It’s the end of an era for PS4 and Xbox One, with next-generation machines just a couple of weeks away. As Sony looks back on the games that defined the generati꧅on on PS4 in the video below, we’ve also been thinking about the best games of the last seven years. But we’re not limiting ourselves to one platform.
We asked our industry friends what game stands out for them the most, giving them a starting point of November 2013. Their choice could be a game on any platform, and they were free to choose the game for any reason: it personally resonated with them, they worked on it and it changed their lives, it influenced their own work, it made them feel something, or they just found themselves spending the most time with it. The answers were brilliantly varied, and you can read the responses from actors, studio heads, marketing managers, developer♕s, writers, and more below.
Here are the games of🧸 the generation, as chosen by👍 the games industry.
Yoko Taro - director (Nier Automata)
Ikaruga AC
Editor's note: Yoko Taro was late to add his selection to this roundup and he also chose a GameCube title. But this is a man who wears a moon on his head so we'll let it slide.
One of the games I really liked was Ikaruga AC. The restrained colour palette, the synchronizati♒on between music and game design, the stoic shooting gameplay… all of these elements combined into one miraculous work. I💞ncidentally, EDGE Magazine has also asked me exactly the same question. Is this kind of question popular at the moment or something?
Naoki Yoshida - director (Final Fantasy 14)
Ring Fit Adventure
This is completely due to my personal hobbies but the game I’m playing most these days is Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch! It is all too easy for game developers to struggle with getting enough exercise, but I’ve been training my body with Ring Fit Adventure in preparation for the upcoming snowboard season. I’ve been able to achieve some good defin꧙ition on my abs!
The title excels not only in the areas of game ༒design and level design but there are also
strenuous aspects of the workouts for fitness beginners. That got me thinking though that it’d be great if Nintendo could let me adjust the paramet🅺ers, if at all possible. Ha!
Yuri Lowenthal - actor (Marvel’s Spider-Man and more)
Firewatch
My choice says a lot about me. I don't play a lot of games these days. I haven't for a while. But, under quarantine, I have come back, and I have to be honest about what I look for in a game these days: a new, engaging world, interesting stories and characters, 𓃲and NOTHING TRYING TO KILL ME. I feel the stress of that enough in my real life. When I play a game these days I want to escape into a world that's safe. It can be creepy, moody, scary, but I have to kn♍ow from the beginning that I'm not going to be spending my time learning complex mechanics to kill a whole bunch of things before they kill me. Take me on a trip, thrill me, puzzle me with riddles (not TOO hard, please), break my heart, but don't try to kill me. I could barely handle a Grue these days. That, and timing, are why my choice is Firewatch.
I didn't know what to expect. I just knew that a good friend and talented actor was involved, and a lot of people who know what I like to play these days had recommended it to me. I immediately fell into the story and connected with the characters. There was just enough mystery to keep me on my toeꦐs and wondering what was going to happen next. The performances by Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones made me fall in love with the characters and, ultimately break my heart, and the isolation of the main character mirrored my own in quarantine. The amount of time I would just wander through the forest and stop and just stare for long stretches of time while the world Campo Santo had created just breathed around me was unlike any other game experience in recent memory. And while there was a "threat", it didn't keep♐ me wound tight throughout the game. It was exactly what I NEEDED then.
It has helped me, even in a small way, get through t🌳his time. And I'm thankful for that. Thankful to the people involved in making it, and thankful to games. I thought there was no room in games for me as a player anymore, but really, I just hadn't been paying close enough attention.
Julian Gerighty and family - director (The Division 2)
Stardew Valley and Fortnite
I loved being asked this question because it generated a wee🌼kend-long conversation with my partner (Audrey Leprince, President of indie studio The Game Bakers) and daughter (Alix, bundle of joy and light of my life).
