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Ahead of the 21st Bafta games awards this April, the institution is running a public survey asking people to nominate the most influential video game of all time. As the survey points out, this is an open-ended question: early, groundbreaking titles such as Space Invaders and Pong regularly crop up as answers because they helped write the rules of the form, but on a personal level, the right game at the right time can be exceptionally influential, too. For players, it’s often the games that made us feel differently about what games could do that feel the most influential. For a game designer, a film director, a writer or a musician, one particular game might inspire a whole creative era.
Inspired by Bafta’s survey, we asked people from across games and culture for their most influential game – and not one name cropped up twice.
Mike Bithell, game designer and head of Bithell Games
Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) hit me at the perfect moment. I was trying to power through my GCSEs, and here came this perfect thing that pointed to a future of games that took me seriously as a player. (I nearly failed my last maths test after staying up for those final few cutscenes.) It engaged with sci-fi tropes and stylish storytelling in a way that felt generations ahead of its peers. Shenmue was the game that convinced me I wanted to make games, but MGS2 showed me the kind of games I wanted to make. One day I’ll get there.
Louise Blain, creative lead at Blumhouse Games
Helpfully, the constantly evolving nature of the horror genre means that a new game can arrive and instantly unlock a fresh fear. Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s shortform horror game PT (2014) holds a special place in my heart, and it’s all the more bittersweet for the fact that it is now unavailable and its full-length successor, Silent Hills, never saw the light of (foggy) day. Taking the lead from Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s oppressive first person experience, the simplicity of PT’s looping corridor is its masterstroke. All you really need to do is push forward and peer into its darkest corners, making this a frankly agonising haunted house taken entirely at your own pace. The game has spawned an infinite number of spiritual successors in atmospheric horror over the last decade, but even the recent trend for anomaly horror has a distinct PT flavour, as we enter the same spaces over and over again, on edge for the frightening differences.
Keza MacDonald, Guardian video games editor
As Grand Theft Auto’s Dan Houser once said: “Anyone who makes 3D games who says they’ve not borrowed something from Mario or Zelda is lying.” The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) set an example for explorable 3D game worlds that is still followed today – everything, from Link’s movement to the sword combat to the little fairy who acts as a guide to what was then a new way of controlling games, was designed from scratch and with little precedent. But it’s the mood of this game that I think was especially influential, not just on me but a generation of children who played it. Ocarina of Time is exciting, but also scary and a little sad. With its child hero, who hurtles forward in time against his will, it depicts a loss of innocence; it trusted young players to overcome their nervousness and get to grips not just with a new type of video game, but with all the threatening creatures, malevolent forces and hidden secrets that might be out there in its world. I think it’s the first video game I played that felt like it wasn’t just for fun.
Ellie Gibson, comedian
The obvious and only correct answer is Tomb Raider (1996). It introduced the idea that a female video game character could be the star, rather than sidekick or hostage. It was the first game I played that wasn’t just about collecting shiny things or killing baddies (and it’s a great shame the series lost its way down these rabbit holes in later years). It was about adventure, exploration and clever puzzles that made you feel like a genius when you finally solved them. Tomb Raider went on to inspire a raft of successful action adventure titles, such as the Uncharted games, and its influence is still present in the Assassin’s Creed series. It’s a shame this influence didn’t extend to inspiring a raft of strong female characters, but patriarchy gonna patriarchy, innit. On a personal note, Lara Croft was such a huge influence on me personally that in 2002 I visited Angkor Wat wearing a tight vest and attempted to climb up a temple via some overhanging vines. I got shouted at by a security guard and ran away.
Nina Freeman, game designer
The most influential game for me must be QWOP (2008), by Bennett Foddy. It sort of brings me back to my roots when I play it. I’ve always been drawn to small, experimental games, and QWOP is a timeless example of that. At one of the first game jams I ever did, my friends and I made how do you Do It?, which was heavily inspired by the physical humour of QWOP. Bennett, whom I hadn’t yet met, was a judge at the jam! We showed him the game, chatted a bunch, and kept in touch after that. Bennett ended up becoming one of my biggest mentors at this early stage of my career, so his work in general has had a big impact on me.
Brenda Romero, game designer
Look, I admit a bias here, but even if I were not married to John [Romero], my answer would still be the same: Doom (1993). I actually tried to think of something else, but nothing compared to its impact. Doom defined the first person shooter and set the stage for what is gaming’s most popular genre. At the same time, it introduced deathmatch and online multiplayer to a wide audience. All FPS games truly owe their DNA to Doom.
Doom was created to be moddable, and that decision is part of the reason why the community is still active almost 32 years later. I don’t know of a single game developer who was not taken aback when Doom hit. It was mind blowing and a cultural shift for both games and game culture. At the time, consoles really dominated, and Doom sold the PC hard.
