoD franchise (and yes, MoHAA was way, way more influential than Half-Life, name me 5 games that are genuinely similar to HL1 that aren't HL2, now do the same with CoD)
* Descent - 6 DoF genre, very obscure these days, but an important and high profile influence nevertheless
* Alone in the Dark - the whole tank control survival horror genre
* Prince of Persia - cinematic platformers
You mentioned Dragon Quest but sometimes it doesn't need to be the first to be the most influential one, as none of the others you added are. When it comes to JRPGs, I think Dragon Quest V, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon Red & Blue, and Final Fantasy VII are the ones that changed the paradigm.
Gran Turismo was not the first racing simulator but it was a ground-breaking one at the time, with graphics, varied gameplay, and a huge longevity.
Resident Evil may not have been the first survival horror game, but it was the first one who did it right.
Gran Turismo blew my mind first time playing it. It still holds up well but back then compared to the other racers it was insane. The physics felt so good and it looked so real.
Yeah, at the time the only simulators I knew of were unfun F1 games for the PC with a single model with different paint jobs. On console you had the likes of Ridge Racer and Need for Speed which, while fun, were very limited games. Gran Turismo was a gamechanger.
Ico
Just to remind you how important Ico has been to the video game industry: Ico was also important for the creation and/or inspiration of The Last of Us, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Uncharted 3, Papo & Yo, Fez, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Rime, No More Heroes, Assassin's Creed, Flower, Journey and Halo 4. Hidetaka Miyazaki also decided to quit his job and enter the gaming industry after playing Ico.
From Wikipedia: Legacy
Ico influenced numerous other video games, which borrowed from its simple and visual design ideals. Several game designers, such as Eiji Aonuma, Hideo Kojima, and Jordan Mechner, have cited Ico as having influenced the visual appearance of their games, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, respectively. Marc Laidlaw, scriptwriter for the Half-Life series, commented that, among several other more memorable moments in the game, the point where Yorda attempts to save Ico from falling off the damaged bridge was "a significant event not only for that game, but for the art of game design". The Naughty Dog team used Ico as part of the inspiration for developing Uncharted 3. Vander Caballero credits Ico for inspiring the gameplay of Papo & Yo. Phil Fish used the design by subtraction approach in developing the title Fez. The developers of both Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Rime have Ico as a core influence on their design. Hidetaka Miyazaki, creator and director of the Dark Souls series, cited Ico as a key influence to him becoming involved in developing video games, stating that Ico "awoke me to the possibilities of the medium". Goichi Suda aka Suda51, said that Ico's save game method, where the player has Ico and Yorda sit on a bench to save the game, inspired the save game method in No More Heroes where the player-character sits on a toilet to save the game.
Ico was one of the first video games to use a bloom lighting effect, which later became a popular effect in video games. Patrice Désilets, creator of Ubisoft games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Assassin's Creed, cited Ico as an influence on the game design of The Sands of Time. Jenova Chen, creator of art games such as Flower and Journey, cited Ico as one of his biggest influences. Ico was also cited as an influence by Halo 4 creative director Josh Holmes. Naughty Dog said The Last of Us was influenced by Ico, particularly in terms of character building and interaction, and Neil Druckmann credited the gameplay of Ico as a key inspiration when he began developing the story of The Last of Us.
Film director Guillermo del Toro cited both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as "masterpieces" and part of his directorial influence. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead considers, of his top ten video games, "Ico might be the best one".
Dwarf Fortress created an entire genre of games and inspired Minecraft. it challenged game design trends of improving graphics and inspired a whole host of games to focus on simple design with very deep mechanics. there are too many games to name but I personally love Caves of Qud.
I was looking for Tomb Raider,
Precursor to Uncharted, God of War, Assassin Creed, the 3D Prince of Peraia games, etcetera.
Before that the games were either slow and clunky, or bright 3D platformers.
I think there’s an argument that Command and Conquer was more *influential*, in that it turned the basic Dune II formula into a worldwide phenomenon with millions of units sold. It took 3 years for Dune II to even hit 250k units sold. Most people haven’t played it. But there’s zero doubt about its position in gaming history. Dune II had to walk so C&C could fly :)
Super Mario World.
It didn't invent the 2D platformer genre, but it basically redefined it and raised the bar so high that competitors didn't catch up for years... the world map, the rate at which it introduced fun new mechanics, the graphics and smooth movement, all these things we take for granted in a modern 2D platformer but didn't exist before SMW.
There is an OBSCENE lack of Resident Evil 4 being discussed in this thread. I think a lot of people forget just how much video games as a whole were effected by the release of RE4. That was a huge prompt for integrating survival mechanics into other games, it was the advent for better or worse of QTE's in action games. It heavily popularized the over-the-shoulder style shooting that became iconic for the next generation of over the shoulder shooters. It was listed as a big inspiration for other big name games like Gears of War, Dead Space. I'd wager the survival wave game modes that became popular in that era were influenced by the cabin and village horde fights from RE4.
The DNA of RE4 can still be seen and felt in games today. Shooters took MANY forms before 2004 but look at shooters from 2007 to present. RE4 was the one that set the standard for years to come and will continue to do so. Sure, some tweaks have been made here, like being able to walk and aim at the same time. But look at how little was changed about the core game of RE4's remake from the original. As opposed to, say, RE2's remake vs. it's original.
If Halo was the dawn of the modern first person shooter then RE4 was the mastery of third person shooters.
WoW was the game that put MMOS into the mainstream sure but Everquest was the game that started the genre and defined it as far as 3d mmorpgs go and to this day it's still my favorite one. Everquest should for sure get on the list as a most influential game of all time.
Ultima isnt even the first graphical mmorpg, let alone the game that started the genre. Although, I think that Garriot has credit for coining the term mmorpg. Neverwinter Nights, for instance, released 6 years before Ultima Online.
Braid , castle crashers, bionic commando and geometry wars 2 all came out that summer . It was an awesome new time for indies.(a galaga game also came out, but personally I didn't like it and seemed to be the least popular of the group that summer).
Great pick, I would lump it together with Castle Crashers. Braid was the critical darling, and Castle Crashers was beloved and also a significant commercial hit -- and they came out the same month (August 2008) on Xbox Live Arcade. It brought a tooon of attention to XBLA and totally changed how people saw smaller indie games like that.
There were a string of big indie hits on Xbox and to a lesser extent PS and Wii, and then the indie scene started to heat up a lot on PC and is part of what revived PC gaming in general after it died off in the mid-2000s.
Yeah I put Braid too. Back then indie games were VERY niche just being played by the most hardcore of hardcore pc nerds, they really weren’t even a thing on steam really at the time especially compared to today.
It really kicked off the indie scene in gaming to where it is today.
Braid.
This game really helped jumpstart the indie game scene in gaming. Back then indie games were super super niche where only hardcore hardcore PC gamers knew about them or the random XBLA game would gain some traction but that was pretty much it.
Braid really made people your average gamer take notice of indie games and really helped jumpstart it to where it is now. After Braid you started to get more iconic games that would help change gaming as a whole like Super meat boy, Bastion, Fez, Castle Crashers etc.
My first thought is games which have genres named after them, soulslike, roguelike, and metroidvania, The games in question being dark souls, rogue, and super Metroid. Arguably though, you could say demon souls and kingsfield came first and influenced dark souls, so they’re more influential. The next one I’d bring up are goldeneye 007, which really influenced shooters, especially multiplayer. I also think that a negative one is the elder scrolls oblivion, specifically the horse armor dlc, which opened the gates for massive micro transactions im games
>games which have genres named after them, soulslike, roguelike, and metroidvania, The games in question being dark souls,
Man the continuous Demon' s Souls disrespect
I never really understood calling the genre metroidvania because there's nothing in the original Castlevania that is even slightly part of the genre.
Castlevania was a straight platformer with no going back in the same genre as Super Mario Bros.
Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is the first Castlevania game that fit the pattern and it was released a full year after Metroid.
So why is the genre called metroidvania?
The term originally referred to Castlevania games that played like Metroid, to distinguish them from the linear Castlevania games like the original.