Every day we'd come up with another 🧸title th🐟at blew us away with its craftsmanship (Uncharted 4, Last Of Us 2), risk-taking (Red Dead Redemption 2), singular vision (Death Stranding), or just pure magic in a perfectly executed systems driven wilderness (Zelda: BOTW), but at the end of the weekend, we kept coming back to two titles that in our view really marked this generation.
Who can deny that the last few years have marked the rise of the indie game, and one game in particular stands out to us. Stardew Valley is a monument, not just because of its dedication to a gameplay loop that is all about nurturing and growing but also because it's the work of one person. It blows my mind that Eric Barone managed to pull this off with so much charm and style. He makes it look 🅰easy and all of us know that it's not.
Now I have very average middle-age reflexes, I've never been able to construct anything remotely useful and I've never had a victory royal or otherwise, but it's hard to ignore the impact that Fortnite has had on this generꦆation. From being a front-page regular, launching movies, and partnering with Travis Scott to reinvent music videos, Epic has made something truly thrilling even if you don't play. Hats off.
P.S. Alix thinks that Spiritfarer deserves a spot on this list not just thanks to its amazing art style but 🍬also because you can hug the spirits.
Aoife O'Friel - writer and narrative designer (Ubisoft Massive)
The Witcher 3
I can’t count the hours I’ve poured into The Witcher 3. From the intricacies of city life to the lore of the witcher schools, there is so much depth to the world th🐟at I was hooked from the start.
The fantasy of the witcher role is so solid that the game rarely - if ever - suffers from ludonarrative dissonance. Dialogue choices have 🌌far-reaching consequences, and the right choice is usually not obvious (not even Geralt is a man who can have it all). This carries through to meaningful encounters with side characters that bring this colourful world to life, and ensure that every corner of the map is worth exploring.
The Witcher 3 took the best of what open-world games have to offer, and made it its own. The game’s most memorable moments challeng🐲ed and inspired the industry to reach the same levels of complexity, density, and emotional resonance while creating worlds.
David Liu - Creative Director (AFVR.co)
Death Stranding
Let's be clear, the story is ൲a convoluted melodramatic mess. Kojima's treatment of women is 🍨problematic, at best. And like much of Kojima's work, we wade through tedious, expository bombast and hilarity that could be better served as a well budgeted B-grade sci-fi movie.
And yet as I hop from rock to rock in the Hudson Valley underbrush, enjoying a quick reprieve out of the city for tౠhe first time in eight months, 🔴I find myself thinking about this simple joy of... walking.
No other game celebrates the tangibility of terrain traversal quite like this. Where other games of such nature push you through a pleasant, though predictable power fantasy; Death Stranding humbles with mastering movem🍸ent between increasingly distant points. And when you weary and tire, the game performs its biggest flourish: that you are not alone. That other players, woven in through the bombast, aid your passage by leaving notes, signs, and infrastructure. You return the favor. In this communal strugg✨le, you realize the game's point hasn't been about 'winning', but in recognizing we are all in this crazy maelstrom of a world together; and we'd all do better to lend each other a hand.
This has always been Kojima's intent - he's revealed as much in interviews. This mark of ambition, to be able to use his reach and cache of clout to pull in the budget and player numbers to perform this trickery feels like something we'd never quite see again. For all its flaws and ghastly imperfections, Kojima's efforts here shoots for the stars and lands awkwar༒dly on the moon. Death Stranding might be airless and largely sandy and grey, but we're all there, together, and having the intimate little party of a lifetime, with Norman Reedus and a CG fetus.
Jack Attridge - co-founder and creative director (Erica, Flavourworks)
Inside
Inside is about as perfect as a game can get: three hours of uncompromising tone, intrigue, craft, and polish. Playdead is the kind of fascinating developer that seemingly bends to no commercial pressures, tears up the innards of the Unity engine, and adds the technology it wants to get everything just right - to spend a whole week animating🌼 a single fern as you brush past it, or six years with a team working solely on the ending; one that ar𒆙guably dislocates your jaw more than any ending in any medium.
