Sam Fisher in the dark with three green lights; the stealth game at its most systemic.
Every god on Olympus dies; the trilogy ends in blood.
Rocket-slide through a space colony; Shinji Mikami's fastest shooter.
Inline-skating graffiti gangs in a cel-shaded Tokyo; the Dreamcast's style.
One night in the asylum with the Joker loose; the combat every action game borrowed.
Miami in 1986, Tommy Vercetti, and the best licensed radio ever put in a game.
Niko Bellic arrives in a grimy Liberty City looking for the American dream and a man to kill.
Anywhere City, three gangs to play against each other and a respect meter.
Leon in a Spanish village with a chainsaw man; the over-the-shoulder camera every game copied.
Recruit a crew and take them through the Omega-4 relay; whoever you neglected dies.
Commander Shepard, the Normandy and a galaxy that remembers your choices.
Eight robot masters in any order; the NES difficulty and the Dr Wily theme.
Drangleic and the Bearer of the Curse; the divisive middle game, longest of the three.
Bullet time, a graphic-novel story and a New York winter; Remedy's noir shooter.
Lara Croft in Peru, the T. rex in the valley and a whole new kind of hero.
Two commandos, spread guns and the Konami code; run-and-gun at its hardest.
Naked Snake in a 1964 jungle, the Boss and the ladder; the series peak.
Do a barrel roll; Arwings, the Rumble Pak and branching routes.
Solid Snake on Shadow Moses, Psycho Mantis reads your memory card; Kojima's cinematic stealth.
CJ across a whole state; three cities, a countryside and a jetpack.
Liberty City in 2001: the first open-world 3D city, and the reason the genre exists.
Lothric, the Lords of Cinder and the series at its fastest and most polished.
Raiden instead of Snake and a plot about information control that predicted the internet.
The 1997 top-down original: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas as three flat maps.
The atmospheric map, the wall jump and the baby Metroid; the SNES masterpiece.
Samus Aran on Zebes, and the reveal at the end; the first half of Metroidvania.
Four fighters, a Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack and two-player co-op; the best beat-em-up of its era.
Alucard explores Dracula's castle, then the castle upside down; the other half of Metroidvania.
The Reapers arrive and the trilogy ends; BioWare added an epilogue after the backlash.
Sixteen giants, a horse and an empty land; nothing to do but the impossible.
Infobox