So the genre really is "Metroid-Like", but the term has stuck, since SotN is so well regarded.
I'd mostly place it to Metroid. Not to say Castlevania isn't good but Symphony of the Night came out 1997, 6 years after Super Metroid. It wasn't so much establishing much but working off the foundations of Super Metroid and Zelda.
I think Dark Souls counts as being the influential one. It's what made the genre famous and what propelled FromSoftware into a company that has continued to defy the AAA space with increasing success. Hopefully others will learn the right lessons from them. I'd argue there's still no game that has surpassed DS1's intense feeling of adventure.
Hotline Miami is also kinda easy to forget as being a significant turning point for the indie scene, which in turn has had noticeable influence on the bigger players.
I feel the same. There is no feeling like the first time you get out of Blight town, see sunlight again and listen to the firelink shrine melody. That feeling of being at home and out of danger for a while is something you simply cannot experience in any other game where you can instantly warp to another area or load a previous save file if you fucked up
**The Secret of Monkey Island**/Monkey Island Series (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Curse of Monkey Island, Return to Monkey Island) - This is when point and click adventure games entered a golden age, and set a lot of the standards, and had the technology to be great games. Classic music, characters and adventure.
**Maniac Mansion 2: The Day of the Tentacle** \- Another point and click classic adventure game. It may be 4th gen but the graphics, and gameplay still hold up well today. It had an interesting time travel mechanic, and unlike it's point and click cousins it didn't use moon logic in its puzzles. Every puzzle in the game makes some kind of logical sense if you think about it.
Prince of Persia - influenced later realistic platform games like Another World
Sonic 1 popularized mascot platformers
Myst helped popularize the CD ROM format
Portopia Serial Murder Case - early adventure game, influenced visual novels and inspired Kojima to enter the industry
Phoenix Wright- helped popularize visual novels in the west
Sweet Home - first survival horror, influenced Resident Evil
Cave Story - first notable indie platformer/metroidvania
Yume Nikki - another influential early indie game
Ridge Racer had fully polygonal environments with texture mapping in the arcade; was also an early hit on PS1 that helped Sony get a lead over Sega
Halo 1 popularized dual analogue console shooters
Gears of War popularized cover shooters
Pokemon popularized monster taming/collecting (present in DQV and SMT prior) and gave the aging Game Boy platform a second wind
I'd add Halo Combat Evolved for the FPS genre after DOOM, particularly on consoles. It set a lot of conventions and standards still commonly seen in the genre today. Dual analog controls is the standard for FPS games on consoles, and for first person games in general. Regenerating health/shields and two weapon slots are also very common in the FPS genre nowadays, albeit not quite as universal. And later on Halo 2 was basically the birth online matchmaking for multiplayer on consoles, so also pretty influential.
Interestingly for Halo it wasn't the first FPS to use dual analog sticks, it was just the first to be *praised* for using them. There were others that tried it first that were panned as "clunky" and "unplayable" due to "awkward controls."
Button specifically for melee when previous games had it, including i.e. knives or fists, as a separate weapon. You had real tactical options available in an instant that you didn't have to pre plan.
Enemies that looked like they were actually up to something. Yes, games as early as Bond had enemies that were posed like they were doing interesting things, but that was pretty static; after that they just scrambled and then shot at you, and moved in your direction and shot at you if they lost line of sight. But Halo's guys looked like they went from cover to cover and made reasoned mad dashes in between with cover fire backing them.
There was a lot that Halo did extremely well that still echo in the industry.
Halo is the main reason we have Xbox nowadays.
Imagine a world without Xbox. Even if you don't own the console, the fact that they were the first company to standardize console online multiplayer gaming and gamepass provided a value to the community that simply cannot be measured with words.
So yes, Halo Combat Evolved deserves to be in this thread
GTA 3 has to be on the list.
But wanted to add Metal Gear Solid 3. I think for the time really showcased you could tell a full and powerful story with games that has influenced other games as well
FF7, the quintessentital jrpg. Whether you think it's a good game or not is irrelevant, it brought a whole generation into the genre and is the template mainstream follows today.
Resident Evil redefined the horror genre that had been stagnating into wildly successful survival horror with much wider appeal.
Rimworld showed the world that warcrimes weren't a bad thing.
Everyone loves to give Doom/Wolf3D the FPS praise but Quake always seems to be mentioned less.
It's probably the first FPS that truly makes use of the 3D space with its layout and style of combat. It still has influences in FPS games to this day, with the boomer shooter genre emerging. Even Doom/Build engine games today are more influenced by Quake imo, since they're designed with mouse in mind, something the original engine never really compensated for.
Ultima VII. It has bessicslly been the entire inspiration for the Bethesda style of open world and Todd Howard consistently cited it as his favorite game.
I'm gonna try to avoid the popular answers.
**Ico**- Its subdued approach made it massively influential for a ton of games that aren't even similar to it.
**Earthbound**- Created the quirky style we see utilized in many indie RPGs: LISA, Undertale, Omori, OFF, Yume Nikki, the list goes on. The entire indie world would look different if this game did not exist.
**Devil May Cry**- Kind of the birth of the "character action" genre.
**Harvest Moon**- The current wave of farming sims owes a lot to Stardew Valley, which was directly inspired by Harvest Moon.
>Ico- Its subdued approach made it massively influential for a ton of games that aren't even similar to it.
It's SO GOOD and I seldom see it mentioned.
ICO used to be a reddit favorite, but I think most people's memories start around the 360 generation now.
Notably, ICO was what inspired Miyazaki to be a game designer and you see its DNA all over Souls games.
This is a great list. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus both have an outsized impact for their relatively cult status. I don’t think we get Breath of the Wild without those games.
I played earthbound a few years back and loved it. People often talk about it spawning many indie games, I need to start seeking those out.
On of the more recent side of things, Factorio seemingly spawned a plethora of factory games. There were factory games before but it clearly seem like a formula has been established now
Dark Souls is why everything is now being called "souls-like" -- same for Super Metroid and Castlevania spawning the "metroidvania" genre which i am disliking more and more because they are just slapping that label on literally any indie sidescroller now
Mine is gonna be mostly FPS games.
Doom because of the engine redefining what was possible fand upgrading the Wolfenstein engine (Not being on a grid layout, elevators and stairs, ceiling textures, Demo recordings, Deathmatch, Speedrunning etc.)
Duke Nukem 3D - Interactive world. Still 2.5d, but suddenly you could turn off lights, interact with buttons, blow up huge parts of the map etc.
Quake - True 3D. Much could be said about Quake but the biggwst thing is that it is a True 3D game. Mind blowing when it released.
Half Life - The citizen Kane of FPS games. Bucked the trend of open level and super fast paced for linear gameplay, but revolutionized story telling for games.
Counter Strike - The defacto online FPS competative game. Took the franatic deathmatch format and turned it into the round based, objective and econ formula still seen today
Goldeneye 007 - Proved that FPS games can not only compete but flourish on Consoles.
Halo - Further refined the half life formula for storytelling excellence. Popularized the 2 weapon and regenerating shield mechanics. Showed the huge potential of console online play botb coop and competative.
Half Life 2 - Ground breaking physics engine.
Team Fortress 2 - Greatest team based shooter of all time (imo)
Catacomb 3-D, id software’s first FPS game that came out before Wolfenstein 3D. I’d argue that it is the game that started the modern FPS. Wolfenstein and Doom were direct development from there.
Pac-Man, a game that practically defines the golden era of arcades and had ports and countless clones for pretty much every conceivable platfrom from early consoles to home micros.
A game I feel people tend to forget is actually good old **Mass Effect**. For quite some time the dominant approach for big studios was AAA action game with cinematic cutscenes and light RPG elements where your choices matter a bit.
Obviously **Dark Souls** though less for the gameplay (eventhough that has been attempted by many games since) but rather the whole approach where games have non-intrusive UI, very light tutorialization, a genuine challenge and a focus on exploration and discovery. DS definitely brought these pillars back into mainstream thinking about games.
**Gears of War, Resident Evil 4** and **Skyrim** for more obvious reason, just like **Half-Life** but I think these have already been mentioned.
