Ahead of the BAFTA Games Awards taking place next week, the organisation has announced the "Most Influential Game of All Time" as voted for by the public today - and the surprising winner is Shenmue.
The 1999 Dreamcast classic (which eventually ended up on Xbox) managed to surpass the likes of Tetris, DOOM, Minecraft and others to top the list. Fans were asked to vote for their picks on the BAFTA website over the past month.
Here's a look at the top 21 most influential games of all time according to BAFTA:
- 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 (1998)
- World of Warcraft (2004)
- Baldur's Gate 3 (2023)
- Final Fantasy VII (1997)
- Dark Souls (2011)
- Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
- Skyrim (2011)
- Grand Theft Auto (1997)
Let's be honest - it's a weird list. These are all amazing games without a doubt, but is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 more influential than Super Mario 64, Tetris or Pong? Should Grand Theft Auto 3 be all the way at the bottom?
That's what you get with fan-voted polls sometimes though, and it's fun to see something like Shenmue still getting recognition all these years later - if you haven't played it yet, it's a great game that's still enjoyable to this day on Xbox!
What do you make of this list? Let us know down in the comments section below.
Comments 36
I get that it’s a good game, but KC2 being on the list of ALL TIME given that it’s only been out for a couple months is ludicrous.
"most INFLUENTIAL games of all time". Lmfao with this list 😂. Number 1 is Shenmue... really? And number 7 came out this year. What has it influenced??
This is definitely just a nostalgia and popularity poll. Like I love Baldur's Gate 3 to death, but it physically has not had enough time in the industry to be on a "most influential" list. Rather it only exists as a successor and evolution of what has come before. I don't doubt that it will become highly influential in the next decade or two, but now umm, no.
Interesting that there’s no Sony first party games on the list.
@awp69 Interesting that there’s no MS first party games on the list, except for the companies MS absorbed after the games on the list themselves were released so MS themselves bears zero credit.
Interesting how Nintendo has three all by themselves.
No halo? It literally revolutionized how fps were made especially on the console space.
Hell yeah! Shenmue 1 and 2 are my all time favorite games.
@WildConcept6 Shenmue is easily top 5 or 6 most influential of all time. Add some fan love and number 1 isn’t that far off
Both Baldurs Gate 3 and KCD 2 shouldn't be on the list until they've actually had an 'influence' (which they will over the coming years). Grand Theft Auto is odd too. GTA 3 makes sense. Halo Combat Evolved as mentioned by a fellow commenter above was hugely influential for console shooters and I think Sonic should be here too. Thinking of open world games, perhaps Far Cry 3 should be here as most open world action RPGs and first person shooters all have design influences from that game for better and worse!
shenmue isnt anywhere near the most influential game of all time. the people who love it really love it but thats not many people as hardly anyone has played it.
if it was that influential more people would have played it
games that should be on there
Resident evil
Halo
last of us
Fallout 3
Quake should be #1. The amount that it innovated in online gameplay with native tcpip with Quakeworld, shooter mechanics with the z axis and controls, and 3D graphics with id tech 2 which influenced EVERYTHING. Kbm WASD controls. Everything before Quake feels ancient, everything since Quake STILL feels like Quake. Quake invented esports, who can forget Thresh winning the Ferrari?
There is nothing in the history of video games that has influenced like Quake.
Yeah. Bizarre list skewed toward newer stuff.
Adventure (which started on mainframes) kind of influenced everything, and it’s not even on there.
That list seems utter nonsense shemue at number 1 no gears or halo no mortal Kombat or street fighter??
This list is must be a joke haha totally bs haha!
It's almost as though they didn't understand the question. At all.
Influential is a weird metric. I'd argue that GTA hasn't actually been that INFLUENTIAL. What games has it influenced? Saint's Row? Sleeping Dogs? Watch Dogs? Mostly dead IPs. Meanwhile something like Assassin's Creed and "Ubisoft style towers and map based open worlds" has actually had far more of an influence on the industry.
How can KCD2 have INFLUENCED anything? It just came out. Several other oddities.
Where is Street Fighter 2 or Call of Duty?
Super weird list.
@WildConcept6 Shenmue is absolutely correct...at least top 3. No idea why Kingdom come is anywhere near this list though. How can it be influential if it's been out a few weeks. Weird
@awp69 I'd argue that something like the Last of Us has HEAVILY influenced the industry to push towards better storytelling, mocap and voice acting over a lot of the games listed here. There's likely others too.
Xbox made the second most influential game of all time, beating Nintendo and Sony! Now there is zero doubt that Xbox has best games!
Halo had so many influences that it is safe to say there is no FPS in the modern era that has not been influenced by Halo.
There is hardly one that does not employ things like automatic health recovery and a two weapon limit.
The Last of Us is certainly missing from this list, they took dramatic story telling to a whole new level. I would also say Goldeneye 007 needs an inclsuion as that redefined what a console shooter could be, and inspired so many games going forward.
