The top 20 most influential video games of all time in the BAFTA poll are as follows:
- Shenmue
- Doom
- Super Mario Bros.
- Half-Life
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Minecraft
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
- Super Mario 64
- Half-Life 2
- The Sims
- Tetris
- Tomb Raider
- Pong
- Metal Gear Solid
- World of Warcraft
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Final Fantasy VII
- Dark Souls
- Grand Theft Auto 3
- Skyrim
- Grand Theft Auto
I absolutely love Shenmue, have played through many times, and this still seems crazy to me.
I have Shenmue III. Do I need to play the other two to understand, or can I just jump right in?
Definitely play the others before 3.
Thanks!
Why are there 21 games?
Wait Bafta did this?? I grew up in the UK in the 80s with a ZX Spectrum, why no ‘Manic Miner’ or ‘Jet set Willy’? Those were pretty influencial and actually British. Doom wasn’t originally on console and super Mario is definitely from the 80s, wtf?
Struggling to think of games influenced by Shenmue.
Yakuza series for sure.
But yeah, I wouldn’t put it at the top of the list, personally.
kcd2 being on here is so fucking funny
I’ve never heard of this game.
BAFTA just needed to remind people that they’re wholly irrelevant and out of touch.
But the results come from a poll 😅
And BAFTA run the poll. Who are they giving the poll to? It was a public poll so it’s worthless. BAFTA decided to publish it, so they’re worthless.
This is the dumbest list I’ve ever seen. Are they intentionally messing with people? How is a game that just came out “most influential”? What did Minecraft influence other than half-baked clones? Shenmue provided the blueprint for open world games and, what, Ocarina of Time didn’t?
BAFTA continuing their streak of being on my black-list for being total nonsense.
Yeah I feel like games like Wasteland, Daggerfall, and fuck it even asteroid would be better. This is more like most popular retro games list.
The absurd mix of some legitimate and appropriate choices, some completely unqualified recent releases that haven’t even had time to exert an influence and a winner that is completely bizarre and out of left field is absolutely something else.
Shenmue? Really?
Shenmue makes as much sense as other real top spots (not counting KCD2, Skyrim or BG3 - just dumb to include). It was one of the first games of this kind and others took plenty inspiration from it which fits the original intent of the vote.
Fully deserved in my opinion.
Also why is KCD2 and BG3 on the list? That must be a mistake.
I think it was an open vote at first so KCD2 might have been an effect of brigading for a marketing effort. Capitalism is why we can’t have nice things, again.
Could also be explained be recency bias.
You’re right, some people probably thought „most influential” = best and that was the best game they played recently. What this game could influence when it just came out - who knows ;)
