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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.
Video Games · refreshed quarterly
Best Video Games of the 2020s So Far
What actually earned its Game of the Year conversation, decade to date
This is a live, ongoing list covering only games released from 2020 onward, rescored as the decade continues. A few entries here are still picking up new expansions and updates, so positions can move more than almost anywhere else on Top 49. Remakes and remasters are eligible, but only judged on what the new release actually changed, not borrowed credit from the original.
15Entries ranked
226KReader votes
1 Jul 2026Data as of
The top three
Leading the list
Rank 01Editor’s pick
Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios · 2023
Larian built a tabletop-faithful RPG where nearly every object in the world can be interacted with, climbed on, or set on fire, and somehow shipped it with a completion rate and voice-acting budget nobody thought a game this reactive could afford.
95.9/100 Top 49 score4Up 4Rank 02Editor’s pick
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo · 2023
Nintendo took Breath of the Wild’s open world and added Ultrahand, a building system so open-ended that players started constructing functional vehicles the design team never explicitly planned for.
95.0/100 Top 49 score3Up 3Rank 03Editor’s pick
Astro Bot
Team Asobi · 2024
Team Asobi built a platformer explicitly as a love letter to PlayStation’s own history, and the sheer craft of its level design earned Game of the Year honors in a field stacked with far bigger, more expensive productions.
92.9/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Full ranking
All 15 ranked
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Showing 1–12 of 15 ranked entries.
- Rank 1. Baldur’s Gate 3. Score 95.9 out of 100.4Up 4
Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios · 2023
Larian built a tabletop-faithful RPG where nearly every object in the world can be interacted with, climbed on, or set on fire, and somehow shipped it with a completion rate and voice-acting budget nobody thought a game this reactive could afford.
- Released
- 2023
- Developer
- Larian Studios
- Genre
- RPG
95.9/100 Top 49 scoreWidely credited with resetting player expectations for how reactive a big-budget RPG can actually be.
- Rank 2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Score 95 out of 100.3Up 3
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo · 2023
Nintendo took Breath of the Wild’s open world and added Ultrahand, a building system so open-ended that players started constructing functional vehicles the design team never explicitly planned for.
- Released
- 2023
- Developer
- Nintendo
- Genre
- Action-adventure
95.0/100 Top 49 score - Rank 3. Astro Bot. Score 92.9 out of 100.1Down 1
Astro Bot
Team Asobi · 2024
Team Asobi built a platformer explicitly as a love letter to PlayStation’s own history, and the sheer craft of its level design earned Game of the Year honors in a field stacked with far bigger, more expensive productions.
- Released
- 2024
- Developer
- Team Asobi
- Genre
- Platformer
92.9/100 Top 49 scoreBeat several vastly bigger-budget titles to Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024, a rare win for a pure platformer.
- Rank 4. God of War Ragnarök. Score 90.6 out of 100.1Up 1
God of War Ragnarök
Santa Monica Studio · 2022
Santa Monica Studio closed out Kratos’s Norse saga by finally letting the character’s guilt and fatherhood arc pay off, staging boss fights that treat mythological stakes as genuine emotional stakes rather than spectacle alone.
- Released
- 2022
- Developer
- Santa Monica Studio
- Genre
- Action RPG
90.6/100 Top 49 score - Rank 5. Hades. Score 90.3 out of 100.2Down 2
Hades
Supergiant Games · 2020
Supergiant solved the roguelike genre’s oldest problem — repetitive dialogue on every failed run — by making death itself the plot, with new conversations unlocking every time Zagreus fails to escape the underworld.
- Released
- 2020
- Developer
- Supergiant Games
- Genre
- Roguelike
90.3/100 Top 49 score - Rank 6. Resident Evil 4. Score 87.8 out of 100.3Down 3
Resident Evil 4
Capcom · 2023
Capcom remade a genre-defining 2005 original without simply modernizing the graphics, rebalancing pacing and combat enough that longtime fans and total newcomers came away equally convinced it was the definitive version.
