The most influential video games of each decade

Many games have been released across all platforms over the course of a decade. However, within that group of games to come out, a few of them became standout titles that resonate beyond the decade in which they appear. Those games often go on to become classics that are fondly looked upon as influential games others need to play.

But what video games have been so influential in each decade? Some of the biggest franchises that gamers know well started out as unknown experiences that eventually became legendary, inspiring other games and changing our view of genres. Here are the most influential video games of each decade that everyone should know.

6

The 1970s

The Space Invaders arrive

The 1970s were a humble beginning for video games. Although home consoles were released during the course of the decade, arcade cabinets were a huge draw. Most people interested in games took frequent trips to their local arcade and gave quarters to various available machines. Here, two timeless classics laid the foundation for what future titles would capitalize on.

Pong is one of the earliest developed arcade games, but is also viewed as the first commercially successful video game. It was a simple, yet fun-to-play game that just involved two rectangles and a floating dot. But as simple as it was, Pong helped establish the video game industry because of how popular it became. This led to more companies investing in video games as a viable business. Pong went on to sell over 8,000 cabinets, which helped pave the way for other games in the 70s to get a foothold in the public consciousness.

Things only got better with the release of Space Invaders in 1978. Technology improved and enabled developers to make more complex games in presentation and design. Space Invaders is the first fixed shooter game and one of the first endlessly playable games that became very popular. It was developed by Taito and inspired an entirely new genre to take form in the decades that followed, leading to many shooter-style games being developed across multiple platforms. A generation of people put in so many quarters to play Space Invaders at the end of the 70s, leading to an estimated 750,000 machines being sold and available worldwide.

5

The 1980s

Mario begins to change everything

The 80s were a time of great change for nearly all facets of life. For video games, it was the start of big franchises that would become legendary, as well as huge shifts in the business side of the game industry. While the arcade scene began in the 70s, the 1980s is when arcade gaming was popular among players. However, in the midst of that ongoing trend, home console gaming slowly became a bigger deal with newly released consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System. This would eventually lead to the culture of arcades receding into the background, and the rise of home consoles becoming the new standard.

One of the last major series that originated in arcades from the end of the 1970s was Pac-Man, which began development in 1979 and was officially released in 1980. The original Pac-Man arcade game would go on to be one of the biggest games of all time, having a number of different spin-offs and copycats in the years that followed. What made Pac-Man so popular among gamers was how easy it was to play, as well as its colorful presentation and charming titular character. Games prior to the release of Pac-Man had characters that were in the public eye, but never as marketable or likable as Pac-Man, which helped push the arcade game to immense commercial success. To many who grew up in that era, Pac-Man was one of the cornerstone video games that helped define what it was like growing up in the 1980s.

Source: Nintendo

Another major part of the decade was the arrival of Super Mario Bros. on the NES. While there were other home consoles that were on the market before then, none of them had the impact of the Nintendo Entertainment System on pop culture. The only console to come close was the Atari 2600, which eventually faded into the background as Nintendo games grew in popularity. Super Mario Bros. is a game that not only had a great mascot for Nintendo, but a game that was fun to play at home for a long time. The vibrant cast of characters drew the attention of families, while the layered design of its levels inspired many companies to produce more platformers in the years that followed. Many action-platform games can trace their origins back to the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES, which laid the foundation for many staples of the genre.

4

The 1990s

Console wars rage in homes

By the time the 1990s arrived, home console gaming was the norm. While arcades were still around, they weren’t as relevant as having a console to play video games at home. This led to what many named the “console wars” between multiple game companies, who were battling for space in the homes of many people. It was because of this that game releases had multiple versions across different home consoles, often leading to exclusive content being made for one place or another in some cases. At the same time, more technological advancements were made that changed the way we saw video games, presented in an entirely new dimension.

A staple of the 90s was Street Fighter II, which is credited with establishing the fighting game genre and fighting game community as we know it. The first game in the series, released in 1987, received a lukewarm reception from players, but it wasn’t until Street Fighter II was released in 1991 that things exploded for the series. The game kept arcades relevant for a bit longer throughout the decade, even when home versions of the series were released on both the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.

