6 Greatest Sci-Fi Video Games of All Time, Ranked

Image via CD Projekt Red/Wallpapersmug Published Jul 18, 2026, 1:57 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account Science fiction is experiencing a major reawakening in cinema right now, but the truth is, video games have been pushing the genre forward for decades. In fact, there is no better medium for exploring futuristic worlds than one that actually lets players live in them. Of course, great science fiction isn't just about cool technology or impressive settings, but the epic stories that these expansive worlds tell. That's exactly why so many of the genre's boldest and most imaginative ideas first found a home in video games. This is a list of six of the greatest sci-fi video games of all time that prove the genre is at its best when players get to experience it firsthand. 6 ‘Dune: Awakening’ (2025) Image via Funcom Dune: Awakening is one of the most immersive science fiction games ever made because it understands what makes Frank Herbert's universe so fascinating. Instead of just retelling the events of the iconic novels, the game unfolds in an alternate timeline where Paul Atreides was never born, and House Atreides survives the Harkonnen betrayal. Players take on the role of an undercover Bene Gesserit agent sent to Arrakis to uncover the fate of the missing Fremen while navigating a brutal conflict between the Atreides and Harkonnens. Now, surviving the planet becomes a task in itself. Players have to manage their thirst, avoid deadly sandworms, harvest spice, build shelters, and slowly carve out a place for themselves on one of the most hostile worlds in science fiction. Dune: Awakening is one of the very rare video games that seamlessly fits into the rest of the franchise. Almost every aspect of the gameplay reinforces the fantasy of living on Arrakis rather than merely regurgitating the same old video game survival mechanics. The game also manages to incorporate Dune’s sprawling political lore and conflict into its narrative, which immediately turns it into an experience that feels much grander than most other video games out there. 5 ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ (2020) Image via CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077 practically defined the modern cyberpunk aesthetic in pop culture. The game is set in Night City, a metropolis where megacorporations hold all the power. The game follows mercenary V, whose life changes forever after a routine heist goes horribly wrong. This leads to legendary rocker and terrorist Johnny Silverhand’s (Keanu Reeves) digital consciousness getting lost inside V’s mind. However, things take a turn when Johnny’s personality slowly begins overwriting V's own. V desperately searches for a way to survive and finds himself right in the middle of a corporate conspiracy involving the powerful Arasaka Corporation, dangerous gangs, mercenaries, hackers, and others fighting for their own version of freedom. This futuristic setting of Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely special, but the game’s lore is what makes it worth playing. Every district of Night City has its own identity, and all the character arcs feel personal. The game's central conflict constantly asks what it really means to remain human in a world where corporations treat people like disposable products. Few open-world RPGs reward exploration as much as Cyberpunk 2077, and after years of updates and improvements, it has finally become the one-of-a-kind sci-fi experience players were hoping for all along. Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare. You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it. The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. In the wasteland, that distinction is everything. Blade RunnerYou'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools. You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect. In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it. Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of. In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 ‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’ (2003) Image via Bioware Any list of the greatest video games would be incomplete without Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Instead of retelling familiar stories from the films, BioWare set the game nearly 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, at a time when the Jedi and Sith were locked in an all-out war for the fate of the galaxy. Players begin as an ordinary Republic soldier caught in the conflict with Darth Malak's invading Sith Empire. However, the mission to stop Malak soon turns into an epic journey across iconic planets including Tatooine, Kashyyyk, and Korriban, where players recruit companions, uncover the secrets of the mysterious Star Forge, and slowly realize that the fate of the Republic rests on their shoulders. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic captures pretty much everything people love about Star Wars while telling a story that completely stands on its own. The players have to move through the game intentionally, because the Light Side and Dark Side choices they make hold the power to shape their character and the story in a way that still feels meaningful over two decades later. Not to mention that the RPG features what has to be the greatest plot twists in video gaming history. 3 ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ (2001) Image via Microsoft Halo: Combat Evolved is the game that completely changed first-person shooters on consoles. Bungie's sci-fi classic follows the legendary supersoldier Master Chief, who escapes the destruction of the human warship, Pillar of Autumn, after it is attacked by the alien Covenant. The surviving crew crash-lands on a colossal ring-shaped world known only as Halo and believes that this is their best chance of survival. However, Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana soon discover that Halo is far more than an abandoned alien structure. This leads to a brutal race to unlock the Halo’s secrets while an ancient threat hidden deep within the ring begins to emerge. Halo: Combat Evolved was groundbreaking in its world-building back in the day, and it’s safe to say that the game has stood the test of time. The game constantly changes the way players approach combat through its narrative, and the mystery surrounding the Halo keeps raising the stakes. Modern console shooters still borrow from Halo's sandbox approach to combat, where weapons, vehicles, grenades, and enemy behavior all work together to deepen the central lore and completely immerse the players in their world. 2 ‘BioShock’ (2007) Image via Irrational Games BioShock is another first-person shooter that completely changed how people thought about storytelling in video games. The sci-fi classic follows Jack, the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, who discovers an underwater city called Rapture. Now, this place was built by billionaire Andrew Ryan as a utopia, free from governments and societal restrictions. However, when Jack goes there, he sees that Rapture has erupted into chaos after the discovery of ADAM, a genetic substance that grants superhuman abilities but slowly drives people insane. Jack, guided by a mysterious man named Atlas, then has to fight his way through the city’s deranged inhabitants and other genetically modified creatures to search for a way to escape. However, the deeper he ventures into Rapture, the more he uncovers about the city's downfall, Ryan's grand vision, and his own connection to everything that is unfolding. BioShock makes its gameplay feel just as meaningful as its story. It encourages players to combine traditional weapons with Plasmids that grant supernatural abilities, including firing electricity, launching fireballs, or telekinetically hurling objects at enemies. Every encounter becomes a new complex puzzle where experimentation is rewarded. Rapture itself is one of the greatest settings in gaming history, with every abandoned hallway, flooded corridor, and Art Deco landmark revealing another piece of the city's tragic collapse. BioShock proved that a first-person shooter could tackle complex philosophical ideas without sacrificing exciting gameplay, and that’s why it has stood the test of time. 1 ‘Half-Life 2’ (2004) Image via Valve Half-Life 2 is a sequel that might just be better than its predecessor. The game follows theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, who awakens nearly 20 years after the events of the original game to find Earth under the control of the Combine, a ruthless alien empire that has reduced humanity to a heavily surveilled police state. Gordon reunites with old allies, including Alyx Vance, after arriving in the dystopian City 17, and becomes the reluctant symbol of a growing human resistance. Together, they launch a desperate mission to weaken the Combine's grip on Earth, which forces Gordon to navigate abandoned canals, zombie-infested Ravenholm, coastal highways, and the heavily fortified prison of Nova Prospekt before ultimately taking the fight to the heart of the Combine's towering Citadel. Every victory reveals just how overwhelming the alien occupation really is, and eventually, this simple escape turns into a full-scale revolution. Now, most games tackling this scale would interrupt all the action with cutscenes for exposition. However, Half-Life 2 does all of its storytelling through the world around the player to make everything feel like one continuous adventure. It's no surprise that countless modern shooters still borrow from Half-Life 2's seamless narrative design and physics-driven gameplay that only gets better with time. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Released July 15, 2003 ESRB T Developer(s) BioWare, Obsidian Entertainment, Saber Interactive Publisher(s) LucasArts, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive, Sony Interactive Entertainment Franchise Star Wars