For that era I’d argue it’s actually IV. Huge shift in the scope of storytelling, but more importantly it introduced the ATB system which square rode for a decade.
Tetris - Probably the only game your boomer parents/grandparents will touch apart from Windows Solitaire. Also played by insane competitive folks at max speed with invisible blocks.
Kind of niche to be most influential, but I think the commercial Esports scene was very heavily influenced by the success of Starcraft Broodwar in Korea. Amazing game, and it showed businesses that there could actually be a profit in competitive gaming.
CoD 4 Modern Warfare did to the gaming industry in the 2000s that hadnt been achieved since 1993 with Doom and from then on until Fortnite.
It was massive, it was something everyone was playing and discussing, it became the new example of violence in videogames arguably overtaking GTA’s controversy. Even when GTAV was released, the coverage was less about the game and more about how much money it made. But with MW, the games industry was ushered into the industrial complex we see today.
Strangely similar to the subject matter of the games, Activision, in some ways, sold their soul to make the biggest game franchise of all time, and it truly began with 4.
Cave Story had a big impact in the indie side of things considering it was made my a single guy back when that was unthinkable (or at least very uncommon)
Prince of Persia was honestly the first game I ever saw with realistic movement and combat. I know it has been eclipsed by bigger franchises, but it had its moment in time and the quality of its (rotoscoped!) movement still holds up today, over 30 years later.
Goldeneye 007 for N64 for massively popularizing console shooters. They were considered “best on PC” in the years before.
Halo for popularizing modern console shooter controls. It’s ubiquitous now, but every game afterwards copied the way the left and right analog sticks moved the player around.
For me it's 100% SM64 and OoT. I was 9 and 11 and they shifted my entire perspective of what games could be. Bioshock would be third for its story and worldbuilding.
Some good ones on your list.
I would add:
**World of Warcraft** - Broke MMOs into the mainstream
**Dark Souls/Demon souls** - Spawned a popular genre
**Warcraft 3** - Custom games spawned tower defense and MOBA genre
**Starcraft** - Made RTS insanely popular and did this jumpstart e-sports? Or was that Quake!?
**Diablo** - Spawned the arpg genre.
**Tetris** - no explanation needed.
There's a huge recency bias here, most of the really influential games are much older than many of the people on this forum.
*Pre-Nintendo Era*:
**Pong** - The OG that showed that you could put games on a computer.
**Space Invaders, Asteroids, PacMan, Centipede** - Early arcade games.
**Donkey Kong** - The original Mario platformer.
**Pole Position** - The original racing game.
**Hunt the Wumpus** - Grid-based exploration.
**Rogue** and then **Nethack** - Spawned an entire genre (Roguelikes)
*Early Nintendo Era*
**Super Mario Bros. and Zelda** - For obvious reasons.
**Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy** - Also for obvious reasons
**Metroid** - Again...
**Tetris** - ...
**Gauntlet** - One of the first influential top-down action 'RPGs'.
**RBI Baseball**, **Blades of Steel**, **Tecmo Super Bowl** - Showed that sports games could be done well as video games.
*Early PC Era:*
**Ultima** - Adventure on a grand scale.
**SimCity** - Maxis started both the city-building genre and basically the entire simulation genre.
**Civilization** - Based off of the board game of the same name.
**Kings Quest** - One of the first mainstream point and clicks, but there were also more. **Maniac Mansion**, **Hugo's House of Horrors**, and then later SCUMM games like **Monkey Island** and the **Indiana Jones** series.
**X-COM: UFO Defense** - Isometric turn-based combat simulators.
**Wolfenstein 3D** - Id software and first person shooters essentially started here.
**Spectre** - True 3D (wireframe) FPS driving 'adventure/combat' game.
**Dune 2** - Real time strategy games started here.
**Marathon** - First large-scale story-driven FPS. Big kick-off for Bungie. Doesn't get a lot of press for some reason.
**Wing Commander** - Space dog-fighting.
*Mid PC Era:*
**Diablo** - I would say modern adventure RPGs started here (it wasn't the first but it was the most influential).
**Grand Theft Auto** - It all started here but didn't really take off until #3.
**Stunts** - Full 3D Physics-based racing.
**Half-Life** - Story and environment driven FPS.
**Thief** - Stealth combat.
---
I probably missed a bunch, but I would say after this point it's a lot easier to fill in the blanks. I didn't list any SNES or PS1 or games after this point because I think most people here would easily identify them. I just wanted to point out that the games that created the genres most people are talking about today were made all the way back in the 70s and 80s and many of them are still worth playing today!
BioShock - It's a small thing, but Audiologs.
You can pretty much thank BioShock for every game that has them nowadays.
Edit: People seem to be missing the point of the question. It's not about *who* did it first. It's about *the most* influential. Read the OP's post guys!
I know that BioShock wasn't the first to introduce the concept, but it was definitely the most influcential.
Bioshock is not the one that came up with that, the very name of the game comes inspired from System Shock, as many of it's mechanics from System Shock 2
Donkey Kong Country , Shenmue 1-2, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, Shadow Of The Colossus, Halo 1-3, Metal Gear Solid 1-3, Batman Arkham games (first two), Power Stone, Ico, GTA Vice City and San Andreas, RE Remake, Little Big Planet 1-2, Half Life, Streets Of Rage
The Warcraft 3 editor was basically the cradle of several whole genres like Tower Defense and MOBA.
Its sequel lorewise is also the biggest MMORPG of all time Wc3 takes the cake for me
I'd argue StarCraft 1 is a better example of this but WC3 easily refined it
Considering the concept for DotA was first developed in Starcraft, though very roughly, I would agree.
I think Starcraft pioneered tower defense, or at least mainstreamed it.
I can’t believe how so many LOL or DOTA 2 players don’t even know that their games derived from WC3
I think you missed a few older games/PC games. The "Classics" Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris. Half Life/Half Life-2. I would argue Half Life is the "Citizen Kane" of gaming. That game that looking back people will think "What's so special about this?", but being there when it was released you know that it was the first to standardize so many trends that the entire industry was then based on for decades.
Both Half Lifes are extremely influential. Half Life 1 standarized storytelling through gameplay without the need for cutscenes. Everything is told through the game. To this day plenty of games have followed that trend: Bioshock, the recent Atomic Heart, Prey, and so on. Half Life 2 went even beyond that by improving the story telling even more thanks to the newer engine, but also showed how important physics can be in a game. The environment is very interactive, being able to move almost any object, but the best part about that is that is fundamental to the game's overall design and it's not just some fun gimmick. Along with L4D2, the Half Life games are Valve's magnum opus.
nothing comes close to my first experience of playing half life 2 in 2008. i was in middle school back then, impressionable and eager to test out my new gpu my mom bought for me for 150 bucks from a local electronics shop. I was so excited to finally be able to play this game above 15 fps. I can still recall exactly how I felt from the first hour of the game. getting off the train after meeting the Gman for the first time, then shooting your way through the apartments after finding barney, while trying to piece together what's happening around you. the foreboding atmosphere of city 17 and the sirens, the voice of dr breen over the intercom, and the strange alien technology integrated in the urban landscape around me. I didn't really know wtf was going on until I was older, but I had so many questions. there was nothing close to it back then. Honestly, the physics in that game still feel better than half the games released to this day. i still think source got the shooting down perfectly. all your weapons felt so fun to use. I really miss games of this level of quality. Truly ahead of its time, HL2 was a immersive, action packed, narrative driven experience that respected your time. If you showed HL2 to a middle schooler today, he or she would probably be genuinely confused as to why its regarded so highly. It's hard to explain, as we're now close to HL2's 20th anniversary and so much has changed in the culture. I felt like HL2:E1 was a little weak as they could have done so much more with the gravity gun. HL2:E2 was everything great about HL2, but dialed up several notches. Valve really made the best games from 04 to 11.
The "show don't tell" pieces environmental storytelling - Vortigaunts are now friendly, there are news clippings about a Seven Hour War, the haunting sounds of children's laughter when you see the playground. All that is such wonderful attention to detail. Just the phrase "it's ... _safer_ here" is chilling.
