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
In this post I'll shill for my only childhood MMO, Guild Wars 1. I honestly think GW doesn't get the recognition it deserves, mostly due to being a direct and less successful competitor to WoW.
GW was also revolutionary because it tried to go against the rethoric you needed a subscription in order to maintain an online service.
It was a bold move, WoW was a huge hit and the previous big MMOs were also either F2P asian shit or the standard subscription model.
TL;DR:
-No DLC, no cash shop, no monthly subscription, just buy an expansion once or twice per year.
-Organized PvP was a novelty at the time, WoW literaly copied the arena from GW because it was very successful and one of the reasons people didn't want to switch.
-GvG was actually great, perhaps the precursor of e-sports, too bad it didn't last.
-"Skill based combat" Sounds like gamer shit, but in regular MMOs with open world PvP combat is decided heavily based on 1) numbers on each side and 2) who got the better gear. GW's completely instanced PvP along with giving access to a standard set of weapons/armor means its closer to fairness.
-Completely instanced PvE/PvP: This was obviously to reduce server load, but it also gave many benefits, no sharing quests/monsters, no griefing, very easy way to play with your friends in private etc.
-Regular combat updates/balancing. Theorycrafting different and new team comps was a whole group effort thing.