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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 054Down 4
#5 in Video Games of All Time
of 19 ranked entries
Doom
id Software · 1993
id Software built a shareware distribution model as radical as the engine itself, and the sheer speed of the movement — running and gunning in full 3D space at a moment most games still crawled — created the first-person shooter genre by example. Recorded specifics: released 1993, developer id Software, genre Shooter. Panel highlighted effectively created the first-person shooter template, shareware release model got the demo into millions of hands for free and a modding scene that outlived the original engine by decades. The reservation on record is level navigation without a map overlay is genuinely disorienting today.
Shooter
Score breakdown
How Doom earned 90.7
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Video Games of All Time.
- Design ambition & innovationweight 30%
- 90.0
- Mechanical polishweight 25%
- 91.4
- Influence on later gamesweight 25%
- 92.9
- Longevity & replayabilityweight 20%
- 87.9
“Its 1993 shareware release model — give away the first third free — became a template the games industry still uses today.”
— Top 49, on Video Games of All Time
On the record
Recorded detail
| Released | 1993 |
|---|---|
| Developer | id Software |
| Genre | Shooter |
| Rating | 9.2 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- Effectively created the first-person shooter template
- Shareware release model got the demo into millions of hands for free
- A modding scene that outlived the original engine by decades
Where it gives ground
- Level navigation without a map overlay is genuinely disorienting today
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
Ranked alongside it
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Rank 02Editor’s pickThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
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Rank 03Editor’s pickTetris
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92.1/100 Top 49 score2Down 2
Rank 04Half-Life 2
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Valve built the Gravity Gun and then quietly proved physics-based puzzle combat could carry an entire shooter, embedding every plot beat inside the action instead of cutting away to deliver it.
91.6/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 06The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
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Rank 07Super Mario 64
Nintendo · 1996
Nintendo solved the 3D camera problem that had stumped the entire industry by building the camera as a controllable character in its own right, and the analog-stick movement it introduced is still the template every 3D platformer uses.
88.3/100 Top 49 score3Down 3
Rank 08Dark Souls
FromSoftware · 2011
Miyazaki built a difficulty curve with almost no hand-holding and let environmental storytelling — item descriptions, ruined architecture — carry the entire plot, spawning a subgenre now simply called "soulslike."
87.1/100 Top 49 score4Down 4
Rank 09Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar Games · 2018
Rockstar built horse testicles that shrink in cold weather, a level of simulation excess that somehow serves a genuinely patient character study about a dying outlaw who knows exactly how his story ends.
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Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.