The 2010s also marked the decade when we (as in myself and Tania) came of age and started viewing video games with a more critical eye. To celebrate this wonderful decade of gaming, we took the time to choose the 210 games that we believe are the best. See you in 2029.

TANIA PREDA ➞ A space adventure-puzzle like no other, Observation is a sci-fi geeks’ dream come true, as it’s riddled with references to many cult sci-fi films and features a captivating plot that puts you in the role of a space station AI trying to uncover the mysterious loss of its crew. It’s very atmospheric, expertly paced and mesmerizing from start to finish. The only downside is that the game is relatively short.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ A cute puzzle-platformer released by Swedish company Coldwood Interactive, Unravel was one of the pleasant surprises of the 2010s. Though some critics raised concers about its controls and puzzle variety, Unravel has been universally praised for its visuals, story, protagonist, pacing and soundtrack. It’s a great choice if you like your platformers and charming visuals in one package.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Challenging combat, great world design and entertaining boss fights. This is the essence of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, both the original version and the expanded edition, which is the one that made our list. The setting is a mishmash between realism and fantasy, emulating elements from both Western and Japanese RPGs. If you like open-world RPGs and you’ve somehow missed Dragon’s Dogma, you definitely have to give it a try.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Crypt of the NecroDancer is your average, run-of-the-mill… well, actually, it’s not. It’s a roguelike where you have your character move or attack only if said action matches the beat of the music. It is one of the more novel entries in the roguelike genre, and the best thing about Crypt of the NecroDancer is that, even if you remove the gimmick, it’s still a great game on its own. It’s charming, engaging and highly entertaining. Not to mention that the soundtrack is up there with the likes of Hotline Miami.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ The 2010s saw 3 (three) entries in the acclaimed management/political sim series, but out of them all, Tropico 4 is probably the best. Choose one of the premade avatars inspired by real-life leaders such as Pinochet or Castro or create your own, tend to your citizen’s needs, squash rebellions and lead your nation to prosperity. Of course, that is easier said than done, so it’s up to you whether you choose to become a benevolent ruler or a tyrannical asshole.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Company of Heroes 2 received a lukewarm reception upon release due to its bugs, poor optimization and lack of content. Fortunately, after several patches and content updates, it became one of the last relics of a dying genre (RTS). Company of Heroes 2 boasts a painstakingly realistic recreation of World War 2 to the tiniest of details, from gun sounds, uniforms to random chatter amongst the soldiers. The meat of the game is the multiplayer, where players can test their tactical prowess in intense 1v1 matches, or obliterate each other in 4v4 battles with mortars, artillery strikes and tanks. If you’re a WW2 history buff and like RTSs, this game is a must-play.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ When it comes to relaxing games, few can beat Euro Truck Simulator 2. However, underneath its deceptive simplicity lies a deeply mechanically complex game with great attention to detail and a high variety of roads and sceneries that offers a great sense of individuality and freedom. These may seem like big words for a trucking game, but trust us, you have to play it to truly feel it. Just writing about it makes me want to install it.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Look, we know – it’s a mobile game. A free-to-play mobile game. Published by Electronic freaking Arts. But out of all the random trash that one can find on mobile stores, Plants vs Zombies 2 shines not only due to the power of its brand, but also because of its strong gameplay, which needs no introduction after so many years. So if there is one thing we have to be grateful for, it’s that the 2010s gave us a mobile game that we can play during our commutes that’s not a flaming pile of garbage.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ “Hey, not fair, this game’s in Early Access and Epic Store exclusive”. We know, dog, who do you think wrote this damn thing? Anyway, us including Satisfactory in our list of the best games of the 2010s despite being in Early Access should be a testament to its quality. It’s a first-person open world factory building game (basically Factorio with better graphics) with some 4X elements thrown in for good measure. Players are tasked with, well, building factories, exploring and exploiting the alien planet and, of course, battling alien life forms. It’s deep, it’s engaging and there’s not a lot of games like this one out there.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Back when you whippersnappers were playing with your Tamagotchis or whatever, the Tony Hawk series was the thing when it came to skateboarding games. Then came Skate, with its great physics system and relatively realistic approach to skating and turned the genre upside-down. Sadly, its best entry, released in 2010, was also the last, and I would give a hand and an arm for a sequel. Until then, Skate 3 will go down in history as not only as one of the best titles of the decade, but also one of the greatest skating games of all time.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Ever make a plate of carbonara thinking it would be easy, only to screw it up royally? That’s basically Cook, Serve, Delicious – a restaurant sim that is easy to learn, but hard to master. Cook, Serve, Delicious has players building a restaurant from start to finish and handling the logistics. It’s also accompanied by a charming aesthetic and tons of humor that make you forget how stressful this business is, only to pull you back to reality when chaos strikes and several clients yell that they want their food. It’s deceptively simple, addictive and engrossing.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ At release, Destiny 2 was an objective improvement over its precedessor – better graphics, better gameplay, better story. But if we were to pinpoint the one department where Destiny 2 excelled was the post-launch support. This alone turned Destiny 2 from a so-and-so MMOFPS into one of the best this genre has to offer. And with its recent transition to Steam, things can only go up for Destiny 2.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Turn-based tactics game also experienced a mini-renaissance in the 2010s, with Frozen Synapse being one of the first. Players assume the role of a commander assisting a resistance movement against a corporate government regime, in a dystopian-cyberpunk setting. The premise of the game is simple: eliminate the other squad before they eliminate you. The graphics may be a tad dated even as indie-retro games go, but the soundtrack is probably one of the best there is, up there with the original Deus Ex, Journey and Hotline Miami.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Wait, no, don’t scroll down. No, really, don’t get fooled by appearances – Long Live the Queen is not what you think it is. In Long Live the Queen, you assume the role of a princess whose mother (the queen) has suffered an untimely death. Being the official heir, you’d think everything is set in stone. However, the queen’s death has triggered a power vacuum, and everything is up for grabs. Your sole job is to survive until coronation day, but trust us when we say that’s easier said than done. Power-hungry nobles will not hesistate to poison, stab, strangle, throw you off the balcony or all of the above if they get the chance. Obviously, you won’t make it to coronation on your first try, and each subsequent failed run will steer you more and more into the dark side until you become a ruthless sociopath with no moral qualms about eliminating both allies and opponents. Oh, by the way – you’re 14 years old.