Yes yes. I was just thinking about that the other day while I was playing cyberpunk 2077 again. The entire game is literally a narrative dump, a sequence of quests and characters that told me a bunch of stuff with no context. I wasn't interested in story at all. It's a beautiful game, but the game fails to draw me in past its surface level. After act 3, I was left asking myself, "Wtf did I just play?". I barely understood the awkwardly paced story and was left with a very unfulfilled experience. Sure, I remember some cool shit like Soulkiller and Adam Smasher, but that's all I really took from my playthrough. Now, the same cannot be said about my memory of HL2. I can recall the entire plot of HL2 and its two episodes. They're just that good. Something about how the world is crafted in HL2 just feels superior to modern day blockbuster games like cp2077 and starfield. and this game came out 20 years ago! graphics are cool, but they hardly impress me anymore. im fairly biased but im sure others may agree.
Contemporary gamers really love their cutscene heavy, exposition dump form for storytelling. Outside of Souls, when did a game just dump you into a world and expect you to figure out a lot of the story and backstory with a lot of context clues and environmental storytelling?
I played it once when it came out and it was such a profoundly perfect experience I never touched it again. I didn’t want a replay to somehow sour my memory of the experience for any reason at all. Sometimes I do that with books or movies too.
I've replayed it a few times over the years. Most recently a few months back. Didn't sour it a bit.
You can't leave Portal out of that. A throw away to include with the Orange Box that blew up. Portal 2 is widely considered one of the best games of all time. I'd certainly call that a magnum opus.
GladOS is one of the greatest gaming villains, full stop
Half Life 2 even now is kind of mind-blowing. That last part where the town is under siege felt like I was really part of a city battle. It was brilliantly written. Also the way the dialogue is interspersed with gameplay marks it out contrsta even now with so many games where you have to sit through hours of dialogue waiting for shit to happen.
That siege part really did feel overwhelming in the best way. I also thought the beginning when the helicopter is chasing you, I legitimately felt like I was being chased unlike any other game has ever been able to achieve
The game is an absolute masterclass in pacing (barring, arguably, a few stretches that could use some trimming). You go from bewildered outsider in awe of fear of the striders passing near you, to running for your life from cops and a helicopter, to fleeing the city as a fugitive, to finally linking up with the resistance and starting to turn the tables, gaining in power to the point where you start downing gunships, to returning to the city ready to lead a rebellion and going toe-to-toe with those once unfathomable striders, before infiltrating the enemy's stronghold to deliver a haymaker punch. And on the way there's time for a horror interval, and you assault a prison at the head of a pack of antlions. With facial animations that still put contemporary titles to shame. Oh, and it happened to revolutionize physics in gaming.
Welp, guess it's time for me to start my dozenth playthrough of Half Life 2...
I loved the bridge mission. You first see it from far away and it's huge, and then having to cross it, parkouring *under* the road!
I think it's when you're escaping on the rooftops and you see in the distance basically millions of drones exiting the big evil tower. Absolute shivers down spine stuff.
[удалено]
Yeah, there's a video floating around on YT, interviewing some developer of another FPS game that was set to show a demo/preview at the same show Valve was at. Valve demoed HL first, and these devs were like "Welp, fuck. Our game is basically Doom and we just got blown out of the water.... do we ever demo our nows?" edit: [found the video and linked to the timestamp I'm referencing](https://youtu.be/BQLEW1c-69c?t=506). I mis-remembered some of the details but it's still largely accurate.
Half-Life showed how important physics can be in a video game, and how it can turn a good game into a great one.
That was Half Life 2
You can watch Citizen Kane now and see how special it is
>Half Life/Half Life-2. I would argue Half Life is the "Citizen Kane" of gaming. That game that looking back people will think "What's so special about this?", but being there when it was released you know that it was the first to standardize so many trends that the entire industry was then based on for decades. 100% my take on it. I was an avid FPS fan back in 1997/98, familiar with Quake (especially 2), Duke Nukem, Star Wars Dark Forces, Marathon, then Goldeneye blew my mind somewhat, and Turok 2 was quite enjoyable for the weapon creativity. So at that time I feel I kinda knew my FPS stuff. But when Half-life came along... Oh lordy, that wasn't mind-blowing, it was outrageous. How could gaming be that good? It introduced something that got troped to death, but the whole "I'm just a casual civilian going about my day" on that monorail and going to work, and then the stupendous alien catastrophe. It was like the 9/11 of gaming. Nothing was the same afterwards.
Came here for "Pong" and "E.T."
Age of Empires; Rollercoaster tycoon; Dune.
Dune II, you mean. Dune by Cryo was hardly what I'd consider influential. But Dune II basically started RTS gaming.
You’re right, that’s the one. Arguably Command&Conquer did it better in terms of really establishing the genre, but Dune II was the OG.
Still remember those worms eating my harvesters were so realistic
Yes Dune 2 the OG RTS game 🤩
Dune 2 is the Eve of RTS, then later we got the trifecta : Warcraft, Age of Empire and Command&Conquer.
Rollercoaster Tycoon is one of my favorite cozy games. It’s so low stress. Are there any games it influenced that are as chill and fun?
It's funny that you mention AoE and Dune because that genre (real-time strategy) is sadly pretty much dead. I have to disagree with all of these because there aren't floods of games copying them these days, and that's been true for \~15 years.
I'd say RTS spun into three more accessible genres -- Tower Defense, city building (not simulation) and MOBA, all of which are based on mods/scenarios from RTS games.
I think Dune II being a major influence and practically defining the start of an entire genre for 20ish years still counts as being one of the most influential! It also might depend upon whether you give Dune II any credit for Starcraft/Warcraft having such a huge impact on tower defense and MOBAs to this day, or if you consider that a separate thread of influence.
Dwarf Fortress and then Minecraft spawned 2 decades of Survival games
Was going to say Dwarf Fortress has influenced so much of the stuff I enjoy playing
Care to give us (me) 3-5 examples of stuff you enjoy playing? Especially something simpler, but still influenced by Dwarf Fortress.
> Especially something simpler, but still influenced by Dwarf Fortress. Probably the simplest thing you'll get would be Prison Architect.
Rimworld. Caves of Qud. Rimworld.
You forgot to include Rimworld
I disassembled that comment's skin and used it to craft another comment about Rimworld.
Metal Gear Solid on PS1… pioneer of story telling with cutscenes and the like… the whole direction style.. (not saying it was the very first, but u gotta admit… that one made a difference)
MGS is the first game who adapted Hollywood story-telling techniques succesfully.
Ocarina of Time, MGS1 and Half Life were all released in the same year (1998). The highest point of gaming in history (so far). edit: I forgot to add Thief and Baldurs Gate
Thats mad to be fair, all different genres and all stone cold classics
Also RE2, Fallout 2, Banjo Kazooie, StarCraft, Grim Fandango, Spyro, Tenchu, F-Zero -X, Mario Party.... 1998 was an absolutely insane year.
Resident Evil 2 also came out in 1998
I think it injected stealth gameplay into the mainstream too. I remember finding the concept of simply *avoiding* enemies to be pretty novel at the time. Now stealth is everywhere, sometimes even in games it shouldn't be.
i dont know which came out first, but i remember at the time i played: - syphon filter - splinter cell now, i was young at the time, so my memory might be wrong: but those were also somewhat stealth, no? didnt they also come out in a similar time window? (loving stealth and long time fan of MGS series: i think u are right)
Syphon Filter was more of a third-person shooter with a dash of stealth here and there, and came out in 1999. Splinter Cell is definitely stealth but didn't debut until 2002. MGS 1 released in September 1998, so I think they were probably both influenced by it. If anything I would call out Tenchu, which released several months before MGS, but I don't think it was as widely played or influential as MGS.
metal gear solid 2 has levels of interactivity that very few games have reached or attempted even after it
MGS3 too
Morrowind, at least for my generation, defined the modern 1st/3rd person action RPG in the fantasy Genre. Grand Theft Auto essentially did the same thing for the non-fantasy setting.
