Shea’s Top 100 Video Games of All Time

Last updated: June 1, 2024

I’ve been playing video games pretty much my entire life. And now, even in my 30s, I don’t see my passion for this hobby ever fading. But getting older brings about a desire for reflection, so I’ve put together a list of my top 100 games of all time. It’s a personal list, sure, but I think the combination of recency bias and nostalgic, rose-tinted glasses leads to a list that’s pretty varied across genres and release years.

Since I’m only one person and playing every game to ever release would be impossible, there are bound to be some widely-considered amazing games that I haven’t gotten around to playing. Here are a few:

Cuphead
Dead Cells
Elden Ring
Hollow Knight
It Takes Two
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Outer Wilds
Red Dead Redemption
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Undertale

Similarly, there are widely-considered amazing games I have played that just didn’t connect with me in a significant way. That doesn’t mean I necessarily dislike these games, but they don’t belong in my personal top 100. Here are a few:

Baldur’s Gate III
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
Grand Theft Auto V
Halo: Combat Evolved
Metal Gear Solid
Nier: Automata
Red Dead Redemption 2
The Last of Us: Part II
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Whittling down to a mere 100 games is intended to be impossible hard, so creating an extensive honorable mentions list would take away some of the point. But as new games come out and things shuffle around, I’ll note the 10 most recently cut games here:

Burnout Paradise
Donkey Kong Country
Final Fantasy Tactics
God of War III
Rime
Star Fox 64
Super Meat Boy
The Oregon Trail
The Stanley Parable
The Wolf Among Us

A note on remasters: I’m not considering remasters or packaged re-releases as their own games. If an old game was put out again and I consider the new version the best way to play the game, I’ll call that out. But you won’t see Spyro Reignited Trilogy or the Nathan Drake Collection on here, and you certainly won’t see Shadow of the Colossus and the Shadow of the Colossus HD remaster.

With all of the introductions and administrative stuff out of the way, let’s get counting down! The list begins on the next page, and be sure to let me know how much my opinions suck in the comments below!