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Metroid: Samus Returns is essentially a reimagining of 1991’s Super Metroid 2, with improved visuals, new controls and several new gameplay mechanics such as the ability to fire freely at any range. It’s considered by many fans and critics alike as a return to form for the series, and rightfully so. There’s really not much else to say about this game other than if you own a 3DS and would like the see where the whole Metroidvania trend started, you should check this out.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ What Gone Home lacks in gameplay makes up with a compelling narrative, engrossing atmosphere and a infectious sense of familiarity. No matter where you’re from or when you were born, Gone Home’s mid 90’s Washington State setting and comically bland characters feel deeply relatable, on a personal level. Exploring every nook and cranny of the house and revealing bits and pieces of the family’s history, as well as the personalities of the protagonist’s relatives feels weirdly satisfying, even though you’re essentially rummaging through bland household items and 90’s memorabilia. By the way, this game is a time capsule – the devs absolutely NAILED the mid-90’s setting to a point where it makes me feel nostalgic for a period I barely remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go watch Daria for the 4th time.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ A side-scrolling puzzle-platformer set in the far reaches of space, The Swapper impressed critics and gamers alike for the way it innovated on established game mechanics. You play as a female scavenger stranded on an abandoned researched station who gains the ability (through a device) to clone herself and switch her consciousness between them. The puzzles, and the overall gameplay, are built around this mechanic. The Swapper also deserves praise for its atmosphere, soundtrack and visuals. Fun fact: rather than digital textures, they used handcrafted art assets and clay, which explains the novel visuals.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Oh, boy. Back in 2012, much ink has been spilled about Spec Ops: The Line, in particular its anti-war stance, the way it mechanically conveyed the desensitization of soldiers by making the gameplay linear and boring, the subtle way in which it portrayed the gradual mental degradation of the main character, and that scene. Spec: Ops The Line feels more like an interactive version of Generation Kill than a video game, and in the best possible way. It’s shocking, unpredictable, even meta in parts, and it wastes no opportunity to make players feel bad about their actions. As far as anti-war-war games, Spec Ops: The Line is up there with This War of Mine.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ FEZ, and especially its main designer Phil Fish, got a lot of exposure through Indie Game: The Movie. The debates revolving around whether or not FEZ is overrated and Phil Fish’s propensity to causing controversy aside, no one can deny the fact that it brought a lot of interesting things to the table. The gameplay revolves around the rotation mechanic, which allows players to alternate between four 2D views of the 3D world, revealing new paths and platforms and opening previously innaccessible routes. The puzzles are built around this mechanic, and the plane-switches are as fun to play and fiddle around with as listening to a Madlib beat switch. It may not be a ground-breaking masterpiece, but it’s certainly novel.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ What can we say about Rayman Legends that hasn’t already been said? It’s a stellar game from start to finish – stunning visuals, tight controls, catchy soundtrack and ingenious level design and a wide variety of content. Several outlets and many consumers went as far as calling it one of best platformers of all time, and deservedly so.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Monster Hunter: World has all the elements that the series has been praised for in one attractive, and more accessible package. The premise of the game is simple: players take control of a monster hunter and are tasked with hunting down monsters, by either trapping them or killing them, in one of the game’s various environments. The player is then rewarded with loot and items to craft better gear to hunt more powerful monsters. It’s an enjoyable and satisfying gameplay loop that encourages players to be persistent and constantly update and revise their hunting strategies. The gameplay itself, combined with the beautifully designed living ecosystems, makes it one of the best games of the 2010s.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Say what you will about their latest cinematic efforts, but when it comes to video games, DC has more than delivered these past few years. Injustice: Gods Among Us is a tight and highly entertaining fighting game that offers a wide roster of both notorious and more “obscure” DC characters – really, Solomon Grundy? Who the hell is that? Each character has its own movements, combos, and fighting styles, so every fight feels unique. It may not have the gore and violence of something like Mortal Kombat, but it doesn’t have to. It’s definitely one of the best fighting games of the 2010s.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ While the 2010s saw the release of several great Halo games, Halo: Reach was the true turning point of the series. Halo: Reach upped the ante in every possible way by increasing the production value, taking all the elements that made the previous games modern classics and improving them and adding tons of new gameplay mechanics. However, its biggest merit is that it attracted an entirely new generation of players to the series. Halo 4 and 5 may be great games on their own, but neither of them has achieved the same level of cultural and historical impact.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Think fast: what’s the last thing that made you cry? A kitten snuggling with a duck? A video of a Golden Retriever carrying a baby back to its crib? Hachiko’s Wikipedia page? How about some geometrical shapes? Yeah, you heard me right. Thomas Was Alone is the kind of game that will make you weep for an overweight cube who can’t climb up a platform, or a rectangle who’s either too slim or too chonky to fit anywhere. But in a weird way, it’s also a game about friendship and acceptance – to solve most puzzles and advance the storyline, players have to arrange the shapes in certain combinations… You know what, now I’m realizing that I’m starting to sound like a madman. Just play the damn game and leave me alone.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Looking back, it wouldn’t be a stretch calling the 2010s “The Decade of the Roguelike”. One of the roguelikes that stood out from the crowd was Nuclear Throne. Boasting the chaos of classic bullet hell games, tight controls, a well-developed perk system and a weird setting, Nuclear Throne was a breath of fresh air and it still holds up today. Oh, and the guns in this game sound AMAZING, so I want to give a big shout out to Joonas Truner, the sound effect designer.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Darksiders II is a great example of how to make an Action Adventure game with RPG elements. In addition to the tight gameplay mechanics, Darksiders II puts forward vast maps that can be explored either on foot or by horse, with a plethora of dungeons, side quests, mini-bosses and some puzzles, for good measure. Plus, it’s always a pleasure to play as Death itself – you double wield scythes, for crying out loud. How cool is that?

