Opinion

Our favourite games of the last decade

15.1.2020

Translation: machine translated

What are the best games of the last ten years? My editorial colleagues and I have selected six very different games.

Tens of thousands of console and desktop games have been released over the last ten years. These include "Mass Effect 2", "Red Dead Redemption", "Fallout New Vegas"and Limbo, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order", "Control" and "Disco Elysium". We've put together a short list of our favourites for you.

Phil: "Playerunknown's Battlegrounds"

I had a hard time deciding between "FTL", "Portal 2", "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" and "The Witcher 3". In the end, PUBG won out. Not only have I played it more than any other game - for almost 400 hours - but it's become my game of choice when I don't know what to play. The adrenaline rush it gives me when I'm one of the last survivors is indescribable. No other game creates such intense tension for me. It's even made me love e-sport! For the first time, I loved seeing other players in action. Not to mention the hours spent watching weapon analyses on YouTube to improve my skills. And when I get a notification that wtfmoses has just uploaded one of his tutorials, I always go and check it out.

Raphi: "GTA 5"

Why? You dare to ask me why!? We couldn't wait any longer for the sequel to "GTA 4"! To this day, when I've had a stressful day - OK, it's super rare, but hey - I turn on my PS4 Pro and head out into the streets of San Andreas to relax. And then I grew up with the whole series. The story in Fifth Edition had me hooked from start to finish. For 2013, the graphics blew me away (as did the storage space the game took up on the PS4, by the way), and the countless means of transport were brilliant. Only the online mode disappointed me. "GTA 5" remains an unrivalled game, even if "Red Dead Redemption 2" comes very close now.

Simon: "Dark Souls"

Few games have influenced the decade as much as this one. Level design, combat systems, checkpoints... Almost all the action, role-playing and first-person shooter games of the last few years have copied elements from it. With "souls-like" games, it has even created a new genre. If the 2000s were the years of the open world of "GTA", "Dark Souls" has reigned over the 2010s. Praise the sun.

Luca: "The Last of Us"

No other game has touched and captivated me as much as Naughty Dogs' post-apocalyptic survival horror thriller. On the one hand, there are fungus-infected zombies and anarchists - these are the most dangerous, by the way, as they are unpredictable and show even less humanity than zombies. The two main characters, Joel and Ellie, have a wonderful father-daughter relationship, even though they're not related. All this still moved me weeks after finishing the game.

Aurel: "Subnautica"

I was immediately captivated by the colourful underwater world and unique atmosphere of "Subnautica". The various biomes are beautiful by day and night, and the trippy trailer heightens the player's immersion. The cries of the strange creatures give me goosebumps, especially when I'm looking for the mini submarine in total darkness, hundreds of metres down, and I'm starting to run out of oxygen. The storyline is coherent and increasingly complex, as is the search for essential materials, which become increasingly scarce as the game progresses. The second time round, I managed to finish the game in 30 hours. The enormous underwater structures keep persevering architects entertained for much longer; they wonder how to connect this base to the one over there... It would only take 500 units of titanium and 50 of lithium...

Martin: "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim"

"Skyrim", the RPG of the decade (video game editor's note: for me it's "The Witcher 3", of course), grants the player unprecedented freedom. I was immediately won over by this immense open game world. The vast plains, misty marshes, idyllic forests, snow-capped mountains and ancient cities all invite you to explore and satisfy your curiosity. Even though I was almost stunned by the sheer variety of weapons, magical powers and other skills, it was precisely this infinite range of possibilities that took me to the "edge of heaven". In fact, I dreamt about it for months. At night, giants would project me hundreds of metres above the ground. I was transformed into a werewolf, a vampire, I rode dragons and I looked for Lydia, my adventurous companion, when she got lost. Some people think the story is average. They haven't understood a thing... I'll never forget the moment when, after hours of carnage in hellish systems, I finally saw the light of day again.

Kevin: "Tomb Raider"

I couldn't even count the hours I spent as a teenager playing the original 1996 edition of "Tomb Raider". The game had everything I loved at the time: boobs, guns and a cool concept. Unfortunately, the game's concept and the character of Lara Croft have not aged well. So I was pretty sceptical when I heard that a reboot was coming out. And yet the game won me over from the very first game: not the concept, which is the equivalent of "Far Cry 3" in third person, but the new Lara Croft. The killing machine has become human, with all her qualities and flaws. I loved her as much as I hated her, and I developed a close relationship with her. For me, "Tomb Raider" and its two sequels form the best trilogy of the last decade.

And you, what is your favourite of the last 10 years?

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Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.

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