I love the soft-focus look to the whole piece that makes all elements feel cohesive and meld together in an impossibly pre-rendered CG-like finish. The atmosphere reminds me most of Roy𒈔 Andersson’s unsettling ‘World of Glory’, but this time I can’t look away. The audio is ASMR-levels of precise, and grounds all physics and background action wonderfully. Compelling soft-storytelling that implies more than it confirms, leaving enough space for the player (or even viewer) to be an active recipient and fill in the blanks.
The design itself is deviously simple, cutting back all of the fat and serving you an intuitive discovery-driven onboarding that will hook you in for the full ride. If the last game you played was Super Mario, then you won’t have too much trouble stepping up to the challenge of a second button input, as if all you need to grasp the breadth of artistic growth in games across the past 30 years is to play Mario, a꧙nd then Inside. Fortunately for me, the greatest treat was that I had no idea what I was getting into, and if you haven’t played this game yet, you already know too much.
Hidetaka (Swery) Suehiro - CEO (White Owls Inc)
Splatoon
Looking back, the end of 2013 seemed truly chaotic for Japan. The nꦫext generation of consoles, mobile games, and the 3DS were all engaged in a frantic struggle, while I was desperately working on a game that would only be released on Xbox One. At the time, the 3DS was dominating the market, but mobilওe games were gradually gaining a lead.
After that, time passed, and Steam steadily got more and more recognized throughout Japan. The PS4 became a hit, and high-end Japanese games started winning awards. The era was changing. During that time, I played a lot of games - and I mean a lot! It's hard to pi🍷ck only one. This is quite the challenge… and it took me three 𝐆days of thinking to come up with an answer.
In the ꦕend, my game of the generation is Splatoon.
The reason is simply because Nintendo created a new IP, and because it succeeded in delivering the shooter genre to the Japanese family market. In the end, I feel like this was the reason why a lot of Japanese kids started playing Fortn▨ite. It really let me feel the true power of such an old creative company, and inspired me to work harder. By the way, I've hardly ever played Splatoon myself (LOL).
Victoria Grace - actor (The Last of Us Part 2)
Marvel’s Spider-Man
I’m relatively new to♐ gaming! I’ve played a number of narrative games, starting with The Last of Us Part 2. As an actor attached to the project, having worked on it with many wonderful people - it’s naturally one of my all-time favorites. It’s incredibly immersive and story-driven, with some of the best graphics, sound design, accessibility options, etc., in the industry🅺.
TLOU2 aside, my favorite would have to be Marvel’s Spider-Man. I had very high expectations for it, sinceꦓ S🅷pidey is my favorite superhero. This game is everything I’ve ever wanted in a Spider-Man game! The traversal and combat are both super satisfying, the animation is top-notch, and Yuri Lowenthal puts in a wonderful performance as Peter. There are many other games on my to-do list, and I look forward to playing each and every one of them!
Patrick K. Mills - senior quest designer (Cyberpunk 2077)
Disco Elysium
I thought for a while about what to pick for my game of the generation; should I pick the game I've spent the most time with (the fantastic Total War: Warhammer IIꦇ), the game I've had the most fun with (Conan: Exiles with the quest team after work), should I be gauche and pick something I worked on?
But, no, the answer is actually obvious. My pic﷽k for Game of the Generation is Disco Elysium, an𝄹d it's not even close.
Disco Elysium is the most innovative RPG, not just of this generation, but the last two as well. The way it takes the well-tread concept of the adventuring party and turns it into the protagonist's internal dialogue is clever, sure - but the game isn't just content to be clever, and it uses this kind of internality to get the player closer to the protagonist than any game I've ever played. The story ꦑitself is one about failure, loss, and a reckoning with the void, both personal and collective. Contrary to some takes I've read, it's also deeply sincere, heartbreakingly so, and even though it's exceedingly bleak it isn't afraid to have hope, even if i🦩t's too wounded and traumatized to simply surrender to it.