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ We couldn’t have done an honest job without including the juggernaut called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This game needs no introduction – it’s freaking huge, people are making a living from playing it competitively, Rush B, give me AWP, you know the drill. And please, for the love of God, don’t smoke mid on dust_2 if one of your teammates buys an AWP.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Xenonauts is basically X-Com for people who either didn’t like the reboot, or miss the originals. Of course, Xenonauts isn’t just a shoddy clone – the devs took the template of the old series and put their own spin on it. Just like in X-Com, you control a multi-national military organization (called Xenonauts) defending the Earth of an alien invasion, only instead of being set in modern times, the action takes place during the Cold War. You’ll have to balance the needs of your own nation versus the needs of the Earth, manage your funds, recruit scientists and soldiers and, overall, make sure that aliens don’t conquer the world. As always, make sure you don’t name your soldiers after loved ones.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Remember the first two Dungeon Keeper games? Pretty sad the third one was canceled, right? Don’t worry then – War for the Overworld is here to save the day. This is the true spiritual successor to the cult hit series of dungeon sims. Similar to Dungeon Keeper, players build intricate dungeons with deadly traps to kill heroes that enter. Since not even Underlods rule alone, players have to hire armies of dastardly minions to dig, build, and fight foes. The funniest thing to me is that the minions are actually paid contractors and not enslaved, which leads me to believe that the undeworld must have some strong labor laws in place. Or maybe the minions managed to unionize sometime before the events of the game? Whatever. You can still slap the minions, tho.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ When I said the 2010s were good for horror games, I wasn’t exaggerating – we got Amnesia, Outlast and Soma in the span of just five years. Soma, made by the same guys who made Amnesia, takes the story from the early Victorian Era to an underwater research facility in the year 2104. Initially a sophisticated facility built by two major conglomerates, it has fallen in disrepair after a comet devastated the Earth and became the last outpost of humanity. The game employs a System Shock-like system of delivering lore, and most of the horror elements, through audio logs, tapes and notes scattered throughout the station. It also delves into heavy subjects such as what it really means to be human, but saying more would spoil the whole fun. If you’re looking for Blade Runner mashed psychological horror, make sure to check out Soma.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Even in the context of the indie explosion of this weekend incentivizing more developers to experiment than ever, games with coming-of-age stories are still relatively rare. Oxenfree is a wonderfully-written and paced supernatural thriller coming of age story that takes elements from all over the place – especially 1980s teenage horror films. It also has an intelligent conversation system which changes the story and other elements based on your decisions, a catchy synth-pop soundtrack, and tons of voice talent from other acclaimed games, like The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead. If you liked Always Sometimes Monsters and Night in the Woods, Oxenfree is a must-play.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Melancholic, artfully designed and uncannily creepy in parts, Limbo is one of the games that defined the 2010s. At its core, Limbo is a straightforward 2D side-scrolling puzzle adventure thingy that requires players to take a creative approach to advance the story. However, Limbo subverted the tropes of the genre right from the get-go, with its twisted, dark world filled with traps, creepy enemies, and terrifying, oppressive vistas. Weirdly enough, the puzzles, as well as the death animations, reveal a bleak and twisted sense of humour, as if the devs realized that players will need the occasional relief from the horror and dread.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Say what you want about Firewatch, but nobody thought it would become so popular. The story follows Henry, a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest. Set one year after the real-life Yellowstone fires of 1988, the story revolves around a series of suspicious events and Henry’s efforts to uncover the mystery. Though criticized for its myriad of bugs and ending, Firewatch is a pinnacle of the adventure genre (or walking sims, whatever you want to call them), together with Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch. It has stunning visuals inspired by New Deal advertisments, an intriguing story and flawless writing – one of the best of the decade, without a doubt.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ In some ways, Fable III is more of a lateral step than a step forward – it’s basically Fable II with higher production values and simplified gameplay. While the game suffers from lackluster combat mechanics and repetitive side-quests, Fable III compensates with a compelling story and clever writing. The world is gorgeous and brimming with humour and personality, even more so than previous entries in the series. Fable III manages to pull players into its world and make them care about the story and characters. Plus, look at the voice cast – Ben Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, Michal Fassbender. It’s ridiculous.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Since its release, Terraria, together with Half Life 2 and Left 4 Dead, has joined the ranks of the games that absolutely everyone owns on Steam (no, really, show me a person who doesn’t). Terraria is essentially the ultimate basebuilding/survival/sandbox game. You exploit the resources in a procedurally generated 2D world, build stuff and fight waves upon waves of monsters and critters, all while trying to survive. It’s pretty straightforward compared to other survival games, but that’s precisely what makes it so appealing.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Tyrrany is essentially a high-fantasy RPG, but in reverse. The forces of evil led by Kyros have already conquered most of the world, and the only thing standing between him and total domination is a rebellion brewing amongst his forces. You, the Fatebinder, one of the higher-ranked members of Kyro’s circle, are sent to impose order and squash the rebellion. The game presents the player with a multitude of options and choices, with the most interesting being deciding how the Fatebinder influenced the previous 3 years of conquest during character creation. Though short, Tyranny is an interesting experiment in game development that subverts most of the genre’s tropes

