We are closing in on the end of what has been close to a two-year journey for me. In August of 2024, I started ranking my top 10 games within each game console in an attempt to whittle my selections down before ultimately giving out my top 25 games of all time. After this list, I will only have the PS4 and the original Nintendo Switch to go before I am finally done with this project.
One of the fun aspects of this undertaking has been that it has given me the ability to really reflect on each generation of consoles and my own personal path with all of them. Every time I make a list, something ends up standing out about that particular era of gaming.
The most remarkable part about this list to me is that this is the first time that I’ve made one where not one game was exclusive to that console. I’ve been primarily an Xbox gamer since the original one, and even I’d have to say that the Xbox One just didn’t deliver in the way the Xbox 360 or original Xbox did, which is why the system is so firmly in 3rd place today in sales. The Xbox One was so disastrous in some ways that I don’t expect the brand to ever fully recover.
And yet, I still had a great time with it. Even though the Xbox One didn’t deliver for me in terms of exclusives, it absolutely did with Xbox Game Pass. Game Pass has changed my gaming life. I’ve talked about it countless times on this blog, but it allowed me to game in new ways and give way more genres and oddball games a chance that I might have been afraid to otherwise for the risk of wasting money. The Xbox One may not have made much of a mark for me with exclusive games, but Game Pass alone still makes it a very meaningful console to me.
Also, a note on this list: If a game was a timed exclusive and came to a different console before the Xbox One, I tried to keep it off the list. I mostly did this from memory, but this stopped games like Hades from making it here, for example. I also didn’t include games that came out after the Xbox Series X launched. I think that covers all of the caveats. Let’s get to it!
10. The Wolf Among Us
Playing Dispatch last year made me think hard about what my favorite “Telltale” game of all time is (yes, I’m aware Dispatch is not made by the same studio).
It’s really freaking close, but I still came away slightly preferring The Wolf Among Us. As great as many Telltale games are, The Wolf Among Us has an extra “it” factor that I really adore. More than anything, I just love the concept. It’s so damn weird, but compelling. It’s like Kingdom Hearts except with characters that people are less likely to be unfortunate fans of into adulthood. Plus, there is no “power of friendship” bullshit.
But from there, the writing, characters, and acting are all excellent, as you’d expect. Man, I really hope we get the sequel one day.
9. Control
This is going to sound like sacrilege, but I feel like Control is when Remedy finally figured out who they were as a developer. I genuinely don’t mean this as any disrespect. I have always really loved Remedy. I thought the Max Payne games were great. I really loved Alan Wake (it didn’t make my top 10 Xbox 360 games, but it almost assuredly would have been in the top 15), and I enjoyed Alan Wake’s American Nightmare as well.
But it wasn’t long into Control that I realized this game was what Remedy truly was, and that’s pretty fucking weird. Control is just so unrelentingly bizarre that I couldn’t help but be compelled by it throughout. I really wanted to know more about the characters and the world. The combat is also just snappy enough to be entertaining, and it gets out right before it would have gotten dull. I definitely wish the FBC wasn’t such a pain to navigate, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from loving this game. Perhaps more importantly, it showed Remedy a slightly different path to take with their games, and they have not stopped embracing it since.
8. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
My first attempt at Resident Evil 7: Biohazard didn’t last much more than 15 minutes. I had played plenty of third-person survival horror games, but I hadn’t ever tried to a tackle a first-person horror game more than once. The first-person perspective was just stressing me out too much. I was constantly so on-edge for jump scares that the game didn’t seem like it was going to be fun, so I stopped.
A year or so later, I tried again. After powering through the beginning and getting a sense of how things would be, I was set, and I’m so glad I figured it out, because Biohazard is incredible. The horror elements of this game are so memorable. I will never forget some of the boss fights and set pieces here. And then, of course, the core gunplay and survival gameplay are strong and piece everything together. Outside of Ethan Winters being the most boring man on the planet, I don’t think they could have done much better here. This was one hell of a ride.
7. DOOM (2016)
One of the greatest tragedies of modern gaming is the death of the single-player FPS campaign. Obviously, there are still some great ones, but the genre has slowly taken a huge step down in this department, as multiplayer has taken on the bigger priority.
But the crazy part of me lamenting this is that I actually missed out on one of the best single-player FPS campaigns ever because I was playing a multiplayer FPS throughout most of 2016.
I’m so glad that I went back and experienced DOOM (2016) all the way in 2025, because I missed out big time. DOOM is so damn good.
The gunplay is phenomenal, and I love how the game essentially forces you to use all of its guns and mechanics, as it enhances the experience. The pacing is also excellent, as are the enemy and level designs. This is about as good as a single-player FPS campaign gets, and I’m so thankful id Software is still around to continue to make this part of the genre relevant.
6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
There are literally hundreds of games that I’ve played and not finished over the course of my life. If I had to make a rough guess, I’d say there are at least 400, but I could even be underestimating that number (emulation was one hell of a drug).
Only a few of those games have remained in my thoughts for years after the fact. But honestly, the game that I abandoned that I love the most might very well be Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I think about this game all the time, and those thoughts have only intensified in the last year.
When it comes to action combat in video games, I’m a sucker for the parry above all else, and nobody out there did the parry quite like Sekiro. Everything about this combat feels so damn good. The boss fights and level design are immaculate, as you’d expect from FromSoft, but it’s really crazy to me that they crafted a game so different from their other ones that still feels so good, and they haven’t done anything quite like it since. Unfortunately, as I tend to do with Soulslikes, I got to a boss about halfway through and quit the game after a few days of trying to beat him.
