We've seen a lot of video game franchises come and go throughout the years, while a few have remained strong to this day. Most of us 🍌have a mental list of our favorite games, but 🌄we rarely stop to think about the influence particular franchises have made on the gaming industry as a whole.
Today we're takingജ a look at the top 10 most influential vid🌳eo game franchises ever made, and how they served to shape the gaming landscape for the better!
10 𝄹 FINAL FANTASY
As far as roleplaying franchises go, few are as popular and influential as Square's Final Fantasy. What began in 1987 🐠has since spawned a string of hits that have touched ꦗus all on a personal level, thanks to great storytelling and imaginative world-building.
Later entries in the franchise would divide some fans wit🤪h the introduction of new play mechanics, but the series has still enjoyed enormous success, especially iꦺn Japan. The separate, self-contained stories and worlds gives players a new experience each time, which is part of the charm.
9 DOOM
In an age where FPS titles were nothing more than a quirky commodity, DOOM signaled a change in the formula which penetrated the mainstream gaming sphere and brought the genre t🐟o the gaming forefront.
DOOM's addictive, straightforward game play caused developers to take notice, turning the FPS formula into one of the most popular platforms for future hits including Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Half-Life. DOOM's influence on gaming cannot be overstated.
8 💜 𝓡 STREET FIGHTER
The fighting game genre owes a lot to , for a number of reasons. Most fighting games that followed 1991's Street Fighter II based their formula on that game, copycatting special moves, level desi𓂃gn, and in some cases, even the characters!
While other titles like Mortal Kombat would adopt a far different control style, Street Fighter proved to be far more influential, even as the genre entered the 3D realm with titles like Tekken and Battle Arena: Toshinden. It's a formula that still works to this day, right up to the series' latest installment, Street Fighter V.
7 POKÉMON
What began as an addictive GameBoy title soon blossomed into a worldwide phenomena in the form of Pokémon. This anime-inspired Japanese hit ha🍌s become a marketing tour de force that includes TV 🐭shows, movies, and collectible trading cards.
2016 saw the release of Pokémon Go, an augmented reality mobile ♚title that took the world by storm and put everyone's lives at risk as they ignored their outdoor surroundings while collecting the little critters!
6 ꦅ 𒆙 RESIDENT EVIL
When Resident Evil was released on the original PlayStation, it gave players a brand new experience that wasn't available up to that point. The term "survival horror" was still in its in𒅌fancy, but anyone who took the game for a spin soon realized what it meant.
Resident Evil's formula has changed several times over the years, but the horror focus has remained. Other games have sprung from its digital loins, such as Silent Hill, Outlast and Dead Space. Regardless of the genre, any horror-themed game probably took inspiration from the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil series, proving the im🍃pact it had not just on scary games, but play mechanics as well.
5 🍸 GRAND THEFT AUTO
Grand Theft Auto started out as a top-down arcade-style title, but it quickly morphed into a third-pe💖rson action/adventure title in the third installment. It proved to be an immediate hit not only for its game play, but the charaಌcters and culture it represented.
Grand Theft Auto has gone on to become one of the most lucrative franchises of all time, but it's true influence can be felt in every single open-world game that we see today. While other developers have dabbled in the formula, it's far easier to feel the impact GTA had on games like Just Cause, Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs, among others.
4 WARCRAFT
The Warcraft series might have started out as a strategy franchise, but 2004's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World of Warcraft online release would serve as the building blocks for future MMORPG titles. It'ꦦs hard to quantify the influence that game has had on the genre, except to say it was a trಌue paradigm shift.
For the last 16 years, WoW has continued to pull in players who have become addicted to the world, its characters and the ability to forge clans and go on raids across the sprawling w♏orld of Azeroth. Multiple expansion packs have kept plenty of wood on the fire, and there seems to be no end in sight for the𒐪 game. Meanwhile, other MMORPGs continue to draw their inspiration from the game, while attempting to build on its framework.
3 🃏 KING'𒆙S QUEST
In contrast to console gaming, computer games were more of a niche in the early 1980s. Yet, from that relatively underground scene came a wellspring of creative ideas that helped shaped gaming as we know it. Sierra On-Line's King's Quest series was one such game.
This adventure title featured a full 3D world to explore, with hand-drawn environments, items and characters to interact with. Though stone-age by our modern standards, it's absolutely safe to say that without the influence of King's Quest, we would have no Skyrim, Baldur's Gate or The Witcher. From its deceptively simple roots, King's Quest managed to show game developers what was possible, even when working with the limitations 𒉰of hardware.
2 SU🔯PER MARIO BROTHERSও
Shigeru Miyamoto's Mario Bros. would hit arcades in 1983, featuring very simplistic game play that was a far cry from the franchise we know today. That all changed in 1985 with Super Mario Bros. for the original NES, kicking off the most recognizable video game IP in hist𓆉ory.
Mario and crew haven't slowed down even one bit since that time. For almost 35 years, the series has enjoyed hits on every single Nintendo gaming console, culminating in the release of Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Maker 2꧟ for the Nintendo Switch. Where we go from there is anyone's guess!
1 PONG
Yes, it might seem cliché to include Pong on this list, but we'd be fools (and dishonest ones, at that) not to. Pong was the fi♏rst truly successful video games from the fledgling early 1970s. To put things into perspective, this was 5 years before the release of the A𒉰tari 2600.
In essence, Pong is a proof-of-concept title which showed🅷 that video games could in fact, work. It was challenging, required practice, and reflex development, and that was very engaging for anyone who'd never even heard of video games.