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Some critics described Talos 1, a space station which serves as the setting of Prey, as a “luxurious sci-fi playground”, while many criticized its combat and parts of the story. That’s fair. So why is Prey so high on this list? Because once every ten years, there comes a game that is so marvelously executed in some parts that you’re willing to forgive it for its other shortcomings. Prey falls into that category. The setting is so well-crafted that the lackluster combat and thin plot can become minor inconveniences rather than full-on dealbreakers.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ If you were surprised by how entertaining playing a border agent is in Papers Please, wait until you pick up Return of the Obra Dinn. You play as an insurance adjuster who is trying to determine what happened aboard the Obra Dinn after it disappeared for five years and returned to port. Boring, right? Wrong. Return of the Obra Dinn plays out as a classic whodunit, where players are tasked with working out the sequence of events aboard the ship by either using the Memento Mortem, a device that when activated plays back the audio of certain events, or by finding clues. Return of the Obra Dinn comes with a stunning aesthetic and an intriguing plot, and uncovering the mystery bit by bit was one of the best gaming moments I’ve experienced this decade.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ More of a platforming game at heart than a metroidvania, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a gorgeous, hand-drawn game that follows the story of an amnesiac warrior known as Dust and his flying fox Fidget. The game offers a fluid and masterfully animated combat system, tight platforming, and an incredible soundtrack. Our colleague Smoghtown also lauded Dust for its exploration elements, while noting that the game can get repetitive – which is a fair assessment. It’s one of the most gorgeous games to bless our screens this decade, so make sure to give it a shot.

