After posting my “Top 10 Games of the 2020s That Will Age The Best” yesterday, I naturally needed to compile this list. Life and clickbait are all about balance.
The big thing I want to clarify here is that this list is not saying “people will say these games suck in 20 years.” In the history of gaming, that has pretty much never been the case. If people like a game at the time of its release, it’s extremely rare for the consensus to change and for everyone to realize it actually sucked the whole time.
However, there are naturally certain games that fade away over time. There are a lot of games out there, and as people replay games or as young gamers try to learn about the past, there are only so many games that anyone can get to. These games are my predictions for the games that won’t get played much down the road, or at least that won’t get played as much as you’d think given their currently high standing in the gaming discourse.
I chose these ten games because they have the “Mighty” designation from OpenCritic. That means that they are in the top 10% of games in terms of the reviews they’ve received. I’d also say that all of these games have had devoted fanbases, either now or upon release.
I also want to say that I enjoyed every game on this list to an extent. There’s nothing here that I would rate lower than a 7.5/10. Regardless, I expect this list to annoy most people. With that, let’s get to it!
10. Hades
This one hurts to put here. I absolutely loved Hades when it came out, and I still remember it fondly. It is currently sitting as my #9 best game of the 2020s. It took the roguelike genre to new heights in many ways, especially when it comes to storytelling.
But simply, Hades 2 came along and blew away the gameplay in Hades 1 in literally every regard. Hades 2 didn’t merely tweak a bunch of things on the edges. The improvements were large and incredible. Some of the same core elements are there, but it plays like a completely different game. The addition of two different run types is also extraordinary and a crazy difference from the first game. The upgrade system is also enhanced in a myriad of ways.
While I think the first Hades has a better story and one of the best endings of all time, I think it’s going to be tough to recommend someone in the future devote 50+ hours to the first game just to get to the superior second game. As good as the story is in Hades, there are still long stretches where nothing particularly significant happens. There are a lot of fun interactions between every run, but it’s rarely something important. I freaking love this game, but I think it’s going to be hard to recommend in the future. I think a lot of people are just going to go straight to Hades 2 in a few decades.
9. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
This is a mainline Zelda game, so of course people are going to continue to play this one, but I have been tracking this game’s path since its release, and it’s been pretty interesting to watch.
When Tears of the Kingdom first came out, I saw a big narrative forming that it was a superior game to Breath of the Wild (which is considered the best game of all time by many). It was bigger than Breath of the Wild, had extremely interesting new mechanics, and even brought back some elements of the classic dungeon design that were absent in Breath of the Wild.
But slowly, I feel like that conversation has faded away. All time lists continue to have Breath of the Wild as the better game. I left Tears of the Kingdom off my “top Nintendo games of the Switch era” list, and no one even noticed, and most agreed with me that Breath of the Wild was the best.
I have plenty of theories about this, but I think part of it is that Tears of the Kingdom low-key indulges in some of the worst open-world excesses that have gone out of style. There are tons of boring and mediocre tasks spread across this world. If Tears of the Kingdom had traditional icons for these tasks instead of not showing them, people would absolutely rip on this open world. I also think the new areas are more annoying than fun. The underground area is a cool concept, but it sucks to explore because it’s not fully all connected together, so you need to keep finding different above-ground entrances to see it all. The sky area also was not nearly as exciting as I hoped.
The building mechanics are amazing in a lot of ways, but if you aren’t into that sort of thing, they can really drag and slow the game down. And the game keeps its weapon durability mechanics that I felt more able to forgive in Breath of the Wild because of how revolutionary that experience was. Obviously, mostly running back the same world isn’t some huge negative, but it also takes away a bit of the specialness. I feel like I already see Tears of the Kingdom not aging super gracefully today, and I think down the road, the first recommendation for new Zelda gamers will continue to be Breath of the Wild or something else.
8. Yakuza: Like a Dragon
This is another one where I think the sequel just kind of came along and made this game slightly irrelevant.
