Fans Have Chosen The Greatest Game Ever Made
Video game fans have rung in on what is the greatest game ever made. The top choice is more than a little surprising all things considered
This article is more than 2 years old
Gaming fans have finally chosen the greatest game ever made, and the top choice did come as a surprise. Then again, the poll was conducted by TV Asahi, Japan’s television station, and only goes as far as to reveal the gaming tastes of the Japanese gaming market — which, at times, vastly differs from the rest of the world. The rankings were revealed in a three-hour special broadcast on the Japanese TV channel on December 27 last year.
It’s worth pointing out that some titles on the list, published by Game Informer, really stand out for different reasons. For example, 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima ranked 66th, while Dragon Quest II, released in 1987, ranked 46. This makes a list incredibly diverse, as it encompasses different genres of video games released over the course of 30-something years. However, the Japanese public has spoken, and according to 50,000 gamers from the Land of the Rising Sun, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the greatest game ever made.
Considering that the poll has such a huge sample, the results are probably a fair depiction of the people’s current gaming tastes in Japan, though we could argue that one demographic can’t possibly represent the tastes of the entire worldwide gaming sphere. A separate argument can be made due to the lack of classification, which would always propel the trendy titles to the top of the lists, similar to music charts. As it happens every year around holidays, Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock and Brenda Lee’s Rocking Around The Christmas Tree are topping the music charts, despite being released in 1957 and 1958, respectively. Well, gaming polls and charts work a similar way.
The rest of the gaming world wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to say that Breath of the Wild is the greatest game ever made, especially considering its exclusivity status as a Nintendo game. Breath of the Wild was originally conceptualized as a Nintendo Wii U release scheduled for a 2015 date. However, Nintendo decided to grant the fandom’s desires for a larger in-game world, which prompted Nintendo to rethink certain aspects of the series and introduce an open word environment, paired with a detailed physics engine.
Monolith Soft, best known for their work on the Xenoblade Chronicles gaming series, whose particular titles also found their place on the list, assisted Nintendo in designing landscapes and topography. However, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the greatest game ever, was delayed twice during its development period because of this shift of focus. It ended up as a launch game for Nintendo Switch in 2017, a handheld console that’s expected to, once again, dominate the gaming hardware market, as it did in 2021.
As we previously said, we wouldn’t necessarily call The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the greatest game ever made because have you seen Dark Souls? Still, it’ll be difficult to dispute 50,000 voices, and Breath of the Wild ranked well for obvious reasons. It reached critical acclaim upon release, and by 2021 it became one of the best-selling video games of all time. And that has to count for something.