TANIA PREDA ➞ Overcooked 2 manages to bring a lot of silly fun that can get surprisingly intense. It encourages cooperation, coordination, and communication in a way that few games really can without severe consequences. And some proper yelling, but what’s a fight between friends when they forgot to chop that freaking salad? And it’s all fun and games until the floor starts moving. The developers also keep it updated, add DLCs, and special events that just the host player needs to own.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Yakuza 0 is a stylish crime story set between 1988 and 1989 in fictionalized recreations of Tokyo and Osaka where players take control of two up-and-coming criminals who are eager to climb the ladder of Japan’s underworld. Yakuza 0 marked the debut of the series on PC, and it’s the best game the series has so far produced. It features a stellar cast of voice actors, excellent writing and storytelling, fun brawling-focused gameplay mechanics, a variety of side missions that range from funny to absolutely ridiculous and a bustling, gorgeously recreated nightlife that deserves its own article. Yakuza 0 is a highly entertaining gangster epic that, unlike Mafia 2 and 3, is actually fun to play.

TANIA PREDA ➞ The Hitman series was ahead of its time back in the day. They were some of the first to properly introduce us to different ways of resolving a quest or task, straying a bit from the familiar linearity that we were used to seeing. Hitman 2 has some of the most interesting missions in the game and the mechanics have vastly improved over its predecessors. Each target has a story that you’ll want to know more about and the locations you travel to are absolutely spectacular. The variety it offers makes Hitman 2 the most entertaining entry in the series from skillful stealth options to ridiculously reckless methods. Seriously. Grab a fish and start smacking people dead.

TANIA PREDA ➞ The Caribbean adventure brought a much-needed breath of fresh air to the franchise. Even with the latest Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey coming out with better graphics and more of an RPG touch, Black Flag is still the best entry in the past 10 years. You get to play as Edward, who is half pirate, half assassin basically, and not be encumbered by your high morals or need for revenge. His motivation is simple through most of the game: loot. Get rich and stay alive, which weirdly made him much more interesting than honor-bound Connor from AC 3. The setting of crystal blue waters and green jungles is gorgeous, and the naval combat is executed perfectly. Personally, this brought me back to Assassin’s Creed after I had completely given up on the franchise.

TANIA PREDA ➞ As much as we might not want to admit it, this game was a tearjerker and one of the saddest games we can think of. It made us laugh, hope, and cry through its wonderfully-weaved story in a post-apocalyptic world. Telltale’s ability to tell a story and make you become attached to the characters has never shone more brightly than it did for their Walking Dead series. It’s memorable, the characters are complex, and it’s thrilling to see where each of your decision takes you. The art style is classic Telltale and, while the engine never upgraded which likely led to the developer’s demise, in the end, there’s something so charming and recognizable to it that makes this game everlasting.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ I’m not what you would call a die-hard South Park fan, but once I catch an episode on TV, I can’t help but run to the internet and blast an entire season in one go. South Park: The Stick of Truth is not only a good South Park game, but a good, well, game in general. It’s essentially an interactive South Park season that everybody can enjoy, whether they’re familiar with the series or not. The RPG elements, while adapted to match the tone and humor of the universe, are very well-implemented and fleshed-out. It’s easy to dismiss it as a derivative cash-crab, but if you play it, you soon realize that under the wacky names and fart jokes lies a deceptively complex RPG that could go head-to-head with the likes of Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin 2. What? It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment? Oh.