I thought Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a great evolution for the Yakuza series. I felt those games got a bit stale after playing a few of them, as the combat lacked depth, and the stories often played out in similar ways. Changing it up to a turn-based system was a brilliant move, and clearly breathed new life into the series alongside changing up the protagonist.
Like a Dragon does a few things with its battle system that are interesting and pay homage to the series’ roots, but frankly, there are tons of growing pains with the system. Outside of a few elements, it’s a really uninteresting battle system, and it can become a serious grind near the end.
Infinite Wealth changes everything by actually allowing you to move. This greatly enhances your strategic options. It also has much better difficulty balancing.
Also, as great as Kasuga is as a character, I feel like Infinite Wealth really goes out of its way to reintroduce him. If you skip Like a Dragon, you are going to miss some context, but that’s also true if you don’t play every freaking Yakuza game that has ever come out, so I don’t think that’s a huge deal. I truly think Infinite Wealth exposed Like a Dragon a fair bit and has made it mostly irrelevant. I think it becomes much easier to skip as time continues to pass.
7. Deathloop
This is one that kind of feels like it has already happened.
Deathloop had a lot of hype going for it. It had tons of style, a developer with a great track record, and it was a really interesting new concept.
I was absolutely in love with the game for the first 2/3rd or so, but then I thought it completely fell apart. Deathloop is a game where you have to assasinate a group of people all in one day, so you essentially have to figure out how to plan a day around making it possible to do so. It’s really fun at first, but by the end of the game, it’s an absolute slog to redo the same things multiple times in a row to get all of your ducks in a row. The ending was also absolutely terrible.
The developers patched in a new ending down the road, but I feel like the damage was already done at that point (much like Mass Effect 3’s new ending didn’t suddenly shift perspectives on it when it was patched in many years ago). I already feel like all of the conversations about this game have completely died out. I don’t see anyone all that interested in a Deathloop 2 either. I think as time passes, this will be viewed as a really cool concept that wasn’t executed on perfectly. Frankly, I think we may have already reached that point.
6. Donkey Kong Bananza
Why are modern Mario games considered so magical? Above all else, I’d argue that it’s the level design. Both Super Mario Galaxy games and Super Mario Odyssey make it so you never know what is going to come next. I’d argue this is also the case in Super Mario Wonder. That “wonder” and surprise are constant and just fill you with joy, even if the 3D Mario games tend to be a bit too easy most of the time.
Donkey Kong Bananza seemingly trades off that creative level design and instead opts for stronger mechanics. The ability to destroy everything in Bananza is genuinely incredible. It’s unlike anything else out there. Burrowing into the ground and finding random bananas, or chucking pieces of land around, is always cool as hell.
But man, the game just doesn’t do anything all that interesting with those mechanics. The actual platforming sections are pretty unexceptional. The puzzles are confined to very limited parts of the game and once again aren’t anything special, and the boss fights are unbelievably easy (until the last boss, which is inexplicably hard as hell).
With the success of this game and with how cool the mechanics are, I can’t help but feel like we will eventually get a sequel that will make this one feel somewhat irrelevant. But even if we don’t, I think people will end up remembering the Mario games much more fondly.
5. Ghost of Tsushima
From this point on, you are going to see a lot of well regarded games that utilize a form of open world design that has already become very outdated. I simply don’t think time will be very kind to these games.
I will say, there’s a chance that putting Ghost of Tsushima here looks silly in twenty years. It is a truly beloved game, and it does have story elements that could make it timeless. However, I really don’t think the story in Tsushima is terribly gripping outside of a few amazing moments and one of the best endings in gaming history. There is a whole lot of nothing going on in between a few high points (something that Ghost of Yotei exposes a bit, in my view).
