The 10 Greatest Video Game Masterpieces of the Last 10 Years, Ranked

Image via Team Cherry Published Oct 26, 2026, 4:48 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account The last 10 years have seen a ton of amazing entries come out in the gaming world. From horror to shooters, every genre has had loads of incredible games come out from both indie and AAA developers. Some are exclusive to one platform, while others have attracted a wider audience by expanding to numerous platforms, but all have made gaming history as some of the greatest ever made. It's honestly kind of hard to keep track of them all. While one could easily assemble a list of hundreds of video games that have come out since 2016 that can all be considered masterpieces, alas, there can only be ten. These are the most entertaining and most perfect video game masterpieces released over the last decade. They're all beloved pieces of gaming history, and yet this list is only scratching the surface of how many there truly are. 10 'Battlefield 1' (2016) Image via EA It's not very often that a first-person shooter franchise really knocks it out of the park, but DICE struck gold when they released Battlefield 1. This FPS, contrary to many other entries in the genre, is set during the First World War. The campaign lets players step into the shoes of five different protagonists in five distinct areas of war. Players can fly high or drive a tank across the Western Front, scale the slopes of Monte Grappa, storm the beaches of Gallipoli, and ride with Lawrence of Arabia. Of course, that isn't the only thing the game has to offer. It also features the franchise's iconic multiplayer mode, which includes massive battles of 64 players. You aren't strictly relegated to infantry roles, either. You can assume command of boats, ground vehicles, and planes, as well as use several historically accurate pieces of heavy artillery and machine guns. Better yet, the environments are fully destructible, adding to the immersion. This game really shows how hellish World War I was, yet it's also strangely beautiful sometimes. Battlefield 1 is something that every first-person shooter should aspire to be. 9 'Hollow Knight' (2018) Image via Team Cherry Hollow Knight was a game that took everybody by surprise. At the time, there wasn't a lot of hope for it — it just seemed like another 2D side-scrolling adventure. However, when it came out, it completely blew all other games out of the water. In this role-playing Metroidvania, you play as a Hollow, a faceless insectoid creature exploring the broken world of Hallownest. Everything is shrouded in darkness, and pretty much every life form is reminiscent of some sort of insect. This game stands out in its unparalleled atmosphere and unique vibe. It's not easy to compare to other games because there's just nothing else out there like it. Moreover, exploration was fun and rewarding, the boss fights are insanely creative, and there's no shortage of things to do. While Hollow Knight is a hard game, as many Metroidvanias are, it's still a necessary and exceptional experience for any video game fan. 8 'Dead Space' (2023) Image via Motive Studios The 2023 remake of Dead Space is honestly more of a remaster. While it is technically a ground-up remake, it doesn't change much of anything about the gameplay or the level design. Regardless, it was great to revisit this horror masterpiece in a whole new way. This legendary piece of survival horror is about Isaac Clarke, a space miner who docks with a space station orbiting an alien planet, only to find that a parasitic life form has wiped out the entire mining crew. Using a variety of unique weapons at your disposal, Isaac must navigate the mining station, determine the source of the outbreak, and rescue his girlfriend, who is also somewhere aboard. Thrown in with the long corridors are open, zero-gravity environments, where players can literally bounce off the walls or walk on the ceiling, both to give them an edge during combat and to open up new routes. Clarke is also equipped with a stasis device, allowing him to freeze aliens and move objects around like he has telekinesis. Mechanically, the original version of Dead Space was revolutionary, and the remake only improved that reputation. 7 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild' (2017) Image via Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the first new entry in the long-running RPG series to come out on Nintendo Switch, which meant the company really had to step it up. The result is this game, which isn't the best in the franchise, but it is certainly up there. The games have always been pretty open-ended and encouraged exploration, but this one really turned the land of Hyrule into a sandbox where players can do as they please. The map is much larger than anything the franchise previously attempted, and there are tons of side activities to tackle. The game allows players to go at their own pace as they take Link on a journey to once again save the kingdom from the evil god Ganon. There are so many fresh and niche mechanics that got added into the game that it's hard to find any other series with a similar vibe. Already a modern classic, Breath of the Wild will likely be remembered alongside franchise greats like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance. 💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power) 👒Grand Line(One Piece) 🐺The Continent(The Witcher) 🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson) FIND YOUR WORLD → 01 What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic. ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own. AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live. AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse. AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip. NEXT QUESTION → 05 There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark. ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does. AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it. ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it. NEXT QUESTION → 08 A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world. AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing. REVEAL MY WORLD → The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return. Middle-earthYou belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime. This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends. You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line. The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight. You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot. The Grand LineYou want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there. One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together. You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea. The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it. You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it. The ContinentYou would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated. Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept. You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer. The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people. You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong. Camp Half-BloodYou want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you. Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse. You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for. The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way. Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 6 'God of War' (2018) Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment 2018's God of War is a soft reboot of the beloved PlayStation exclusive franchise. Essentially, it takes place in the same continuity, but the gameplay and visual style have been completely overhauled. The originals were large, gore-filled hack-and-slash games, while the newer entries are more akin to RPGs, with combat occurring on a more intimate scale. Furthermore, the original games were about Greek mythology, whereas this one is about Norse mythology. The plot is simple: Kratos' wife has died, and he and his son Atreus begin travelling across Scandinavia to bring her ashes to the frost giant realm of Jötunheim. The games used to feature a more linear structure, but this God of War is more open-world, with side quests and everything. Despite how new it feels, it's also familiar enough to not alienate long-term fans of the franchise. This new foray into the IP proved to be a massive success, attracting millions of new fans and loads of positive reviews and awards, including Game of the Year at the 2018 Game Awards. 5 'Ghost of Tsushima' (2020) Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment Ghost of Tsushima is a historical RPG without a hint of fantasy in it. Typically, RPGs favor more outlandish sci-fi or fantasy concepts, but this game remains firmly grounded in reality. This PlayStation exclusive stars Jin Sakai, a Japanese samurai who is caught in the middle of the Mongol Invasions of Japan in the 12th Century. Set on the northern outlying island of Tsushima, Jin must wage war on the Mongols by abandoning the samurai code and using stealth and guerrilla warfare to his advantage. The map in this game is absolutely huge, consisting of the entirety of Tsushima. While Tsushima is actually a small island compared to the mainland of Japan, the map shows just how big it actually is. The combat in this game is responsive and tight, and there are numerous interesting side quests to track. However, one of the most interesting things to do is grab collectibles, which involves writing haikus, bathing in hot springs, and praying at shrines, making collecting them feel much more immersive. Ghost of Tsushima is bound to go down in history as a timeless classic. 4 'Elden Ring' (2022) Image via Bandai Namco Entertainment Elden Ring is one of the newest installments in the Soulsborne saga, headed by FromSoftware. These RPGs are notorious for their unforgiving difficulty, as well as their very specific style of gameplay. Elden Ring is a new IP in their already-impressive repertoire, a collaborative project between FromSoftware and renowned fantasy author George R. R. Martin, who developed the universe and storyline. While previous Soulsborne games were fairly open and encouraged exploration, the scale of Elden Ring is much larger and more ambitious, making for a truly open-world experience. There are literally hundreds of boss encounters in the game, many of them more punishing than ever before. The game boasts a wide variety of environments, a fascinating world, and a surprising amount of freedom to play how you want. Elden Ring never gets boring, not even for a second, cementing itself as a masterpiece of modern gaming. 3 'Red Dead Redemption 2' (2018) Image via Rockstar Games Red Dead Redemption 2 comes from Rockstar Games, the same masterminds behind the Grand Theft Auto series. Rather than a satirical jab at modern American culture, this game is a more serious foray into the Old American West. The vast open world features a variety of environments, and players are free to do as they please. You can hunt animals, take down wanted outlaws, or do one of the many, many side quests scattered across the world. One of the main reasons why Red Dead Redemption 2 succeeded is because cowboys are popular, for one, but also because the game's mechanics are brilliant. It's not like Rockstar has ever skimped out on anything, which is why their games often take a long time to come out. Despite the long wait, this remarkably immersive and satisfying game was a marked improvement over every aspect of its predecessors, and that's really saying something. 2 'Baldur's Gate III' (2023) Image via Larian Studios Baldur's Gate III is the first entry the franchise has seen in well over 20 years, and it's a fantastic return to form if there ever was one. The series is based on the popular tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, and the combat and party management system reflects that. Basically, it's a way to play a pre-determined D&D campaign without needing to meet up with a group of friends. Combat is largely based on tactics rather than open combat, but it's still pretty fun. It is one of those RPGs that is extremely saturated with content. There's no shortage of quests to fulfill, monsters to slay, or villains to bring down, and it can keep players invested for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. Each playthrough is totally different, too, as the game features a distinct butterfly effect mechanic, with certain choices leading to varying outcomes that inevitably affect the end of your story. Baldur's Gate III is one of those RPGs that players will never get bored of and will probably feel just as fun in 10 or 20 years. 1 'Hitman: World of Assassination' (2021) Image via IO Interactive Hitman III came out in 2021 to a very positive reception. Later, it was repackaged and rebranded to feature the previous two entries in the trilogy, combining all three games into Hitman: World of Assassination. Like all the games in the series, this one stars Agent 47, a genetically-engineered clone who has been bred to kill. Working for the ICA, he undertakes a series of daring contracts to assassinate high-value targets at major events. This stealth game basically gives you an objective and not much else. You are completely free to kill each target however you see fit, utilizing disguises or the environment as your weapons. There are literally dozens of possible approaches for each mission. The wide-open maps take Agent 47 around the world to places like Dubai, Morocco, Thailand, the US, China, and even the Maldives. The game also boasts alternate modes, like the rogue-like Freelancer, the Sniper Assassin, or the Elusive Target, which often features celebrities such as Bruce Lee, Eminem, Sean Bean, and Snoop Dogg. This is a game that's easy to dump thousands of hours into and never run out of content, especially since Freelancer and the player-created contracts are basically infinite. Its outstanding quality and infinite replayability arguably make Hitman: World of Assassination the greatest gaming masterpiece of the last decade.