Games that, for better or worse, changed the landscape of gaming, invented new genres, had major influences on other games etc.
My shortlist (in no particular order)
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Super Mario 64, basically invented 3D platformers, I mean, Nintendo designed the damn controller around that game
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Resident Evil 4, all 3rd person action games owe a debt to RE4, and for worse probably, set the stage for brown color palate shooters that dominated the subsequent generation
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Doom, the Charlemagne of FPS games, basically every FPS is descended from it
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Fortnite, killed the "loot box" style of predatory monetization in favor of the battle pass model that a ton of other games have switched over to, and was a genuine cultural phenomenon
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Minecraft, the tsunami of survival crafting games of the 2010s all basically emerged from the shadow Minecraft's popularity
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Dune 2, godfather of the RTS genre, no Command and Conquer or Starcraft if Dune 2 isn't a huge success
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World of Warcraft, probably the most influential and well known MMORPG of all time, so many imitators tried to take its crown and failed, and was/is a cultural phenomenon
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Dark Souls, invented the Soulslike genre, launched the career of Hidetaka Miyazaki, and its considered one of the greatest games ever made
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Pokemon Red/Blue, Pokemon is the most profitable media franchise of all time, and Pokemon long served as the flagship of handheld gaming
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Breath of the Wild, I kind of wanted to slot Elden Ring in here because I think ER's influence on the open world genre will be felt for years to come but I think its too early to tell. But BOTW was a genre defining open world game, is on the shortlist for one of the greatest games ever made, and even influenced Elden Ring
C'mon, not real :jfk-gaming:
DOTA. Not only proving that mods of games can actually be more popular, successful and widespread than the games themselves, but creating the entire genre of MOBA, which I believe is still the most watched genre of E-sport, unless something has changed.
BOTW should not be on this list as it is literally cribbing off of the Assassin's Creed formula. Yup, Assassin's Creed, the inventor of 'tower system to slowly reveal the map' which is now nearly universal in open world games. Definitely one of the most important genre titles ever, even if it has been beaten to death. Although in BOTW you can just, go to the end. Which is pretty new.
How can there be so much bad history in one thread lol
DotA did not invent the genre. Aeon of Strife came first. DotA was just one of multiple imitators.
Ah shit, I totally forgot about Aeon of Strife (never really played Starcraft). Even I'm not a real gamer. :gamer-gulag:
True about Aeon of Strife, but to say DotA was just one of multiple imitators downplays it. DotA was an absolutely massive hit that outstripped all others by orders of magnitude, it 'popularised' the concept for sure.
I don't understand how people are having so much trouble understanding the difference between inventing and popularizing
As an old RTS fan, I was sad that MOBAs took over and to me they will always be stripped down RTSes with more aggressive monetization, waifu pandering, and less actual story in the actual game. :disgost:
As an avid Starcraft 2 enjoyer (which somehow has just slowly and silently gotten better over the years even with Blizzard's neglect) that is correct. But we are not talking about good or bad, we are talking about 'important' and any list of important and influential games literally has to have DOTA in it because it rocked the fucking world and split the fucking LAN party.
No disagreement there. Yes, it was "important" in a way that sucked for me.
Absolutely. Warcraft 3 was an amazing game in its own right - the fact you could have DotA as just one small part of that game is proof of that. But it also had strong core gameplay and campaigns, and a million other successful and fun custom maps and campaigns, now we just have the small part and the rest of the potential for RTS games is entirely gone :( When will I play the modern equivalent of a fun RTS campaign? Or Footman wars again? Or Battleships? Or Parasite 2? Or Undead Assault? Or any of 1000 original TDs.
Word. I've never like MOBAs. Trash genre, and it's a shame that RTS games are essentially dead now.
Counter-Strike for this would maybe be a more apt example, but yeah Dota is also very popular.
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