- Released
- 2023
- Developer
- Capcom
- Genre
- Survival horror
87.8/100 Top 49 score - Rank 7. Helldivers 2. Score 85.2 out of 100.4Down 4
Helldivers 2
Arrowhead Game Studios · 2024
Arrowhead built a satirical, propaganda-soaked co-op shooter where friendly fire is a genuine constant threat, and the game’s deadpan commitment to its own fascist-satire bit turned out to be the funniest thing about it.
- Released
- 2024
- Developer
- Arrowhead Game Studios
- Genre
- Shooter
85.2/100 Top 49 score - Rank 8. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Score 84.6 out of 100.1Up 1
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Square Enix · 2024
Square Enix expanded roughly a third of the original 1997 game into a full-length open-world entry, betting that fans would rather spend forty hours in Midgar’s aftermath than rush toward a familiar ending.
- Released
- 2024
- Developer
- Square Enix
- Genre
- RPG
84.6/100 Top 49 score - Rank 9. Metaphor: ReFantazio. Score 82 out of 100.1Up 1
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Studio Zero · 2024
The Persona team built an entirely new fantasy IP from scratch and transplanted their social-link, calendar-based structure into a world explicitly built to interrogate its own political prejudice.
- Released
- 2024
- Developer
- Studio Zero
- Genre
- RPG
82.0/100 Top 49 score - Rank 10. Alan Wake II. Score 80.3 out of 100.4Up 4
Alan Wake II
Remedy Entertainment · 2023
Remedy built a dual-protagonist survival horror game that mixes live-action footage with in-engine cutscenes, treating the boundary between fiction and reality as the actual subject rather than just a framing device.
- Released
- 2023
- Developer
- Remedy Entertainment
- Genre
- Survival horror
80.3/100 Top 49 score - Rank 11. It Takes Two. Score 78.3 out of 100.2Down 2
It Takes Two
Hazelight Studios · 2021
Fares built a co-op-only game with no single-player mode at all, and every level swaps genre entirely — platformer, twin-stick shooter, racing game — forcing two players to actually keep talking to each other the whole way through.
- Released
- 2021
- Developer
- Hazelight Studios
- Genre
- Platformer
78.3/100 Top 49 score - Rank 12. Balatro. Score 77.3 out of 100.1Up 1
Balatro
LocalThunk · 2024
A solo developer working under a pseudonym built a poker-scored roguelike deckbuilder so mechanically tight that it became one of the best-reviewed games of 2024 with a fraction of any major studio’s budget.
- Released
- 2024
- Developer
- LocalThunk
- Genre
- Deckbuilder
77.3/100 Top 49 scoreBuilt and coded by a single anonymous developer, then published by a small team — a genuine outlier next to every other game on this list.
How this list is scored
Four criteria, weighted before the first entry
Decade-scoped and live: this list will keep changing as the 2020s continue, and major post-launch updates are factored back into a title’s score at each quarterly review.
- Design & mechanical polish 30%
- How well the shipped systems actually work together right now.
- Narrative & production quality 25%
- Writing, performance and visual craft judged against the current state of the art.
- Cultural conversation 25%
- How much the game is actively shaping conversation in and beyond its genre.
- Value & post-launch support 20%
- Whether ongoing updates have improved or eroded the experience since release.
Questions
About this ranking
Why does a launch-troubled game like Cyberpunk 2077 still make this list?
It is scored on its current, patched state, with the rocky launch recorded directly in the entry rather than hidden. The 2023 expansion and 2.0 update earned back enough quality to justify inclusion.
Are two-player-only games like It Takes Two and Split Fiction penalised for requiring a co-op partner?
No, though it is noted as a genuine access consideration in the write-up. The design achievement of building a game with zero single-player compromise is scored on its own considerable merits.
How can a small indie game like Balatro outrank a massive studio production?
Design and mechanical polish are scored on execution, not budget. A tightly designed solo-developer project can and does outscore a bigger production with a less focused core loop.
How often is this list updated?
Quarterly — this list moves the fastest of any in the Video Games category, since a single major release can realistically crack the top five within one edition.
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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.