The 100 Best Games Of The 21st Century

Wow! Y’all really showed up for this fun little vote. A total of 3171 people submitted ballots containing 2164 different games for their Top 10 Games of the 21st Century. To put that in perspective, that’s SEVEN TIMES the amount of entries we received for the Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2024 community vote.

The scoring system is based on a weighted system where your #1 is worth more than your #2 and so on. I don’t actually know what the math is on that because this “Community List” feature is built into the site. When the deadline hits, it just spits out a report, which I transcribed here and try to make look somewhat pretty.

The tie breaker on weighted scores is the total number of votes received.

Before I give you a big ol’ list and some stats, let’s slow roll the Top 50.

Weighted Score: 41
Total Votes: 149 (5%)
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus
Release: November 20, 2012
Metacritic: 93

Weighted Score: 42
Total Votes: 140 (4%)
Developer: Extremely OK Games
Publisher: Extremely OK Games
Release: January 25, 2018
Metacritic: 92

Weighted Score: 45
Total Votes: 188 (6%)
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Release: August 21, 2007
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 48
Total Votes: 115 (4%)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: October 26, 2000
Metacritic: 95

Weighted Score: 49
Total Votes: 148 (5%)
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release: November 20, 2007
Metacritic: 91

Weighted Score: 49
Total Votes: 204 (6%)
Developer: LocalThunk
Publisher: PlayStack
Release: February 20, 2024
Metacritic: 90

Weighted Score: 50
Total Votes: 184 (6%)
Developer: Valve Corporation
Publisher: Valve Corporation
Release: October 10, 2007
Metacritic: 90

Weighted Score: 50
Total Votes: 186 (6%)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: November 12, 2007
Metacritic: 97

Weighted Score: 52
Total Votes: 180 (6%)
Developer: tobyfox
Publisher: tobyfox
Release: September 15, 2015
Metacritic: 92

Weighted Score: 53
Total Votes: 205 (6%)
Developer: Team Cherry
Publisher: Team Cherry
Release: February 24, 2017
Metacritic: 90

Weighted Score: 60
Total Votes: 198 (6%)
Developer: Ryu ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Release: January 24, 2017
Metacritic: 85

Weighted Score: 61
Total Votes: 187 (6%)
Developer: P Studio
Publisher: Atlus
Release: March 31, 2020
Metacritic: 95

Weighted Score: 62
Total Votes: 194 (6%)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: March 24, 2003
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 63
Total Votes: 193 (6%)
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release: November 15, 2001
Metacritic: 97

Weighted Score: 65
Total Votes: 228 (7%)
Developer: Mojang AB
Publisher: Mojang AB
Release: August 16, 2011
Metacritic: 93

Weighted Score: 71
Total Votes: 224 (7%)
Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft
Release: December 18, 2001
Metacritic: 92

Weighted Score: 73
Votes: 249 (8%)
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release Date: September 25, 2007
Metacritic: 94

Weighted Score: 74
Total Votes: 298 (9%)
Developer: Valve Corporation
Publisher: Valve Corporation
Release: April 19, 2011
Metacritic: 95

23. Metroid Prime

Weighted Score: 77
Total Votes: 268 (8%)
Developer: Retro Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: November 18, 2002
Metacritic: 97

Weighted Score: 84
Total Votes: 254 (8%)
Developer: PlatinumGames
Publisher: Square Enix
Release: March 7, 2017
Metacritic: 88

Weighted Score: 108
Total Votes: 328 (10%)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release: January 11, 2005
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 109
Total Votes: 283 (9%)
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Release: November 23, 2004
Metacritic: 93

Weighted Score: 117
Total Votes: 354 (11%)
Developer: Rockstar Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release: October 26, 2018
Metacritic: 97

Weighted Score: 121
Total Votes: 448 (14%)
Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Release: September 17, 2020
Metacritic: 93

Weighted Score: 129
Total Votes: 342 (11%)
Developer: ZA/UM Studio
Publisher: ZA/UM Studio
Release: October 15, 2019
Metacritic: 91