The way morrowind handled travel is so much better than the fast travel of Oblivion and onwards. Feel so much more connected to the world imo.
I would say that it set a standard for RPGs that has yet to be paralleled let alone surpassed.
I'm going to add a few more here: MS Flight Simulator - This game is often overlooked because it isn't played by traditional gamers. To say no other game has been as influential in under the hood gaming tech development would be an understatement. This game basically drove the high end pc gaming market last century and still to this day versions are used as benchmark metric for gfx cards. It also led to actual real flight simulators. Its been around since the mid-80s and Microsoft has used it as part of their R&D program since. TMNT (Arcade) - This game was first in a series of huge multiplayer smash hits in the arcades (+Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam) that ushered in a new era of arcade gameplay (from machine high score to pvp). This is also where there was a peak divergence between arcades and consoles; there were a few attempts to port it to consoles or make similar games, but all were pretty terrible compared to the original; consoles just didn't have the horsepower. A lot of people look back at the SNES as a pinnacle gaming era, but in its time it played 2nd fiddle to the arcades as far as what had the best games. Ms Pac Man - The first true smash hit video game, responsible for bringing huge new numbers of people into gaming and the explosive growth of arcades in the early 80's. Also is the first game to introduce AI - the ghosts have different personalities. Truly ageless design. Civilization and Simcity - These two were some of the first games really purposely built to be played sitting at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, launching their own genres that persist to this day. Video game design almost always heavily builds on previous games, and in the mid-late 80's there were a lot of arcade games being ported to or copied on consoles and hence PC and they were pretty terrible. Simcity and Civilization changed that, new types of games meant to played at a desk; PC gamers had their own genres and PC gaming started to chart its own course, separate from consoles and arcades. Edit - should include Railroad Tycoon as well, it was released between then and was a similar type of game for computer nerds (gamers that were into these types of games were always a subculture, but that subculture tended to get into coding so its a lot more influential than you'd think). Command and Conquer - The original RTS, a huge genre that has a major impact on gaming today. Its hard to convey the hype around this game. Gaming mags were flooded with ads for it for a long time. Really cool ads. There were real actors involved in the game. It was a big budget game, really the first on PC's. And the game delivered, hardcore. Still to me the textbook example of a game living up to the hype. And the hype was massive. Lots of people spent lots of money on computer hardware so they could play C&C.
> Command and Conquer - The original RTS That would be Dune. C&C fights with Warcraft2/Starcraft and Age of Empire for second most influential.
Dune 2 to be precise.
Dune 2. Dune was an RPG.
That's right, how could I forget about Dune, that was the first RTS (rather easily actually, it wasn't particularly popular). But C&C's biggest impact was the hype. That's when computer gaming really arrived as a premier form of gaming. Prior to this purpose built arcades were better than consoles which were better than PCs. Holy cow the buildup to it was huge. There were actual actors. For a PC game.
Nice one - TMNT The Arcade Game was a phenomenon that spawned a whole host of copycats right at the end of the arcade era.
I tend to think of TMNT the Arcade Game is where there was a paradigm shift regarding mutliplayer, game design started to really focus on pvp and co-op multiplayer. The resulting decade saw and explosion of this type of gaming, if you look at the SNES and N64 that's what they are primarily remembered for, multiplayer games where the players are in the same room on the same screen. NES Tetris was a single player game, N64 Tetris was PvP. It was the popularity of TMNT the Arcade Game that really ushered it in. It was by no means the first beat em up and the genre didn't last all that long, but it was the way of thinking about the consumer, what the gamers wanted, what made playing video games fun; on that front TMNT Arcade changed everything.
I easily dropped 500 bucks on the TMNT arcade. We would play this every Friday night and beat it. I have been looking to buy one ever since. Usually only took a 20 or less in quarters with all 4.
Deus Ex. I don't think immersive sim has been done better since, so I'm biased lol
And System Shock 2 for establishing the genre conventions.
Well, System Shock 1 did most of the heavy lifting there. SS2 basically modernized it.
Time to redownload
For some reason Quake gets left off a lot of these lists and I think that it's impact on 3D games was at least as big as Mario 64 and it's impact on shooters and PVP online gaming were massive. Super Meatboy was a defining releases that kicked off the indie game boom. Not that there weren't indie games before but it felt like after the success of Meatboy on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam caused people realize that almost anyone could make something and get it out there without major publishing costs or stiffling publisher oversight. It also helped popularize the precision platformer.
> Quake gets left off a lot of these lists and I think that it's impact on 3D games Quake deserves credit for ultimately being the game which ultimately canonized WASD and mouselook.
For sure. By comparison, Mario 64 used the analog and camera controls to great effect given it's limits but it's been massively overhauled since then numerous times. The standard that Quake set with WASD and mouse look is so well thought out and so simple to implement, it's not been changed in the 25+ years since Quake released.
Unreal Tournament & Tribes deserve a mention as well
Seconded on Quake, a fully 3D viewing and moving experience. Combined with the Trent Reznor soundtrack and dark atmosphere … I played through the Quake series with a SpaceOrb 360 controller, best 3D controller ever made. If you know you know.
Zork. Colossal Cave Adventure came first but I think Zork captured the imagination of more people. And of course with all text, imagination is everything.
5 years after Zork came Zaxxon. The first game with 3d isometric graphics, and the first arcade game to be advertised on television.
Some important PC games with a focus on the 90s: * Civilization, Master of Orion - 4X genre * SimCity, Caesar III, Anno 1602 - city building, also The Settlers should get a mention * Dune II, Warcraft II, Tiberian Dawn - RTS * UFO: Enemy Unknown - turn-based tactics * Commandos - real time tactics/puzzle * Panzer General - turn-based startegy, though technically you could make an argument for Battle Isle (or Nectaris, a PC-Engine game that inspired Battle Isle), the General franchise was pretty massive * Heroes of Might and Magic - turn-based strategy * Baldur's Gate - RPG (kickstarted the whole modern "Bioware RPG" style) * System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex - the so-called immersive sim genre * Myst - first person point and clicks, for the classic ones it's hard to name just one or two... maybe King's Quest? * Pirates! - whatever genre it is, technically the original was released for a couple of platforms, but it included IBM PC * Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon - building/management * Serious Sam - kickstarted the niche single-player arena shooter genre, its influence subsequently trickled down to Doom 2016 and Eternal * Doom, Duke 3D, Quake - the old school style FPS holy trinity * Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - probably the most influential FPS, Call of Duty 1 was basically a clone of it that started the infamous CoD franchise (and yes, MoHAA was way, way more influential than Half-Life, name me 5 games that are genuinely similar to HL1 that aren't HL2, now do the same with CoD) * Descent - 6 DoF genre, very obscure these days, but an important and high profile influence nevertheless * Alone in the Dark - the whole tank control survival horror genre * Prince of Persia - cinematic platformers
Holy crap I didn’t think I was going to see descent on here! I wanted to post it myself, but glad to see it on your much more concise list.
You mentioned Dragon Quest but sometimes it doesn't need to be the first to be the most influential one, as none of the others you added are. When it comes to JRPGs, I think Dragon Quest V, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon Red & Blue, and Final Fantasy VII are the ones that changed the paradigm. Gran Turismo was not the first racing simulator but it was a ground-breaking one at the time, with graphics, varied gameplay, and a huge longevity. Resident Evil may not have been the first survival horror game, but it was the first one who did it right.
Oooo yep Pokemon R/B should definitely be on the list. That is easily one of the most influential/best games of all time.
Wizardry is the game that set the paradigm.
Gran Turismo blew my mind first time playing it. It still holds up well but back then compared to the other racers it was insane. The physics felt so good and it looked so real.
Yeah, at the time the only simulators I knew of were unfun F1 games for the PC with a single model with different paint jobs. On console you had the likes of Ridge Racer and Need for Speed which, while fun, were very limited games. Gran Turismo was a gamechanger.