TANIA PREDA ➞ Fight it as much as you want, but Fortnite has been a gaming phenomenon, at least the Battle Royale mode. Unlike Save The World, which took six years to develop and came out grindy and a little too heavy on the microtransactions, Battle Royale introduced something fresh. It kept the colorful, animated theme, and the fun combat, and made a decent plan to handle the microtransactions. It’s a relatively simple game that can be mastered. When I got into early-access and played the co-op version of the game, I was charmed but ultimately disappointed in the lack of updates when all of Epic Games’ attention went to their battle royale mode. However, I can see its appeal and how the intuitive building and fun gunplay drew in millions of people.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Pillars of Eternity may seem a bit dated compared to more recent cRPGs, but most people seem to forget that before Pillars was released in 2015 and Wasteland 2 a year earlier, the genre was basically dead. Pillars of Eternity proved that there’s a market hungry for Baldur’s Gate-style high fantasy cRPGs (which is ironic considering how poorly the sequel sold), and for that, we owe our eternal gratitude to the people that made it happen. The game’s knack for lore dump, hard to digest real-time with pause combat and hard to follow plot makes Pillars a hard sell for many people, but I’d still recommend it for the brilliant writing and intricate RPG systems. If you’re looking for an old-school RPG with all the quirks and perks, the original Pillars of Eternity is a must-play.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Invisible Inc. is a turn-based tactics/roguelike game developed by Klei Entertainment where you take control of a rogue espionage agency that has come under attack from, what else, tyrannical multinational corporations.This game forces you to think strategically and hack and sneak your way to accomplishing objectives, which can vary from obtaining valuable intelligence to sabotaging corporate infrastructure. All levels and objectives are randomly generated, and once an agent is killed, be becomes unavailable for the rest of the run. Oh, and you have 72 hours to overthrow the corporations or it’s game over. No pressure. If I learned anything from my experience playing Invisible Inc., it would be that spies don’t make for good fighters. So before playing this game, you’d better take a cue from George Smiley instead of Archer.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ I don’t know about you, but Far Cry 3 has one of the funniest premises in gaming history: you play as a spoiled, rich dudebro on vacation on a tropical island who is forced by circumstance to become a warrior. That’s why I play video games, man. Anyway, I decided to choose the third entry over the other ones not only because of the ridiculous, tongue in cheek story but also because it brought the biggest jump in quality in the series. It has its fair share of gamey nonsense, like the fact that you need to “upgrade” your wallet to hold more cash, and the last upgrade can be performed only with shark skin, but the rest is just pure, shooty-shooty, get eaten by crocodiles while you’re stealthily scouting an enemy camp fun. And who can forget about that mission?

TANIA PREDA ➞ Shoot things. In the face. THE FACE! From the comic-like graphic style to the highly interesting characters and weapons, Borderlands 2 deserves its place on this list without a question. It’s all about enjoying an FPS with your friends, with plenty of ‘wtf’ moments. The NPCs are over the top, comical, and questionable in every sense of the word. But as you play around as a Vault Hunter and do missions, you start to understand them a little better. This is the world of Borderlands. It’s different, exaggerated, loud, Mad Max-esque, and crazy. It definitely distinguishes itself from the myriad of FPS co-op games out there. It might not be the newest installment in the game, but the story makes it worth it and the devs released an Enhanced Edition so you can enjoy it without enduring older graphics.

TANIA PREDA ➞ Create your customized, badass character, otherwise known as a warframe. This is the game that did microtransactions right, that was updated on a constant basis and that kept our hope alive that devs can be fair. Warframe set the standard for the rest of the world on how to make a game fun and how to keep the players coming back each time. You wouldn’t think this wonder also looks good and plays well, but it does. The combat and world traversing are entertaining as all hell, the quests are interesting, and this game just seems to get better and better. The effort the devs put in this game is admirable, from the updates to the hauntingly beautiful anthem of capitalism. Did I mention it’s free to play?