Street Fighter II invigorated a competitive scene that drew a lot of attention and helped pave the way for major tournaments to be hosted in multiple countries around the world. In addition, Street Fighter II established many parts of the fighting genre that helped inspire other fighting game series to enter the scene, including Mortal Kombat and The King of Fighters. Years later, other fighting games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter would still take inspiration from Street Fighter II, but do so while being rendered in 3D.

Source: Sega Forever

However, the decade was also heavily influenced by a blue hedgehog that created real competition for Nintendo’s red and blue plumber. The first Sonic the Hedgehog game, released on the Sega Genesis in 1991, gave an alternative mascot for gamers to rally behind. The game was not only presented as playing faster than the Super Mario games, but also had an edgy attitude that was geared towards young adults instead of young kids.

Sonic’s release also came with a different approach to the way games were marketed during the 90s, which was much more blunt and directed at the competition instead of being just family-friendly and nice. It was during these commercial battles on television and magazines that the way games were pitched to customers in future years fundamentally changed forever.

But Mario wasn’t done having a major influence on video game culture. The Nintendo 64 was a major turning point for the industry, which was already starting to veer towards the third dimension. While the original PlayStation had already been released a year prior and had 3D games, the launch of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 marked a change for the platforming genre. Super Mario 64 showed developers a way to design a game with a stylized presentation, easy controls, and lots of details for the player to explore. Before this, 3D platform games were difficult to play through, mostly because of their camera perspective and uncomfortable controls. But Super Mario 64 found a good way to finely tune everything well into an experience that was exciting for players, which went on to inspire many 3D platformers made by other companies for the Nintendo 64 and other consoles as well.

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3

The 2000s

The new millennium

The arrival of the 2000s was a big deal for everyone. So many parts of popular culture were centered around big changes, especially within entertainment. Video games were already deep within the 3D era of releases, with new consoles coming out from multiple companies. A lot of the original foundations of the industry were either gone entirely or changed in ways that made them almost unrecognizable. It was out with the old, and in with the very new.

One of the biggest games to come out during this era was Grand Theft Auto III for the PlayStation 2. The first two Grand Theft Auto games were well-received in their own right, but they had nowhere near the cultural impact that Grand Theft Auto III would have. The entire foundation of the open world genre today can be traced back to the release of this game, which has been copied and inspired by so many titles. It was here that gamers were not simply exploring a game; they were freely exploring a simulated world. Characters in-game can follow a schedule to appear in locations at various times, as well as have their own side quests to engage with. This made Grand Theft Auto III an experience that players could spend a lot of time with, either following a cinematic story or just exploring what they can do within the game’s dynamic world.

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The open-world genre wasn’t the only video game genre being impacted by change. First-person shooters also underwent a major shift with the arrival of Halo Combat Evolved for the original Xbox. Halo was a popular release with global appeal that was constantly in the spotlight. Many shooter games were released before Halo, but not all of them had the same kind of resonance with players that it did, especially during a time when the Xbox was experimenting with multiplayer experiences.

Halo Combat Evolved had a great story and universe to follow, but it was also the game to play when you wanted to get together with a group of friends through the Xbox’s system link feature. This would eventually be the case with Halo 2 as well, with players connecting online through Xbox Live. Halo was such a big hit that many other first-person franchises tried to emulate its aspects and even market themselves as competition for the same audience.

The 2000s also saw the rise of uncommon genres like rhythm games. The most noteworthy of them was none other than Guitar Hero from Harmonix, which became a massive success in 2005. The game went on to have a number of sequels and spin-offs that featured a wide variety of music, including some of the biggest names in rock, heavy metal, and pop music. It started the trend of collecting guitars and other music peripherals, which led to other series like Rock Band. The fantasy of shredding the frets on a guitar is what made Guitar Hero so appealing, but it also made it very mainstream for people who loved music more than anything. The series exposed a lot of people to new genres of music and classics that older generations appreciated greatly.

