Hey there! You may have noticed that Eurogamer turns 25 this week, so along with the first appearance of some permanent micro-wrinkles and a marked decrease in the number of people asking us for ID, we're marking the occasion with something special.
There are actually a number of things that are special, as editor-in-chief Tom Phillips explained earlier this week, but this one deserves a little explanation. Today sees the launch of the Eurogamer 100, a list of the best video games to play. right now.
As you might have noticed, the emphasis is on that last point. Somehow, in Eurogamer's 25 years of publishing, we've never published a list of the best video games. We've had lists by platform, by genre, by series, by month and, most prominently of course, lists of the best games released each year, with eager contributions from you to our readers' top 50, of course. But, as far as we know, we've never had an all-time list.
Well, technically we haven’t yet. Unlike most lists out there, the Eurogamer 100 isn’t a list of the best games of all time, but rather the best games to play at this specific moment in time. To make the list, games must be able to be (legally) obtained and played on current-gen hardware – which right now means consoles like the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, the various streaming and subscription services out there, mobile, smart TVs, crazy options like Playdate and, of course, the humble PC.
That means no emulating them, no dusting off old consoles, no pulling games from store shelves around the world. And it means they have to be in a good place, either because they're still as great to play now as they were when they first launched, or because they've been gradually improved over time to be in great shape, or they've been faithfully updated, remade, or restored.
There’s a reason for this: I think best-of lists are much better when they’re useful. Video games, to the chagrin of some, aren’t much like other, more static entertainment mediums like film, television, or music. They’re more like restaurants, going in and out of business, changing with the times or not; advancing culture or following trends; seeing quality change as they lose star chefs or line cooks, busboys or waiters who behave heroically and quietly. It’s a bit of a long analogy, but it’s worth it: video games are alive, moving, and evolving by nature, and so a list of games should reflect that.
As well as being useful to our readers, we at Eurogamer also have the job of keeping a close eye on the medium at large, championing lesser-known games that deserve our attention and could use a little help getting it, or recognising the enormous skill and effort required to keep a live-service behemoth in tip-top shape. We value gaming history immensely (and find the dwindling availability of classics as worrying as you might expect), but ultimately there are enough lists out there that look back and too few that fit the way gaming works today. Maybe one day in the future we'll try to make an all-time list.
To decide this, we did a bit of everything. We surveyed our current staff and most of the regular critics, spoke to specialists about their genres, contrasted that with Eurogamer's historical writings on the games in question, and contrasted that with the current performance of those games. We will then go back to the list and update it once a year, adding particularly brilliant new games that might have been released, old games that have found new life, and replacing those that may have found themselves in something of a slump.
Naturally, the result will be a list that you won't agree with at all (it's all part of the fun!), but also, hopefully, a list that you find genuinely useful, interesting, informative, and, like the medium itself, a little bit alive.
We'll be publishing the list over four days this week, 25 games at a time (the 25th anniversary, after all!) until the full list and top spot are revealed on Friday. For now, the top 25: read the Eurogamer 100 list here.