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Transistor is Supergiant Games’ stylish and melancholic follow-up to Bastion. Though quite linear and short, Transistor never wastes a single second of your time – no filler, full of substance. The combat, which is turn-based, is perfectly balanced, never feeling too difficult or simplistic. But the real draw of the game is the setting and the atmosphere, and like every great work of art, Transistor tells its story through them rather than bouts of endless exposition. The environments that you explore ooze with a romantic, melancholic cyberpunkish aesthetic comparable to Blade Runner’s version of near-future Los Angeles. Transistor is a haunting, beautiful game that will stick to you long after you beat it.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Some may call The Binding of Isaac the ultimate roguelike, and who can blame them? Even in its original state, this game had near infinite replayability, and the subsequent updates and DLCs have only extended its longevity. The sheer number of item synergies in this game is mind-boggling, and together with the randomly generated levels and item order, no run is similar to the next. It’s the perfect “Whatever” game, as Jum aptly put it.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Look man, I may not be part of the Kojima fan club, but once I played The Phantom Pain, I understood why he’s considered an auteur. There’s something about this game that makes it stand out from your average action-stealth game. I can’t quite put my finger on it – it may be the presentation, the writing, or the emergent, open-world gameplay. Playing The Phantom Pain felt like watching Drive, when what I assumed would be an average car-chase film turned out to be a stylish, deeply cerebral piece of media.

TANIA PREDA ➞ Diablo III was a rollercoaster for me. I finished and farmed in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction more times than I can remember, and I stood in line at midnight to get my hands on Diablo III. Only to get hit with the 404 Error and be kinda disappointed with the game when I finished it in a couple of hours. I was ready to give up. Until that update hit and it made the game a whole lot better. Diablo III brought back everything I loved about its predecessor, only with better graphics and new abilities. It’s fun to play alone and it’s fun to play co-op. The world-building is one of the best you’ll see, something expected of Blizzard. It’s grueling, bloody, miserable, and cool AF. While it’s a hack-and-slash, pay attention to the story. It’s worth it.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Building a functional city after 20 hours of grinding make me feel like an urban planning genius. That is, until I watched a few cities made by actual urban planners and civil engineers on Youtube and I realized that I should never, ever be put in charge of something like this. Virtually all cities that I designed were a couple of badly placed intersections away from a complete shutdown, and even then they were hanging by a thread. Trash sat for days on people’s front porches because the trucks were stuck in endless traffic jams, bodies were decomposing in people’s living rooms because there weren’t enough cemeteries to support the city’s high mortality rate, which in turn was caused by faulty sewer networks that flooded houses with poop, long story short, I was the worst mayor ever. And yet, I loved every second I spent in Cities Skylines.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ If you have an affinity for hardboiled undercover cop stories like The Departed and Infernal Affairs, you will love Sleeping Dogs, because it was basically inspired by those films. Set in a vibrant, colorful and masterfully reproduced Hong Kong, the story follows Wei Shen, an undercover Hong Kong-American police officer on assignment to infiltrate and destroy a local triad organization. What starts out as a standard assigment soon turns into a moral dilemma of immense proportions, as Wei Shei reconnects with his roots, befriends fellow triad members and the line between his real identity as a police officer and undercover persona gets thinner by the day. Sleeping Dogs scratches all my itches for undercover-cop thrillers with labyrinthian plots, mafia flicks and Hong Kong cinema, and for that, it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

TANIA PREDA ➞ Even without the many, many mods the community made for Skyrim, the vanilla version of the game was always good. Sure, it was buggy, but it introduced us to a vast world filled with side quests and an open landscape that was ours to explore. Unlike most games, it can be argued that the side quests are better than the main Dragonborn storyline, which only adds to the different approaches you can take to it. There’s a lot more to Skyrim than the memes and the backlash Bethesda is getting these days.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ If you read my entry about Transistor, you probably saw this coming. Bastion is masterfully-constructed action RPG set in a beautiful, hand-painted post-apocalyptic universe where the world was fractured into thousands of floating pieces following a calamity. Supergiant Games know how to build engaging worlds with absorbing atmospheres, and Bastion is no exception. Few games have managed to captivate me like Bastion. I was fully absorbed by its world for the entire duration of my first (and only) playthrough, trying to discover every bit of lore and information related to that universe. The graphics, music, presentation and story are so well-crafted that you can almost forgive Bastion for its dissappointing combat. It’s an amazing game with an equally amazing story that raised the bar for many indie games to come.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Earlier this year, I wrote in my best fantasy RPGs roundup that if Dark Souls 2 was the neglected stoner child, Bloodborne was the child that was sent to violin lessons from an early age and enrolled in the best private schools. Bloodborne is a miserable and depressing journey through a Lovecraftian crapsack world that will have you slash, and crush and shoot your way to whatever the Elder God’s have in store for you (I’m not going to spoil it). Unlike standard souls games, Bloodborne features  faster-paced combat based on dodging, parrying and counterattacking. It’s a huge departure from the defensive style of Dark Souls, and Bloodborne even mocks you by placing a useless, broken shield in an early area of the game. An addictive RPG with chaotic combat and a haunting gothic world, Bloodborne is truly one of a kind. 