Weighted Score: 130
Total Votes: 495 (16%)
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: October 27, 2017
Metacritic: 97

Weighted Score: 142
Total Votes: 382 (12%)
Developer: Valve Corporation
Publisher: Valve Corporation
Release: November 16, 2004
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 152
Total Votes: 454 (14%)
Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: WB Games
Release: May 19, 2015
Metacritic: 92

Weighted Score: 177
Total Votes: 539 (17%)
Developer: Larian Studios
Publisher: Larian Studios
Release Date: August 3, 2023
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 200
Total Votes: 446 (14%)
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: May 12, 2023
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 211
Total Votes: 623 (20%)
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release: January 26, 2010
Metacritic: 96

Weighted Score: 481
Total Votes: 980 (31%)
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: March 3, 2017
Metacritic: 97

Top 25 Recap

Breath of the Wild taking the top spot probably isn’t too surprising, but the margin by which it won is at least a little bit. Getting over 200 votes more than 2nd place is big.

The real shocker is Outer Wilds taking 3rd place. It had fewer votes than almost anything in the Top 10, but that means that the people who like Outer Wilds REALLY LIKE Outer Wilds and put at the top of their list.

Conversely, Super Mario Odyssey had the 5th-most raw votes, but didn’t make the Top 10. That means a ton of people like it, but not enough to put it high on their list.

I think it’s funny how NieR is sandwiched between two Metal Gears.

Let’s take a look at the details of the Top 100 games y’all chose.

The Top 100

Stats

Here are some random observations about the list we all made together.

Total Ballots Submitted: 3171
Total Votes: 31,527 (not everyone put 10 games on their ballot)
Total Games: 2164
Total Games with Only One Vote: 953 (44%)
Games from 2014 in the Top 100: 0
Fighting Games in the Top 100: 0 (Science™ says Smash doesn’t count)
Top 100’s Average Metacritic: 91.74
Top 100’s Lowest Metacritic: 82 – Control
N64 Games in the Top 100: 1 – The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
PS1 Games in the Top 100: 1 – Final Fantasy IX
Newest Game in the Top 100: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Oldest Game in the Top 100: Deus Ex
Lowest Rated Giant Bomb GOTY: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (508th)
Games from Before 2000 in the Top 100: 0

Top 100 Games by Year

You know how everyone says 2014 was a “down year”? Looks like they’re right. It’s a pretty even spread here. No real recency bias.

Top 100’s Top Developers

Nothing too surprising here. I did combine Kojima-led studios into one column and the same for the Persona team. The love people still have for BioWare games makes it even sadder to see how much EA has squandered that love.

Top 100’s Top Publishers

Again, nothing too surprising. All the stars are here…mostly. The one standout to me is the complete absence of Ubisoft.

Franchises

Sixteen franchises had multiple entries in the Top 100.

We definitely have several instances of votes being split due to compilations. The biggest example of this is the 87 people who voted for Mass Effect Legendary Edition. If they had just voted for Mass Effect 2, it would’ve easily been #3 instead of Outer Wilds.

We also had some discussions about how Hitman‘s most recent trilogy is now viewed as one product. Whether all the people who voted for Hitman 3 intended for that to cover the whole trilogy, we cannot say. But, if we combine Hitman 3’s score with Hitman World of Assassination‘s score, it would’ve bumped up a little bit into the Top 50. If we combine all four, it would’ve been Top 30. But, it’s not exactly fair to assume people’s intent. Maybe they only loved one of them.

There’s also the cases of Persona 5 vs Persona 5 Royal and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 vs Persona 4 Golden.

Giant Bomb’s Games of the Year

The seventeen years of GOTY winners have an average score of 140th best game of the century.

The Full List

If you’d like to see the full list of all 2164 games that received votes, their total votes, and weighted scores, you can see all the raw ass data with the link below. It’s way too long to post here in the article itself.

Thanks to whoever else made it so I wasn’t the only person to vote for EverQuest games. We even had a few votes for the Champions of Norrath games. Hell yeah!