2000s
17 games
Counter-Strike
Born as a Half-Life mod by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe, its bomb sites, buy menus and round economy created the modern tacti...
Halo: Combat Evolved
The Xbox launch seller made console shooters feel natural with recharging shields, two weapon loadouts and vehicle fille...
Half-Life 2
The gravity gun and Source engine physics made it the technical and narrative benchmark of 2004, sold through the launch...
BioShock
A lighthouse descends into Rapture, a sunken objectivist utopia in ruins, wrapping a shooter in philosophy and audio dia...
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Infinity Ward left World War II for a fictional modern conflict and wrote the multiplayer rulebook: XP ranks, killstreak...
Gears of War
Cliff Bleszinski and Epic standardized the cover shooter: roadie run, blindfire, active reload rhythm and chainsaw bayon...
Grand Theft Auto III
The move to 3D Liberty City turned open missions, a full radio dial and sandbox chaos into a phenomenon that sold over 1...
Deus Ex
A conspiracy web of nano augmentation lets players sneak, hack or blast through every objective: the immersive sim manif...
Silent Hill 2
Fog as a rendering trick became psychological dread, with James Sunderland guilt given physical form. Pyramid Head and e...
Resident Evil 4
The over the shoulder camera redefined action horror control for the entire industry. The merchant, inventory tetris and...
Wii Sports
Bowling with grandparents sold over 82 million copies bundled with the Wii, the best selling single platform game ever. ...
Portal
Test chambers, portals and a passive aggressive AI named GLaDOS compressed a perfect three hour puzzle game into the Ora...
The Sims
The dollhouse Wright pitched for years became the best selling PC game ever, over 16 million for the base game. Expansio...
World of Warcraft
Blizzard took the MMO mainstream with polish, accessibility and lore at scale, peaking beyond 12 million subscribers. Qu...
Guitar Hero
A five button plastic guitar made air guitar functional, and the 2005 original spread party rock worldwide. Harmonix mus...
League of Legends
Riot Games professionalized a Defense of the Ancients mod into the biggest esport on earth, with franchise leagues and w...
Super Smash Bros. Melee
The best selling game on the GameCube brought a faster, more technical version of the Nintendo crossover brawler. Player...