1. Minecraft
2. Fallout: New Vegas
3. Portal 2

My top 3 are based on “for their time”.

Morrowind

Portal

Halo 2

Tears of the Kingdom was amazing. The only thing BotW did better was how it felt riding on horseback through Hyrule field dodging lasers. But that was the high point, the average experience in BotW was less fun that TotK for me.

TotK really might be one of my top 5.

It’s too hard to really rank every game. I spent a ton of time on Minecraft over the years but haven’t recently. Like over a decade ago I liked gmod and still spent so much time on it but haven’t played recently.

Lately colony management games have been scratching the itch. Do id probably say Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, and Oxygen Not Included.

1. Oldschool Runescape
2. Halo 2
3. GoldenEye 007

Forever stuck in mid to late 90s JRPGs, if I had to pick 3

Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy Tactics Suikoden II

1. MGS3
2. Metal Gear 4: Peace Walker
3. MGSV

Honourable mentions: Metal gear, Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid, MGSV: Ground Zeroes and Sons of Liberty

No one is going to agree with me, but here I go:

• Counter Strike (all versions): the perfect shooter.
• Terraria: the progression is amazing, but what never ceases to amaze me is how, despite the game’s huge content, it is never overwhelming or intimidating. Just a lot of fun.
• Transport Fever 2: by far my favorite world-builder type game, and it still gets updates!

Going to have to go with the three that had the biggest impact on me.

1: Doom / Doom 2. In addition to being two of the most influential and important FPS games of all time, they got me into modding, programming, the internet, 3D graphics, shaping my entire future career path.

2: Kerbal space program. No moment in all of gaming had me leap out of my chair and whoop the way landing in the Mun for the first time did. Now that I understand orbital mechanics, I get annoyed at almost all depictions of space flight in movies.

3: Factorio. Got to this one late, on Switch about 6 months ago. I can’t think of any game which has rewired my brain as much. As a programmer, I come away from each play through with entire new methods of solving problems at work. May be the single most in depth and addictive game I’ve ever played.

Now this is a tough one to be honest. But if i had to pick:

1. Cyberpunk 2077
2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
3. Hades

Honorable mentions (cant leave these out): Return of the Obra Dinn, Wasteland 2, Darkest Dungeon, and many more…

In no particular order ( mostly cos i think ranking beyond a certain degree of precision hurts the art involved ):

• NieR Automata
• NieR Replicant (ver 1.22… , realistically)
• The Talos Principle ( one of the most suprisingly brilliant games that too many people haven’t played)

then i suppose one tier below, not consequent of any particular shortcomings, but rather just not being at the same “transendent” level as the above:

• Crosscode
• Citizen sleeper
• What Remains Of Edith Finch
• Portal & 2

NieR automata literally changed my life, so it kinda deserves it’s own top spot, but placed as is in spirit of the question.

Control, the horizon games and stardew valley.

Minecraft Borderlands 2 Bioshock

honourable mention for Zelda on N64

but the top 3 are based on replayability and just how easy it is to spend time playing them

1. Horizon: Zero Dawn
2. Ghost of Tsushima
3. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

In no particular order, and without adjusting for recency bias:

Single player

• Hollow Knight
• Undertale
• Outer Wilds

Multiplayer

• The Finals
• Awesomenauts*
• YOMI Hustle

* Right now the game is in a weird state where the original company who owned it went backrupt, and the game is in the process of being revived by a different company. In the meantime, the already low player count got lower. On top of that, there’s two versions of the game: an old version that used Steam matchmaking (as the matchmaking server went down when the game original closed); and what had been the current patch, being accessible on a beta branch, which currently has issues making it hard to actaully play a match.

Really hard to narrow it down, but I think this would be it:

1. Elden Ring. Before the DLC this would’ve been a toss up for where on the list to put it, but SotE made me confidently place it as my favourite game of all time. I’ll avoid any other Souls games in this list for the sake of diversity but Dark Souls 1 & 3 and Sekiro were all in contention for first place before the DLC. They’d make up spots 2-4 on my list, but I’ll omit them for this one. Elden Ring renewed my love of video games, at a time where I was getting a bit burnt out from playing them. When the DLC came out I played it day one, which I never do for anything, and it completely blew me away, even more so than the base game. The world design of SotE is incredible, the views are breathtaking, and the bosses are the best in the whole series. I cannot fully express just how much I love this game when you take into account the DLC. I’m not sure anything will ever take its place on the throne, but then again I would’ve said the same of Skyrim before I played any Souls games, so only time will tell.
2. Skyrim. Probably a boring or predictable choice, but with over 5k hours it’s kinda hard to not include it. I’d probably add Oblivion immediately after this one, but again, I want to make the list interesting so I’ll avoid it here. Skyrim also helped me through the darkest point in my life, so I’ll always hold the game close to my heart, even if new games come along to displace it on my list. I’ve spent so much time modding this game, and it’s one of the things that first brought me and my wife together when we started dating. It might not be my top spot anymore, but it definitely had the biggest impact on my life.
3. Hitman: World of Assassination. This spot was hard to fill honestly. When I think of my favourite games, I usually just think of the Souls series and Skyrim/Oblivion. There’s lots more games I love, but the top spots are all well above the rest. It’s kind of like movies. I have four movies I absolutely adore, and they’re on the highest pedestal. There’s lots more movies I love too, but they don’t compare. Ask me for my top four, that’s an easy answer. Top five? Near impossible. Same deal here, so I just went with playtime and Hitman is my highest remaining game at around 1500 ish hours. It feels weird to call it my third favourite game ever (or I guess seventh because of the other games I’m omitting from this list but you get the point), but so does any other game I considered for here, so I’ll include some honourable mentions below. But back to this game, I feel Hitman is the perfect game for what it is. It can be serious for sure, you’re a hitman taking on contracts, but it can also be completely ridiculous too. One minute you’re tinkering with a race car to make it violently explode on the track to kill your target without anyone suspecting foul play, the next minute you’re dressed as a flamingo exiting the mission by literally flapping your wings and flying from a helipad. 47’s permanent seriousness in the most ludicrous scenarios is peak comedy honestly. Going to a high society Parisian fashion show dressed as a children’s clown and punching out the CEO is a totally normal thing you can do in this game, it’s amazing. And if you don’t like that vibe, you can be a total badass and do a full blown shootout, or a stealthy assassin and eliminate your targets from the shadows with none the wiser. It’s the ultimate hitman/assassin sandbox game.

Honourable mentions: Portal 1 & 2, Pokémon SoulSilver, Hollow Knight, Dishonored, Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and City, Inside, Gunpoint, any Forza game before the most recent one (haven’t played it), all the Bungie Halo games, and many more. I just love video games I think.