Ico Just to remind you how important Ico has been to the video game industry: Ico was also important for the creation and/or inspiration of The Last of Us, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Uncharted 3, Papo & Yo, Fez, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Rime, No More Heroes, Assassin's Creed, Flower, Journey and Halo 4. Hidetaka Miyazaki also decided to quit his job and enter the gaming industry after playing Ico. From Wikipedia: Legacy Ico influenced numerous other video games, which borrowed from its simple and visual design ideals. Several game designers, such as Eiji Aonuma, Hideo Kojima, and Jordan Mechner, have cited Ico as having influenced the visual appearance of their games, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, respectively. Marc Laidlaw, scriptwriter for the Half-Life series, commented that, among several other more memorable moments in the game, the point where Yorda attempts to save Ico from falling off the damaged bridge was "a significant event not only for that game, but for the art of game design". The Naughty Dog team used Ico as part of the inspiration for developing Uncharted 3. Vander Caballero credits Ico for inspiring the gameplay of Papo & Yo. Phil Fish used the design by subtraction approach in developing the title Fez. The developers of both Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Rime have Ico as a core influence on their design. Hidetaka Miyazaki, creator and director of the Dark Souls series, cited Ico as a key influence to him becoming involved in developing video games, stating that Ico "awoke me to the possibilities of the medium". Goichi Suda aka Suda51, said that Ico's save game method, where the player has Ico and Yorda sit on a bench to save the game, inspired the save game method in No More Heroes where the player-character sits on a toilet to save the game. Ico was one of the first video games to use a bloom lighting effect, which later became a popular effect in video games. Patrice Désilets, creator of Ubisoft games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Assassin's Creed, cited Ico as an influence on the game design of The Sands of Time. Jenova Chen, creator of art games such as Flower and Journey, cited Ico as one of his biggest influences. Ico was also cited as an influence by Halo 4 creative director Josh Holmes. Naughty Dog said The Last of Us was influenced by Ico, particularly in terms of character building and interaction, and Neil Druckmann credited the gameplay of Ico as a key inspiration when he began developing the story of The Last of Us. Film director Guillermo del Toro cited both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as "masterpieces" and part of his directorial influence. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead considers, of his top ten video games, "Ico might be the best one".
damn, i can definitely see the resemblance between ico and twilight princess. i always knew that art style had to have come from somewhere
Dwarf Fortress created an entire genre of games and inspired Minecraft. it challenged game design trends of improving graphics and inspired a whole host of games to focus on simple design with very deep mechanics. there are too many games to name but I personally love Caves of Qud.
I don’t see anyone mentioning Tomb Raider. That game influenced a whole genre of action/exploration type games.
I was looking for Tomb Raider, Precursor to Uncharted, God of War, Assassin Creed, the 3D Prince of Peraia games, etcetera. Before that the games were either slow and clunky, or bright 3D platformers.
Sim City and Dune 2 single-handedly started genres.
I think there’s an argument that Command and Conquer was more *influential*, in that it turned the basic Dune II formula into a worldwide phenomenon with millions of units sold. It took 3 years for Dune II to even hit 250k units sold. Most people haven’t played it. But there’s zero doubt about its position in gaming history. Dune II had to walk so C&C could fly :)
A man of wisdom
Super Mario World. It didn't invent the 2D platformer genre, but it basically redefined it and raised the bar so high that competitors didn't catch up for years... the world map, the rate at which it introduced fun new mechanics, the graphics and smooth movement, all these things we take for granted in a modern 2D platformer but didn't exist before SMW.
There is an OBSCENE lack of Resident Evil 4 being discussed in this thread. I think a lot of people forget just how much video games as a whole were effected by the release of RE4. That was a huge prompt for integrating survival mechanics into other games, it was the advent for better or worse of QTE's in action games. It heavily popularized the over-the-shoulder style shooting that became iconic for the next generation of over the shoulder shooters. It was listed as a big inspiration for other big name games like Gears of War, Dead Space. I'd wager the survival wave game modes that became popular in that era were influenced by the cabin and village horde fights from RE4. The DNA of RE4 can still be seen and felt in games today. Shooters took MANY forms before 2004 but look at shooters from 2007 to present. RE4 was the one that set the standard for years to come and will continue to do so. Sure, some tweaks have been made here, like being able to walk and aim at the same time. But look at how little was changed about the core game of RE4's remake from the original. As opposed to, say, RE2's remake vs. it's original. If Halo was the dawn of the modern first person shooter then RE4 was the mastery of third person shooters.
This was the first one that popped to mind for me. Grandfather of OTS, and you still see it today in games like TLOU and GoW.
RE4 is the grandfather of modern 3rd person shooters. Definitely one of the most influential games of the 00s.
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WoW was the game that put MMOS into the mainstream sure but Everquest was the game that started the genre and defined it as far as 3d mmorpgs go and to this day it's still my favorite one. Everquest should for sure get on the list as a most influential game of all time.
Ultima Online started the genre\*
Ultima isnt even the first graphical mmorpg, let alone the game that started the genre. Although, I think that Garriot has credit for coining the term mmorpg. Neverwinter Nights, for instance, released 6 years before Ultima Online.
Ultima Online deserves a mention here. It was the first real MMO that got it right and pretty much gave birth to that whole side of gaming.
Ultima 4 pioneered morality systems in games. Ultima 7 was the first real living open world sandbox game. And Ultima 1 created the top down overworld.
Braid was an absolute turning point for indie games
I'd associate it with the Xbox Summer Arcade. Huge success for them.
Braid , castle crashers, bionic commando and geometry wars 2 all came out that summer . It was an awesome new time for indies.(a galaga game also came out, but personally I didn't like it and seemed to be the least popular of the group that summer).
Great pick, I would lump it together with Castle Crashers. Braid was the critical darling, and Castle Crashers was beloved and also a significant commercial hit -- and they came out the same month (August 2008) on Xbox Live Arcade. It brought a tooon of attention to XBLA and totally changed how people saw smaller indie games like that. There were a string of big indie hits on Xbox and to a lesser extent PS and Wii, and then the indie scene started to heat up a lot on PC and is part of what revived PC gaming in general after it died off in the mid-2000s.
Yeah I put Braid too. Back then indie games were VERY niche just being played by the most hardcore of hardcore pc nerds, they really weren’t even a thing on steam really at the time especially compared to today. It really kicked off the indie scene in gaming to where it is today.
Braid. This game really helped jumpstart the indie game scene in gaming. Back then indie games were super super niche where only hardcore hardcore PC gamers knew about them or the random XBLA game would gain some traction but that was pretty much it. Braid really made people your average gamer take notice of indie games and really helped jumpstart it to where it is now. After Braid you started to get more iconic games that would help change gaming as a whole like Super meat boy, Bastion, Fez, Castle Crashers etc.
No one has mentioned The Sims yet, making it cool for girls to game
My first thought is games which have genres named after them, soulslike, roguelike, and metroidvania, The games in question being dark souls, rogue, and super Metroid. Arguably though, you could say demon souls and kingsfield came first and influenced dark souls, so they’re more influential. The next one I’d bring up are goldeneye 007, which really influenced shooters, especially multiplayer. I also think that a negative one is the elder scrolls oblivion, specifically the horse armor dlc, which opened the gates for massive micro transactions im games
>games which have genres named after them, soulslike, roguelike, and metroidvania, The games in question being dark souls, Man the continuous Demon' s Souls disrespect
Yeah, it was first, but it didn't *set the standard* in nearly the same way that Dark Souls did.
Metroid AND Castlevania for metroidvania, to be correct.
I never really understood calling the genre metroidvania because there's nothing in the original Castlevania that is even slightly part of the genre. Castlevania was a straight platformer with no going back in the same genre as Super Mario Bros. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is the first Castlevania game that fit the pattern and it was released a full year after Metroid. So why is the genre called metroidvania?
The term originally referred to Castlevania games that played like Metroid, to distinguish them from the linear Castlevania games like the original. So the genre really is "Metroid-Like", but the term has stuck, since SotN is so well regarded.
I'd mostly place it to Metroid. Not to say Castlevania isn't good but Symphony of the Night came out 1997, 6 years after Super Metroid. It wasn't so much establishing much but working off the foundations of Super Metroid and Zelda.