2

The 2010s

A decade of evolution

Gaming in the 2010s was filled with a lot of new ideas for how games were played. Nearly every genre has been done in one form or another, so developers were looking for more original ideas to have successful releases. Some of the biggest games of the decade were able to present new approaches to games that were very different from anything that came before. In addition, the games that had the biggest audiences were ones that appealed to people in simple, yet intriguing ways.

Minecraft is a game that has become almost larger than life. The popularity of Minecraft really cannot be understated. It’s a game that gives players freedom to explore, but also the freedom to create in ways previously unobtainable by other games. Within Minecraft, your level of creativity can be the catalyst for putting together gigantic structures, intricate subsections, and even games within the game. For most Minecraft players, the joy they get from it isn’t about following a story or getting from start to finish, but whatever comes to mind at the time and letting them go with the flow.

Source: Epic Games

Another game that became just as big in the 2010s was Fortnite. Originally conceived as a tower defense-style shooting game, Fortnite went through a number of changes before becoming the mega-popular online game we know today. The battle royale genre started in the late 2010s with PUBG: Battlegrounds, but was really popularized by its implementation into Fortnite.

When this happened, the genre garnered so much attention that other game releases began to borrow elements from it. Today, Fortnite has some of the biggest collaborations between brands and celebrities, with different in-game events and new content added periodically. Without Fortnite shifting towards the battle royale design, the genre may still exist, but it would be nowhere near as popular as it is today.

At the same time, another sub-genre of action games was taking form through the release of Dark Souls. Challenging games have always been a part of video game culture since the early days of the 1970s and 1980s, but Dark Souls had an unconventional approach to this in 2011. The series prides itself on players overcoming obstacles through repeated failure and being unforgivingly difficult. For some, this sounds like an incredibly stressful experience, but for others, it’s the promise of satisfaction after overcoming impossible odds.

This approach became very popular among players looking for a true test of skill, which led to millions of units being sold and multiple sequels and spin-offs being released. Dark Souls is responsible for the rise of the sub-genre of Soulslike games, which includes many titles that borrow its overall design and unforgiving elements.

1

The 2020s

Today and beyond

And then we have the 2020s, which is what we’re currently living through today. The decade is only halfway done, but we already have a few standout games that are becoming major influences moving forward. There’s no telling what other changes video games might see as the 2020s wind down, but there are enough years left for more to happen.

One of the biggest games of the current decade is Elden Ring. Developed by the same studio that made Dark Souls, Elden Ring takes the overall design of Dark Souls and scales it up to an open world setting. While the core game itself plays very similar to any other Soulslike game, the freedom to roam a larger world and the variety of options for approaching challenges make it feel entirely different. The boss battles are bigger, the discoveries are more elusive, and the sense of victory is even more satisfying. Elden Ring was received incredibly well upon release and has been compared to many other open-world games that have really impacted the genre for the better.

On a smaller scale, Vampire Survivors is an indie game that is challenging the way we look at the shoot ’em up genre. The game blends together elements of roguelike titles and shooters, creating a chaotic experience that is filled with a ton of action. Instead of actively firing attacks at enemies, Vampire Survivors has players passively shooting legions of foes as they roam around a large environment. It’s an experience that can be approached multiple times and yields different results, using a variety of characters and abilities that can be obtained over successive runs. Other games in the genre have tried to emulate what Vampire Survivors has done so successfully, but none of them have found the same reception that it did.

What’s next in the coming years?

Throughout each decade, some of the most popular titles often change the way we view certain aspects of gaming. Whether it was the way we interact with a character and environment, or how to approach a new challenge, the successful aspects of those games ended up bleeding into other game releases of the time. And after a while, we can see and feel just how influential those games were.

What exactly those changes will be in the years following the 2020s is anyone’s guess. There’s no way to predict what innovations will occur that could change video games for the better. We’ll just have to patiently wait and see what will happen next.

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