From a design perspective, Doom introduced the abstract level design philosophy, the style for which John Romero is still known. As a designer, the non-linear and non-standard level design was a big break from the way things were done at the time. I have heard others say that everything about those early levels was a masterclass in game design. Not a week goes by where a well-known game developer doesn’t credit Doom for inspiring them and starting their career. And it’s still going, now playable on everything from pianos to ATMs and pregnancy tests.
Iain Cook, musician, producer and composer
I had mostly kicked my video game addiction for the only period in my life between 1997 and 1999, but fell off the wagon hard when the PlayStation 2 was released. The next-gen allure of Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2 and Gran Turismo 3 convinced me that I was missing out on something revolutionary. But in 2001 I was suddenly in the recording studio and on tour in Europe and America with my first proper band, Aereogramme, and there was a lot of downtime to fill. Eight-hour driving days in the back of a smokey van; endless post-soundcheck afternoons, waiting anxiously to go on stage. Not that I didn’t succumb to other vices, but video games made the hours melt away. Advance Wars was a huge hit with me and my bandmates; the pass-and-play turn-based strategy really worked to engage the brain in between service station piss stops and weed-induced naps. But it was Mario Kart (1992-present) that really got the heart pounding.
In time trials on 2001’s Super Circuit I would spend an hour or more trying to shave a tenth of a second off the previous best three laps laid down by the fastest racer in the band. Once we’d dialled in on a new course, identified the shortcuts and mapped out the best racing line, you had to stitch all of those things perfectly together in a single run. Mess up and there’s no point in continuing. Restart. Deep breath. Palms sweating. You needed total focus as well as muscle memory. The mounting anxiety explodes in expletive-filled euphoria when you cross the line. This game has brought me together with some amazing people. I’m now part of a WhatsApp group where my friends and I compete with other bands and video game industry people, setting a new course every couple of weeks, posting screenshots to validate authenticity. I know for sure that when Mario Kart 9 drops, my productivity is going to drop sharply again.
Sam Barlow, game designer and founder of Half Mermaid
Super Mario Bros (1985). What more to say? You move a character – he looks like a human, and a characterful human. There is a world: the one in the background, evocative landscapes and skies; and the one in the foreground that you run and jump over. The imagery! Natural landscapes mashed up with Alice in Wonderland. The physics and the controls allow expression – you can go fast, slow, cautious, bold … it’s the way in which we exist as a primal level as a biped that walks through the world, condensed down into a game. Challenge, exploration, expression. We go left to right, and there are levels and goals and bosses … and secrets! This game laid down the structures and the ideas that we’ve been using ever since – but also showed that masterful execution is the heart of a video game.
Shuhei Yoshida, former head of PlayStation Studios
My most influential game of all time is Journey (2012). Journey moved players deeply; they had tears in their eyes at the end. It was proof that a game, like movies and novels, could affect people emotionally.
This game, which was developed by a small team of 18 people and could be played in three to four hours, swept most of the industry’s highest game of the year honours, competing against AAA blockbuster titles. I believe it was the first time that had happened in the industry.
Meghna Jayanth, writer and narrative designer
The Princess Maker series (1991-2007). You are tasked with raising a fairy princess disguised as an ordinary human girl, managing her time between learning important skills, pursuing her interests, adventuring and dating. This early social simulation game is surprisingly crunchy and punishing; it’s extremely possible for your “daughter” to die or be exiled during the various social and political trials that mark her coming-of-age. Each instalment varies, but it’s not uncommon to have 50+ endings as well as branching dialogue and narrative events conditional on your princess’s particular stats and attributes. As a narrative designer this game was a revelation, and apart from in my own work, I think you can see its influence in everything from the wildly successful Persona games to last year’s intriguing indie meditation on capitalism Final Profit to any of Hanako Games’ niche but satisfying offerings. In fact, I see a genre through-line all the way to the ambitious and genuinely brilliant design of indie game Closer the Distance, one of this year’s Independent games festival narrative nominees. Oh, and it was unashamedly marketed to and interested in girls. I wish more publishers and executives would pay attention. This is a game that I wish was even more influential.
Keith Stuart, Guardian video game correspondent
In the early 1980s, most of the games I played were extremely abstract: you were a space ship fighting aliens, or you were a hungry yellow circle being chased by ghosts. But in 1985 Atari released Paperboy, a game in which you were a boy delivering papers. Not only was this arcade classic revolutionary in that it featured a real-life job, it also presented a world that was absolutely full of detail and experimentation, in which players were actively rewarded for messing about. What if you threw a paper at a window or a passerby? You got feedback. You got feedback whatever you did. As a schoolboy with an actual paper round it felt weirdly therapeutic to do the job badly, but in game design terms it also taught a generation of designers that the everyday world is an exciting, amusing and challenging place to set a video game. It was also a game that let you mess about, it rewarded mischief. It was GTA a dozen years early.