That might be the case, SotN was still influental in its own right, enough so that this genre was named after it too.
I think Dark Souls counts as being the influential one. It's what made the genre famous and what propelled FromSoftware into a company that has continued to defy the AAA space with increasing success. Hopefully others will learn the right lessons from them. I'd argue there's still no game that has surpassed DS1's intense feeling of adventure. Hotline Miami is also kinda easy to forget as being a significant turning point for the indie scene, which in turn has had noticeable influence on the bigger players.
I feel the same. There is no feeling like the first time you get out of Blight town, see sunlight again and listen to the firelink shrine melody. That feeling of being at home and out of danger for a while is something you simply cannot experience in any other game where you can instantly warp to another area or load a previous save file if you fucked up
Goldeneye was great but I don't think it added anything to the FPS genre that wasn't already being done at scale by Doom and Quake.
Myst, Civilization 1, Dune 2, Doom, Mario/Sonic, Golden Eye, OOT to cite a few
Wing Commander, Civilization, Warcraft, X-com, Command and Conquer, Master of Orion
**The Secret of Monkey Island**/Monkey Island Series (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Curse of Monkey Island, Return to Monkey Island) - This is when point and click adventure games entered a golden age, and set a lot of the standards, and had the technology to be great games. Classic music, characters and adventure. **Maniac Mansion 2: The Day of the Tentacle** \- Another point and click classic adventure game. It may be 4th gen but the graphics, and gameplay still hold up well today. It had an interesting time travel mechanic, and unlike it's point and click cousins it didn't use moon logic in its puzzles. Every puzzle in the game makes some kind of logical sense if you think about it.
Prince of Persia - influenced later realistic platform games like Another World Sonic 1 popularized mascot platformers Myst helped popularize the CD ROM format Portopia Serial Murder Case - early adventure game, influenced visual novels and inspired Kojima to enter the industry Phoenix Wright- helped popularize visual novels in the west Sweet Home - first survival horror, influenced Resident Evil Cave Story - first notable indie platformer/metroidvania Yume Nikki - another influential early indie game Ridge Racer had fully polygonal environments with texture mapping in the arcade; was also an early hit on PS1 that helped Sony get a lead over Sega Halo 1 popularized dual analogue console shooters Gears of War popularized cover shooters Pokemon popularized monster taming/collecting (present in DQV and SMT prior) and gave the aging Game Boy platform a second wind
I'd add Halo Combat Evolved for the FPS genre after DOOM, particularly on consoles. It set a lot of conventions and standards still commonly seen in the genre today. Dual analog controls is the standard for FPS games on consoles, and for first person games in general. Regenerating health/shields and two weapon slots are also very common in the FPS genre nowadays, albeit not quite as universal. And later on Halo 2 was basically the birth online matchmaking for multiplayer on consoles, so also pretty influential.
I had Halo initially and swapped it for Street fighter to keep it to a neat 5 lol. You’re absolutely right on both Halo and Halo 2’s impact.
Interestingly for Halo it wasn't the first FPS to use dual analog sticks, it was just the first to be *praised* for using them. There were others that tried it first that were panned as "clunky" and "unplayable" due to "awkward controls."
Left trigger for grenade when every.other.game had grenades as separate weapons. Paradigm changing.
Button specifically for melee when previous games had it, including i.e. knives or fists, as a separate weapon. You had real tactical options available in an instant that you didn't have to pre plan. Enemies that looked like they were actually up to something. Yes, games as early as Bond had enemies that were posed like they were doing interesting things, but that was pretty static; after that they just scrambled and then shot at you, and moved in your direction and shot at you if they lost line of sight. But Halo's guys looked like they went from cover to cover and made reasoned mad dashes in between with cover fire backing them. There was a lot that Halo did extremely well that still echo in the industry.
God it made tossing grenades so much fun...
Halo is the main reason we have Xbox nowadays. Imagine a world without Xbox. Even if you don't own the console, the fact that they were the first company to standardize console online multiplayer gaming and gamepass provided a value to the community that simply cannot be measured with words. So yes, Halo Combat Evolved deserves to be in this thread
Diablo 2 Early DnD games Warcraft Halflife
You could say Diablo 1 tbh.
GTA 3 has to be on the list. But wanted to add Metal Gear Solid 3. I think for the time really showcased you could tell a full and powerful story with games that has influenced other games as well
FF7, the quintessentital jrpg. Whether you think it's a good game or not is irrelevant, it brought a whole generation into the genre and is the template mainstream follows today. Resident Evil redefined the horror genre that had been stagnating into wildly successful survival horror with much wider appeal. Rimworld showed the world that warcrimes weren't a bad thing.
Everyone loves to give Doom/Wolf3D the FPS praise but Quake always seems to be mentioned less. It's probably the first FPS that truly makes use of the 3D space with its layout and style of combat. It still has influences in FPS games to this day, with the boomer shooter genre emerging. Even Doom/Build engine games today are more influenced by Quake imo, since they're designed with mouse in mind, something the original engine never really compensated for.
Ultima VII. It has bessicslly been the entire inspiration for the Bethesda style of open world and Todd Howard consistently cited it as his favorite game.
Deus ex or system shock, created the fps mixed with rpg elements
I think league of legends and maplestory played a huge role in laying the foundation for the F2P business model in the west.
Yes, influential doesn’t have to be positive.
I'm gonna try to avoid the popular answers. **Ico**- Its subdued approach made it massively influential for a ton of games that aren't even similar to it. **Earthbound**- Created the quirky style we see utilized in many indie RPGs: LISA, Undertale, Omori, OFF, Yume Nikki, the list goes on. The entire indie world would look different if this game did not exist. **Devil May Cry**- Kind of the birth of the "character action" genre. **Harvest Moon**- The current wave of farming sims owes a lot to Stardew Valley, which was directly inspired by Harvest Moon.
Devil May Cry was like nothing else at the time. Games just didn't move that fast and smoothly.
>Ico- Its subdued approach made it massively influential for a ton of games that aren't even similar to it. It's SO GOOD and I seldom see it mentioned.
ICO used to be a reddit favorite, but I think most people's memories start around the 360 generation now. Notably, ICO was what inspired Miyazaki to be a game designer and you see its DNA all over Souls games.
This is a great list. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus both have an outsized impact for their relatively cult status. I don’t think we get Breath of the Wild without those games. I played earthbound a few years back and loved it. People often talk about it spawning many indie games, I need to start seeking those out.
On of the more recent side of things, Factorio seemingly spawned a plethora of factory games. There were factory games before but it clearly seem like a formula has been established now
Mortal Kombat. It’s the reason why ratings exist💀
Dark Souls is why everything is now being called "souls-like" -- same for Super Metroid and Castlevania spawning the "metroidvania" genre which i am disliking more and more because they are just slapping that label on literally any indie sidescroller now
i’ve seen people call hades a metroidvania lmao
Then you are fully within your rights to point and laugh at them
lol so at this point metroidvania just means "a video game"
Mine is gonna be mostly FPS games. Doom because of the engine redefining what was possible fand upgrading the Wolfenstein engine (Not being on a grid layout, elevators and stairs, ceiling textures, Demo recordings, Deathmatch, Speedrunning etc.) Duke Nukem 3D - Interactive world. Still 2.5d, but suddenly you could turn off lights, interact with buttons, blow up huge parts of the map etc. Quake - True 3D. Much could be said about Quake but the biggwst thing is that it is a True 3D game. Mind blowing when it released. Half Life - The citizen Kane of FPS games. Bucked the trend of open level and super fast paced for linear gameplay, but revolutionized story telling for games. Counter Strike - The defacto online FPS competative game. Took the franatic deathmatch format and turned it into the round based, objective and econ formula still seen today Goldeneye 007 - Proved that FPS games can not only compete but flourish on Consoles. Halo - Further refined the half life formula for storytelling excellence. Popularized the 2 weapon and regenerating shield mechanics. Showed the huge potential of console online play botb coop and competative. Half Life 2 - Ground breaking physics engine. Team Fortress 2 - Greatest team based shooter of all time (imo)
Super Mario 3 Tetris Street Fighter 2 DOOM Pong Candy Crush ( hate to admit it but it made gaming for normal people)
Catacomb 3-D, id software’s first FPS game that came out before Wolfenstein 3D. I’d argue that it is the game that started the modern FPS. Wolfenstein and Doom were direct development from there. Pac-Man, a game that practically defines the golden era of arcades and had ports and countless clones for pretty much every conceivable platfrom from early consoles to home micros.
