The Games That Defined This Decade- A Guest Post by Sujayendra Krishna Nellore

Sujayendra Krishna Nellore is a friend of mine I met online in a gaming group, which he was the admin of. We had similar tastes in gaming and hit it off. He runs a Core i7, with 16GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX1070. He also games on his PS4. This is his take on the games of the decade, encompassing 2010-2019. Please welcome Sujayendra to the blog and here's hoping we see more from you in the years to come!

The Bilge Master

The Games That Defined This Decade

By Sujayendra Krishna Nellore

As another decade draws to a close, let us pause for a second and look back on the decade that was in video games.

In December of 2010, a 19 year old me leaned forward to stare at the screen as Bethesda Softworks boss Todd Howard took to the stage at Spike Game Awards. A seemingly compact man, Howard looked like he was bursting at the seams, and barely got through the prepared speech before revealing a bombshell: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced, showcased, and scheduled to release on 11.11.11.

I wept with joy.

2010 to 2019 is easily the biggest decade of the video game industry. Video games went from being disregarded as childish technobabble to becoming the center of mainstream pop culture. The sudden change in the status quo has been difficult to digest for some – even as we speak there are fully grown men bullying others for playing the games they consider to be childish. Gaming has also been a focal point in the rise of the alt-right, a global neo-nazi movement that used GamerGate in 2014 as a recruitment ground.

Much to their horror, however, gaming has continued to grow at a rapid pace. While there are always going to be the incoherent rants of people desperately clinging to their status quo, video games are a unifying force. And some of them are better than the others.

With the following several words, I’ll attempt to collect the best game of each year this decade. Of course, opinions deeply vary, and I do believe mine are quite aligned to the mainstream video game industry, so feel free to drop your favourite in the comments below.

2010 - A Tie Between Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption

This decade was off to a running start with EA and Rockstar Games – titans of the industry, releasing two memorable games that remain close to many a heart even today. With Mass Effect 2, pre-misfortune BioWare successfully released a competent follow-up that met fan expectations and put the series on the global map.

Rockstar Games, on the other hand, were quiet about their spaghetti western open-world game. Designed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption was a glimpse into the decade that would be in video games. The game swam its way to high scores and heaps of praise on the backs of powerful performances by the cast, as well as a unique take on western games that maintained the immersive cowboy experience throughout its runtime. Oh, and it introduced the world to John Marston.

2011 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

To understand Skyrim’s cultural impact on mainstream pop-culture, one just has to look at the millions of videos on YouTube, references to the game in various forms of entertainment media, and look at the tweets from early 2012.

While there have been several games that pushed the medium forward in 2011 – this is the same year Portal 2 and Battlefield 3 came out, Skyrim was everywhere. It was in TV commercials, celebrities were talking about it, YouTube channels featuring the game went viral overnight. Even in 2019, there are still people who lose themselves in the calming world of Skyrim.

Bethesda, like BioWare, has also lost favour with fans over the last few years. With the disastrous launch of Fallout 76, and their continued efforts to make it worse for players, the next decade will be a litmus test to an impatient fanbase’s tolerance levels with this storied studio.

2012 - Dark Souls

When Demon’s Souls launched for the PS3, it was hailed as a return to old-school gaming. Purists decried the modern ‘hand-holding’ of video games and hailed Fromsoft’s return to the fold as one of the greatest games ever made. I’m unsure how the From Software, a Japanese company without much experience in the west, viewed their success, but it was enough to launch Dark Souls in 2011 for Xbox 360 and PS3.

It wasn’t until August of 2012, when the game launched on PC. The rest is history.

You see, Dark Souls launched on PC at a time when streaming was steadily gaining popularity. People thronged in the millions to see their favourite streamers fail at the game, and it was all the marketing From Software needed. The community around FromSoft games today is one of the best in gaming circles – despite the cavalcade of smug know-it-alls who wouldn’t help you with the game without going ‘oooohhh I’m not gonna tell you what happens, figure it out!’

Beneath the depressive visuals and tough-as-nails enemies however, was a solid game with fantastic control mapping. It rewarded the wackiest of strategies and pinpoint precision. The trend to recreate the success of Dark Souls has led to a whole new genre of video games called ‘Souls-like’, and prompted YouTubers, Games Journalists, and even gamers to compare every tough game to Dark Souls for the rest of the decade.

It is my Game of the Decade. Only one other game comes close to being this influential over the course of these 10 years.

2013 - The Last of Us

It is safe to say nobody anticipated just how massive The Last of Us would eventually end up being. If Red Dead Redemption signalled a shift to a more serious, character driven storytelling in video games, The Last of Us was the proof of concept. It was clear, undeniable proof of the power of stories told in an interactive medium. One would say this was slightly ironic, since GTA V released on last generation consoles in the same year. The student had surpassed the master.

Game Director Bruce Straley and Creative Director Neil Druckmann became heroes overnight as the reviews started rolling in. They were the golden boys at Naughty Dog, and while the consequences of making such a successful game would come back to haunt them during the development of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, they – and their game, had secured a place in video game history.

2014 - Alien: Isolation

In a year with juggernauts like Dragon Age: Inquisition – which subsequently went on to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards, the one game that got most of my attention was a game nobody expected to succeed.