From there, Tsushima’s design pretty much resembles every Ubisoft game that everyone hates on now. The world is littered with mediocre tasks that don’t really require you to actually explore in order to reach, and the combat looks cool, but lacks depth. I also found it pretty damn easy even on the hardest difficulty at launch. I think a lot of these sins get covered up by how beautiful the game is. And while I think the game’s art direction is strong enough where it will always be a pretty game, the effect of those visuals will also fade a bit over time, as is inevitable for almost any game.
I don’t think Ghost of Yotei is perfect, and while it doesn’t have quite as high of highs, it addresses almost every complaint I have with Tsushima. It has a deeper story with more consistently interesting story beats, and its exploration is genuinely good. It also has much more challenging combat. I expect Yotei to age significantly better than Tsushima.
4. Horizon: Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West is an absolutely stunning game with a massive open world and lots of icons.
If you have read past writeups, you can probably understand how this ended up here. Yes, it will always be an amazing looking game, but it probably won’t look quite as good in a few decades, and the open world design is something that I expect to drastically change in the third game, much like almost every open world game has begun to modify their exploration elements a bit.
I also really didn’t love the ending, and I started to find Aloy to be a bit too one-dimensional after really enjoying her arc in the first game.
I think that many haters of this series are just being over the top because of supposed “woke” nonsense or because of console war bullshit. It’s still really well-made. The bow is still a pretty cool weapon, and the world is truly beautiful. But I don’t think it will be enough to overcome some of the weaknesses as tastes continue to change and develop.
3. Psychonauts 2
For most of my teen life on various internet message boards, I would see people hyping up the original Psychonauts and pining for a sequel.
So, it feels crazy to me that when the sequel showed up, it kind of came and went and has never really been discussed since. I feel like it just doesn’t evolve the formula in any significant way, and that formula now feels mildly dated in a few ways. I think anyone who loved the first game ended up liking it well enough, but not enough for it to stay in the public consciousness. If this has already happened just five years after its release, I don’t see why that wouldn’t continue as more time passes. We are never going to see the desire for a Psychonauts 3 the way we did for Psychonauts 2.
2. Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy is in the top 20 for best selling video games of all time. That is pretty crazy. I see why this happened. The Harry Potter series is literally one of the most popular franchises in the universe, and I’d argue that 80% of the reason why is because it created a world that almost anyone could imagine living in. Almost everyone who has read Harry Potter has imagined getting an owl in the mail telling them that they were actually special the whole time and can use magic now, and now they get to head out to the most beautiful campus ever made.
Hogwarts Legacy is great at allowing people to live out that fantasy. Its world is gorgeous, and Hogwarts itself is impressively packed with secrets.
But man, this game has A LOT of holes too. Its combat is snappy but really lacking in the depth department. Its RPG elements are even simpler. As beautiful as its world is, it has some of the most boring side quests imaginable. It’s a very “check the box” world in the worst way.
We all know a sequel is going to come eventually, and I think a lot of the issues with the game are very fixable. I think the most likely scenario is that a sequel comes along that makes this a really hard game to go back to.
1. Stray
I’m an understanding guy. I disagree with people all of the time, but I remain respectful of different tastes. I almost never think there is one right answer when it comes to video games.
But Stray is just one of those games that gets me riled up. I think it’s the third most offensive game ever nominated for “Game of the Year.” I just can’t understand it.
I liked Stray, but I honestly was hoping for way more from it. I was genuinely hyped for it, too. It’s definitely a cute game, and it has a few really strong story moments, but overall it’s a nothingburger for most of the way, unless you really love cats and watching virtual cats do cat things. Neither its gameplay nor its story has much going for it. Its strongest points are its world and its cat, and that’s about it.
Look, a lot of people freaking love cats. So I get why the cat stuff might overpower any other flaws, especially in conjunction with the very neat world. But general cuteness just is never going to cover up gameplay flaws for me, and I think it will be the same for gamers in the future.
OK. I’m ready for the flames. If you made it this far, I promise I did not write this post with hate in my heart.
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