Thinking on it further, System Shock 2 also stands out for me as a genre changing game. Bioshock further expanded on a very heavy narrative driven shooter but System Shock was the blueprint for a lot of modern games.
Shenmue definitely deserves a spot, as does Final Fantasy 7, but no Halo? no GoldenEye?
How did the list get compiled? Was it from votes from bafta members, throwing darts at a wall, pulled from a hat?
I feel KCD2 & BG3 are on the list only because folks are currently enjoying playing them. How can you say they have influenced gaming when they have (more or less) only just been released. No one knows their influence on future gaming at this point.
It seems like a random list of favourite games to me more than anything else.
I don't think it's that bad, other than the weird inclusion of Kingdom Come.
Resident Evil 4 the biggest one missing.
Others that should be on there: Street Fighter II, Quake, Halo, Uncharted 2. Maybe Breath of the Wild. There are many 80s games that deserve a place too, especially early RPGs, but perhaps more the work of a historian than a popular poll.
Shenmue rightly deserved. It pioneered more open worlds in games, a true action RPG with some fine mechanics and firsts. Like the QTE .
There are so many games it has inspired. I doubt where have the Yakuza series as it is without Shenmue.
even the newer Xuan Wan Sword 7 is inspired by it.
Yu Suzuiki is a true pioneer of video gaming.
Super Mario bros of course inspired the many platformers in the past 40 years.
And the Ocarina of time , thrusting Link into a full blown 3d world , I loose count of the time spent on that game.
But as BAFTA are saying the most influential games of all time.
I cant believe the likes of David Braban and Ian Bell Elite game.
Way of the Exploding Fist pioneered modern fighters along with Yie Are Kung Fu.
And forget you NOT Jet Set Willy , Knightlore and JetPac
@themightyant Right I was being genuine when I said I was surprised they didn’t have anything on there. Wasn’t meant to be a slam at all.
And as others have mentioned, I think as far as MS that Halo probably should be as well as the game that really revolutionized shooters IMO.
Original GTA wasn't as influential as GTA 3. So it doesn't even deserve the spot. Even GTA 5 may be considered a cultural phenomenon. But glaring omissions of Halo, Call of Duty World at War, Assassin's Creed, Fallout 3, and so many really feels weird. I haven't played Shenmue but there are far more influential games than that and in my opinion first spot should go to Pong as that game changed the whole world and introduced us to this magical world of gaming.
That's the worst list I've ever seen about anything.
Like... Who said "yes, let's publish this"?
Halo, Final Fantasy 7, Tekken, Unreal Tournament, Medal of Honor, Super Metroid, Castlevania, Demon souls, (they literally have genres named after these games metroidvania, souls like) Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, all these games changed the way we play, experience and define games. Some of these people who are reviewing games and writing about games dont even play games or care about them they're just a bunch of college graduates looking for a job and just applied anywhere that was hiring.
@KITG_Group_BrunoB
Shenmue was not the first QTE game. You could however see the industry building towards a masterpiece like Shenmue, and so that game takes inspiration and influence from more than most - and in turn has itself become influential. No. 1 tho? No sir. The problem with these lists is when younger people read them and believe it.
I've seen mention of games like Gears - it was more impactful than Killswitch and Winback, but as with all this there is a lineage. No Killswitch? No gears. No Virtua Fighter and decades of adventure games? No Shenmue. Where is Silent Hill 2? Alone in the Dark? Horrible enough to even make a list like this, when it's something that requires a lot of analysis - but this is just disrespectful and purposeful narrative painting.
What a dumb and wrong list 😀
Then again, every list is useless
Yeah, Shenmue so influential. So many copy cats or games that just copied one element.
Or Tetris, all those Tetris clones out there!
I don't know how influential Skyrim has been since no one really does what Bethesda does. If the game has been influential, it has been so in ways that are less obvious.
This list is what happens when you poll a bunch of teenagers that might be familiar with older games, but weren't there when they came out and, ya know, INFLUENCED things.
I know I'm just an old man yelling at clouds, but I was there when certain games released and literally changed gaming. Most of the games on this list are legit, but some of them are a joke. And their ranking is abysmal.
And no, there is no room on it for Shenmue. QTE's were a fad. Nothing more.
I'm a gigantic Resident Evil fan, but without Alone in the Dark, we wouldn't have Resident Evil, or Silent Hill, or any of the thousands of games in that genre. So AoiD should be there.
Having GTA on there, but not GTA3 is dumb. Nobody gave a **** about GTA until GTA3. Nobody copied the old top-down GTA, but everybody copied GTA3.
Having it be a public vote just makes it completely irrelevant. Which I doubt they care about. It's something they did to get headlines. The more ridiculous the list is the better it is for them.
Everquest (1999) should be on that list. I don’t think WoW would exist if there wan’t an EQ.
Warcraft (1994) should easily be on the list.
SimCity (1989) and one of the early Microsoft Flight Sims.
“That's what you get with fan-voted polls”
A list of 21 games that fans of those games voted for. Yes, that’s exactly what we got. Thanks for pointing that out.
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