Creative Assembly, the studio known for developing the brilliant Total War games, took on a project with Sega to develop a visceral horror game based on the Alien franchise. From hiring the original actors to voice easter eggs to accurately recreating director Ridley Scott’s retro-futuristic technology in the 1979 classic, the studio went all out. The crowning jewel, however, was the AI that powered Xenomorphs in game.

Gone were the set jump scare points, and easily avoidable alien encounters. The AI was designed to react to your every move. If you crouched a lot, the alien would crawl on the floor to find out. If you hid in vents and closets, that’s where it would check first. The raw terror of hiding from an impossible killing machine that keeps outwitting you when you least expect it gave us one of the most organically terrifying games of the decade. There still isn’t anything like it yet.

2015 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

For Polish developers CD Projekt Red, it was a dream come true. The company that started in the shaky economy of a former Soviet Union territory was, in 2014, at the cusp of something truly mind blowing. And they knew it.

CDPR has always been one for big risks. From managing to sell official copies of video games by offering appealing merch within the box in a country where everyone pirated digital media, to taking a strong anti-DRM stance, they walked the talk and stayed honest with the community. So when the company decided to go multi-platform with Witcher 3, after a book accurate Witcher 1 only on PC, and the unpolished gem that was Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on PC and Xbox 360, they had to go all out.

A marketing blitz in 2014 that showcased the impressive world of The Witcher 3 was more than enough for anticipating fans to forgive delays in release. And when it did come out in May 2015, this magnum opus would go on to become one of the most successful video games of all time.

2016 - Doom

After 2004’s questionable Doom 3, the franchise was considered to be dead weight. Dedicated fans of the original Doom games kept the community alive with mods like Brutal Doom. However, there was interest in the community, and ID Software got to work.

Blending old-schooling shooting with new age controls, and adding shiny graphics and a soundtrack that makes one want to rip & tear their clothes apart and go to war, Doom 2016 was the best reboot one could hope for. The game was a pure, unadulterated power trip throughout the duration of your journey through hell. As the overused meme says, ‘In other games, you fight the boss. In Doom, you are the boss.’

2017 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

It is hard to explain just how good Breath of the Wild is. Between the 900 Korok seeds, 120 shrines, four divine beasts, and a massive open world to explore, Nintendo’s rehashing of the old adventure game formula gives us a fresh new take on this storied franchise.

At its core, the latest entry to the franchise remains an adventure game. Players are rewarded for coming up with weird and interesting solutions to conflicts that present themselves within the game world. The limited, yet highly flexible array of tools available to Link asks you a simple question: Why attack head on, when you can annoy your enemies to death?

2018 - God of War

I remember the crowd reaction at E3 2016. The entire theatre erupted in cheers, and thousands of miles away, all my woes of sleep deprivation vanished the moment Kratos stepped out from the shadows of his cabin.

This was, perhaps, the most difficult year to choose a single game that represents it. Red Dead Redemption 2 blew our socks off with a compelling story, great performances, and an open world that I still roam around in for the peace and quiet. And yet, God of War overshadows it. A more mature Kratos, after murdering his entire extended family, learns to be a father once again in this epic tale of a father and son’s journey. If The Last of Us laid the groundwork, God of War is on the first floor.

Kratos, in a way, matured with the Game Director Cory Barlog. He knew that Kratos could not be the angry Spartan he used to be. In turning Kratos from a one-dimensional rage monster to a tragic figure befitting of a Greek tragedy, while also somehow retaining the combat roots of the older games, Barlog is the latest to push the boundaries of storytelling in video games.

2019 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Look, I love Death Stranding. I think it is one of the most unique games ever made, but it still falls into the trap of being repetitive. While Japanese Game Developer Hideo Kojima knocked it out of the park, it still has to be enough of a game. Death Stranding is a game for the future, hopefully a benchmark that will guide other studios along the way. But the game of 2019 goes to another Japanese studio – one that defined this decade with Dark Souls.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. This, despite the fact that it forgoes the freedom and cheese-making ability of Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Once you overcome the fear of being hit, and realise that the key to this game is unrelenting aggression, you are set free. Bosses like Genichiro Ashina become less of a dominant force, and more of a worthy adversary taunting you to clash swords with him.

That, combined with the tactile feedback of pulling off a pitch-perfect parry, and doing it again in quick succession, is extremely gratifying. Once you master the parry, there’s no going back. When once you avoided combat with fear, you now seek it out of pure bloodlust. That’s just how good the gameplay is.

Conclusion: 2020 - The Road Ahead

As gaming continues to become one of the most profitable industries in the world, video game publishers find new ways to squeeze money out of gamers. It is the nature of a company, after all, to make as much money as possible. Despite blatant corporate greed, Indie games continue to showcase the power of this medium, while the titans of the industry push out a few gems every now and then.

With From Software’s Elden Ring, CD Projeckt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, Sucker Punch Entertainment’s Ghost of Tushisma, and even more exciting games scheduled to release in 2020, the year ahead looks rich in interactive entertainment.

And with new consoles just around the corner, I am eagerly looking forward to year-long speculation of technical specifications, launch titles, and price points. Here’s to another decade of mind-bending, and genre-defying entertainment on your home consoles and PC.

Cheers, and a happy new year!