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ I don’t think we’ll ever get a colony sim as comprehensive as Rimworld. I’m not saying it’s physically impossible, but I don’t think any sane game developer would bother developing a colony simulator on the same level as Rimworld when they could just, you know, play Rimworld. This game lets you shape your colony however you want, and with colonists having a wide variety of stats, backgrounds, quirks, and perks, the roleplaying possibilities are nearly endless. To give you an idea, during one of my playthroughs, I created a settlement of vegan colonists who made a living out of kidnapping people and selling their organs on the black market. Of course, my settlement was eventually destroyed by a group of cannibals. Ironic, to say the least. Rimworld is an emergent narrative at its best.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ In Subnautica, you crashland in a colorful and beautiful ocean where literally everything is hostile to you. And who can blame the poor sea creatures? You have no business being there. You’re nothing more than an intruder scavenging their backyard for resources and ship-building materials like a hobo rummaging through the trash for a half-eaten quesadilla. I never thought a world could be as beautiful and at the same time as hostile as the ocean in Subnautica. One moment you’re picking plants and admiring the vistas, the next you’re attacked by a huge sea monster. And you know what? I’m totally fine with that.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Darkest Dungeon made me realize that no person, no matter how heroic and stoic they may seem, can witness their companions getting killed by cosmic abominations and smelly fish people without going through AT LEAST one sleepless night. That stuff gets to you. This notion is deeply ingrained in the core mechanics of Darkest Dungeon, as your roster of dungeon-crawling adventurers are on the brink of mental collapse. For that reason, despite the high-fantasyish horror thematic, Darkest Dungeon is by far the most grounded and humane roguelike in recent memory,

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ I have hundreds of hours in this thing and I still managed to beat this game only once, on the lowest difficulty with the easiest starting ship. But to use an age-old cliche, in Faster the Light, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Jumping from system to system, encountering random events, interacting with characters, fighting pirates, and desperately looking for a repair station when your ship is about to fall apart, that’s the core experience of Faster than Light and what makes it a roguelike classic.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Undertale is a meta-masterpiece of immense proportions that functions as a deconstruction of the entire medium of video games. I’d go so far to say (wait, I already did that) Undertale is a landmark example of postmodernism in video games because it subverts all expectations and turns all the conventions of the medium upside down. Undertale is smart enough to identify our deeply-rooted tendencies as gamers and spins them around. The result is a game packed with plenty of meta-jokes and fourth-wall-breaking moments that will make you ponder the philosophical implications of things as banal as saving and loading your game. Or it will make you sad. Very, very sad.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ If the original Deus Ex is set in a crapsack world where multinational corporations have overthrown governments and society was reduced to a caste system, Human Revolution is set in a world that’s on the brink of that happening, but it’s still okay because hey, augments! All jokes aside, out of Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, the former is the one that fully captures the spirit of the original, both narratively and mechanically. Human Revolution is one of the best examples of the power of emergent gameplay, and every single piece of the game is built to support it. Also, after all this time, I still believe that Hengsha is a landmark achievement in level design because of how carefully and painstakingly constructed it was. To paraphrase Adam Jensen, nobody asked for this sequel – but thank god somebody made it.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ A wacky steampunkish adventure with a surprisingly strong narrative and a gut-punching ending, Bioshock: Infinite is one of the most artistically and aesthetically impressive games of this decade. If I’m allowed to be a bit snarky, this is probably one of the few instances where I saw a Pinkerton agent portrayed sympathetically – not surprising considering what they did in real life. A lot of ink has been spilled about this game’s beautiful setting (the airborne city of Columbia), visuals and labyrinthian plot, so there’s nothing much I can say that hasn’t been already covered. It’s the Bioshock series at its best, and together with the DLC, it’s a modern classic.

MARCO GIULIANI ➞ Metro: Last Light was to the Metro series what The Witcher 2 was to the Witcher series: its big-budget, long-expected breakthrough into the mainstream. Last Light follows pretty much the same formula as its predecessor, but with more weapons, smoother gameplay, better presentation and writing and a stealth system that actually works. Add a compelling story filled with intrigue and backstabbing, a plethora of factions with interesting backstories and you get a world that will fully absorb you. Also, Venice has to be one of the most gorgeous and atmospheric levels I’ve ever seen in my life.