After beating Silksong (Act 2, but with no health upgrades) and now Nioh 3, I think I’ve figured out the mental skills needed to finally go back to this masterpiece, and it is in my plans to give it another go very soon. I could easily see this climbing up several more ranks after this happens. But even if it doesn’t happen, I am still in awe at what this game accomplishes.
5. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
I have a weird history with Assassin’s Creed. I’ve played damn near every game in the series, and I enjoyed them in stretches, but didn’t truly love any of them (I do think Assassin’s Creed 2 is great, and Black Flag is very good).
I was fascinated by the changes to a more open-world RPG in Assassin’s Creed: Origins, but that game still didn’t fully click with me for some reason either. Finally, Odyssey was the one that got me. I beat the game and managed to complete almost every element of it. I think the story, the characters, and the setting just spoke to me in ways that no other game had. I also was able to get over the level-scaling element of the game, which really bothered me in Origins. Odyssey is just an amazing stealth sandbox with loads of options and great core gameplay. I still enjoy this formula enough to get 40ish hours out of any of the new releases, but Odyssey is the one that got me to stick around for 80+, and I’m not sure if the series will ever pull that off again for me.
4. Stardew Valley
I have talked before about how much Harvest Moon 64 meant to me as a kid. I loved pretty much every element of that game. It was farm and life-sim perfection. I played it for something like a year on and off and thought it did everything right. I mastered every element of that game.
I tried so hard to capture that feeling again over the next decade and on. I played more Harvest Moon games, I played Rune Factory, I played Story of Seasons, and plenty of others, but nothing ever quite did it for me the same way.
Finally, along came Stardew Valley, and I was in love with a farm sim in the same way I was when I was 12 all over again. Stardew Valley just nails every element of the formula. It gives you so much freedom to build up your farm, and it has a fun town with great characters and festivals. But I think the real “x” factor is the community center, which gives you that one extra thing to work toward that really ties the entire experience together. Also, while these games are always about escaping city life, I think Stardew Valley actually has a few narrative elements that make this theme a bit more interesting.
As soon as my daughter wants to play video games with me, this is the one I really want to introduce her to first. I think it’s timeless, has something for everyone, and selfishly, I want a good reason to experience it one more time.
3. Slay the Spire
Slay the Spire had me in its grasp for months, and much like I discussed with Harvest Moon 64, it had me chasing that same high from other games in the genre for years afterward.
Simply, this is roguelike deckbuilder perfection. I’ve played tons of other roguelike deckbuilders since this one, and while I’ve loved plenty of them, nothing has been able to capture me the same way since. The pacing, the builds, and the in-game decision-making are all top-notch. This is as good as it gets.
I have a feeling that the only game that might surpass this one for me is Slay the Spire 2, which I can’t wait to play when it comes out of early access.
2. Celeste
Even with many of my favorite games of all time, I can find a few faults in them. Nothing is perfect. Well, except maybe for Celeste. I genuinely have no idea how this game could be any better. This is as good as it gets with 2D platforming.
Celeste has phenomenal, responsive platforming with great level design that allows pros and novices to experience the game the way they want. The art is so good, and the story is actually pretty deep and heartfelt. It literally hits on every note that it possibly could. This is considered one of the greatest indie games of all time for very good reason.
1. Overwatch
Pretty much ever since I got my first real adult job, multiplayer games became far less important to me. It was harder to coordinate playing with friends, and also, since I had less time than in the past, I didn’t want to lose out on time with single-player games.
Also, I kind of just fell out of them in general. I used to play every multiplayer FPS that I could get my hands on, and they just slowly lost their appeal over time. No one was doing anything drastically different anymore, and being able to play online on consoles wasn’t a big deal anymore like it was when I was a teen.
But I think more than anything, Overwatch made me understand that the biggest thing missing from team multiplayer games for me was the actual “team” element. Of course, there’s strategizing and teamwork with most games in this genre, but the average person isn’t playing that way. Even when I play with friends, a lot of “team deathmatch” modes mostly involve people operating on their own and just contributing their stats to the team, with occasional bits of cooperation spaced in between.
Overwatch changed everything for me because it truly brought teamwork into the fold. You genuinely can’t play this game without very closely working with others, and it made it feel unlike anything else out there. I felt like the community really took this to heart too, as when I played the game in its launch year, almost everyone had a mic and was communicating with the group.
I spent something like 800 hours on Overwatch over a year. I played it damn near every day. All of the different characters also made it easy, as the game could pretty much be a completely new experience any time you picked it up. Thanks to my consistent mic usage, I was quickly able to meet a solid rotation of people to play with. We weren’t anything special; we usually fluctuated between Platinum and Diamond, but every night there was a great mix of intensity, teamwork, and laughs.
As a parent, multiplayer games are tricky because I’m almost always at least somewhat “on call.” Maybe in 20 years, when my kids are out of the house, I will find another multiplayer game that hooks me like Overwatch, but the odds are that this was the kind of multiplayer addiction that I will never experience again.
Past Lists:
My Top 10 SNES Games
My Top 10 GB/GBC Games
My Top 10 PS1 Games
My Top 10 N64 Games
My Top 10 Original Xbox Games
My Top 10 Playstation 2 Games
My Top 10 Game Boy Advance Games
My Top 10 Xbox Live Arcade Games
My Top 10 Xbox 360 Games
If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on social media, or checking out The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast!
The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast on Youtube
Big Nerd Gaming 
Leave a reply to erichagmann Cancel reply