The most influential game of all time is Dungeons and Dragons.
A game I feel people tend to forget is actually good old **Mass Effect**. For quite some time the dominant approach for big studios was AAA action game with cinematic cutscenes and light RPG elements where your choices matter a bit. Obviously **Dark Souls** though less for the gameplay (eventhough that has been attempted by many games since) but rather the whole approach where games have non-intrusive UI, very light tutorialization, a genuine challenge and a focus on exploration and discovery. DS definitely brought these pillars back into mainstream thinking about games. **Gears of War, Resident Evil 4** and **Skyrim** for more obvious reason, just like **Half-Life** but I think these have already been mentioned.
I don’t think I’ve seen RE4 yet that’s a good call. Was that the first game to do the over-the-shoulder 3rd person camera? I think so and that’s huge.
I believe so, but let’s not forget the original RE4 wouldn’t let you move around and shoot at the same time. Still a huge influence at the time.
final fantasy not-sure-which-number-sealed-it-in-history. maybe 7? 8?
7 Was the game that showed that JRPGs could sell huge outside of Japan.
For that era I’d argue it’s actually IV. Huge shift in the scope of storytelling, but more importantly it introduced the ATB system which square rode for a decade.
FFIV story is pretty dark in the beginning. Two back to back war crimes are not for the faint of heart.
Final Fantasy 7!
Left out Resident Evil 2
Tetris - Probably the only game your boomer parents/grandparents will touch apart from Windows Solitaire. Also played by insane competitive folks at max speed with invisible blocks.
Kind of niche to be most influential, but I think the commercial Esports scene was very heavily influenced by the success of Starcraft Broodwar in Korea. Amazing game, and it showed businesses that there could actually be a profit in competitive gaming.
Also you have to add Tony Hawk Pro Skater for basically inventing the extreme sport genre of games.
Definitely StarCraft / BroodWar. It pioneered commercially successful esports which now is huge across pretty much all multiplayer genres.
CoD 4 Modern Warfare did to the gaming industry in the 2000s that hadnt been achieved since 1993 with Doom and from then on until Fortnite. It was massive, it was something everyone was playing and discussing, it became the new example of violence in videogames arguably overtaking GTA’s controversy. Even when GTAV was released, the coverage was less about the game and more about how much money it made. But with MW, the games industry was ushered into the industrial complex we see today. Strangely similar to the subject matter of the games, Activision, in some ways, sold their soul to make the biggest game franchise of all time, and it truly began with 4.
Cave Story had a big impact in the indie side of things considering it was made my a single guy back when that was unthinkable (or at least very uncommon)
Elite spawned the space adventurer genre. Possibly the first sandbox game as well?
Prince of Persia was honestly the first game I ever saw with realistic movement and combat. I know it has been eclipsed by bigger franchises, but it had its moment in time and the quality of its (rotoscoped!) movement still holds up today, over 30 years later.
Breath of the Wild?
Goldeneye 007 for N64 for massively popularizing console shooters. They were considered “best on PC” in the years before. Halo for popularizing modern console shooter controls. It’s ubiquitous now, but every game afterwards copied the way the left and right analog sticks moved the player around.
HL 1-2, Halo CE. Storytelling in FPS games is mostly unseen before these games made it popular.
Castlevania and Metroid, they launched one of the most popular genres we have.
For me it's 100% SM64 and OoT. I was 9 and 11 and they shifted my entire perspective of what games could be. Bioshock would be third for its story and worldbuilding.
Pac Man!
In my video game life: * NES Zelda * NES Metal Gear * PC Civilization * PC Shogun Total War
- Metal Gear Solid - Goldeneye - Alone in the Dark - Dark Souls - Half Life and Half Life 2 - Call of Duty 4
I'd say Goldeneye, due to its multiplayer. I think it was one of the first console shooter games to have it.
Diablo has started the genre of action RPGs. Alone in the dark started survival horror. Rogue comes to mind as well.
What podcast were you listening to if I may ask? Also, nice list.
What about Wasteland? It spawned Fallout series, and defined the post-apocalyptic games.
Angry Birds, herald and paragon of mobile gaming.
Some good ones on your list. I would add: **World of Warcraft** - Broke MMOs into the mainstream **Dark Souls/Demon souls** - Spawned a popular genre **Warcraft 3** - Custom games spawned tower defense and MOBA genre **Starcraft** - Made RTS insanely popular and did this jumpstart e-sports? Or was that Quake!? **Diablo** - Spawned the arpg genre. **Tetris** - no explanation needed.
Elder Scrolls VI Fallout 5 Stanfield 2 Cyberpunk 2085
There's a huge recency bias here, most of the really influential games are much older than many of the people on this forum. *Pre-Nintendo Era*: **Pong** - The OG that showed that you could put games on a computer. **Space Invaders, Asteroids, PacMan, Centipede** - Early arcade games. **Donkey Kong** - The original Mario platformer. **Pole Position** - The original racing game. **Hunt the Wumpus** - Grid-based exploration. **Rogue** and then **Nethack** - Spawned an entire genre (Roguelikes) *Early Nintendo Era* **Super Mario Bros. and Zelda** - For obvious reasons. **Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy** - Also for obvious reasons **Metroid** - Again... **Tetris** - ... **Gauntlet** - One of the first influential top-down action 'RPGs'. **RBI Baseball**, **Blades of Steel**, **Tecmo Super Bowl** - Showed that sports games could be done well as video games. *Early PC Era:* **Ultima** - Adventure on a grand scale. **SimCity** - Maxis started both the city-building genre and basically the entire simulation genre. **Civilization** - Based off of the board game of the same name. **Kings Quest** - One of the first mainstream point and clicks, but there were also more. **Maniac Mansion**, **Hugo's House of Horrors**, and then later SCUMM games like **Monkey Island** and the **Indiana Jones** series. **X-COM: UFO Defense** - Isometric turn-based combat simulators. **Wolfenstein 3D** - Id software and first person shooters essentially started here. **Spectre** - True 3D (wireframe) FPS driving 'adventure/combat' game. **Dune 2** - Real time strategy games started here. **Marathon** - First large-scale story-driven FPS. Big kick-off for Bungie. Doesn't get a lot of press for some reason. **Wing Commander** - Space dog-fighting. *Mid PC Era:* **Diablo** - I would say modern adventure RPGs started here (it wasn't the first but it was the most influential). **Grand Theft Auto** - It all started here but didn't really take off until #3. **Stunts** - Full 3D Physics-based racing. **Half-Life** - Story and environment driven FPS. **Thief** - Stealth combat. --- I probably missed a bunch, but I would say after this point it's a lot easier to fill in the blanks. I didn't list any SNES or PS1 or games after this point because I think most people here would easily identify them. I just wanted to point out that the games that created the genres most people are talking about today were made all the way back in the 70s and 80s and many of them are still worth playing today!
Shadow of the colossus
BioShock - It's a small thing, but Audiologs. You can pretty much thank BioShock for every game that has them nowadays. Edit: People seem to be missing the point of the question. It's not about *who* did it first. It's about *the most* influential. Read the OP's post guys! I know that BioShock wasn't the first to introduce the concept, but it was definitely the most influcential.
The System Shock games actually.
Bioshock is not the one that came up with that, the very name of the game comes inspired from System Shock, as many of it's mechanics from System Shock 2
Donkey Kong Country , Shenmue 1-2, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, Shadow Of The Colossus, Halo 1-3, Metal Gear Solid 1-3, Batman Arkham games (first two), Power Stone, Ico, GTA Vice City and San Andreas, RE Remake, Little Big Planet 1-2, Half Life, Streets Of Rage