Best Games of the 2010s (2010–2019): Ranked by Metacritic

Five games share the highest Metacritic score of the 2010s at 97: Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto V and Super Mario Odyssey. It was the decade open worlds went mainstream, indies broke through, and Rockstar and Nintendo traded blows at the very top of the review charts.

Below are the best games of 2010–2019 ranked by Metacritic score, with release year, platform and genre. Scores are the headline critic aggregate for each game’s lead platform; where titles tie, the more influential game is placed higher.

The best games of 2010–2019, ranked

Ranked by Metacritic score. Year is the original release; platform is the lead reviewed version.

Why the 2010s were so stacked

The chart’s flat top tells the story: no single game ran away with the decade because so many hit near-perfection. Nintendo reinvented open-world design with Breath of the Wild, Rockstar set a new bar for detail with Red Dead Redemption 2, and studios like CD Projekt Red (The Witcher 3) and Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) pushed storytelling to film-level ambition. It was arguably the strongest sustained run of quality in the medium’s history.

The decade’s defining games

Four titles that shaped everything after them.

This is the sequel to our best games of the 2000s ranking — read them together for two decades of classics. Many of these franchises still lead the charts today, as our best-selling video games of all time list shows.

Best game of the decade by genre

The standout 2010s release in each major genre.

The 2010s set the template modern games still follow. To see how today’s live titles compare, check our most played Steam games of 2026.

Best games of the 2010s FAQ