News

Hey paisanos,

It's a-me, the new web dev on the project. I’ve been spending my first week strapped into F.L.U.D.D., running around the codebase and washing off the bits of goop that naturally build up over time.

First off, I have to tip my cap to Sean, who laid such incredible groundwork for this project. To keep things running smoothly, I’ve completed a total migration of the site from a heavy frontend framework to something much leaner. Think of it like the original Halo pistol: sometimes the simplest weapon is the one that gets the job done. I’ve also rolled out a massive suite of under-the-hood performance improvements that would take too long to list here.

This switch means the site is now fully compatible with the Wayback Machine. Since we’re dedicated to gaming history, it’s important that the site itself is safe for posterity.

I’ve also given the games list a fresh style update, and for the data enthusiasts, there is now a "Download CSV" option if you want to export the rankings into your own tables. I even had a little fun with the 404 page. Worth a click if you want to see what happens when you take a wrong turn.

If you have any feature requests or bug reports, please send us a message with the new Contact Us form above. More updates (and gaming lore references) as soon as I collect a few more Shines.

Not much to say about this one. Some games from 2025 already have mentions and would be well and truly inside the top 1000, had they been included, but I made the decision to exclude them until the 2025 end-of-year lists are in. They will be included in the first update of 2026, which usually happens around February.

About 30 new lists have been added for this update, bringing the total to just over 800.

Acclaimed Video Games will soon expand into a much more ambitious project. Specifically, I am going to rebrand and start covering other mediums, starting with books. This will require building a new and expanded website, which is beyond what I can manage on my own. If you would like to be involved, or if you would like to know more, please email me at contact@acclaimedvideogames.com.

For anyone who's curious, the complete ranking history of Acclaimed Video Games is now available on this Google Sheet. For almost all purposes, the current rankings should be preferred. The historical rankings were based on less sophisticated ranking algorithms, and less complete data. The changes to the algorithm and source data also mean that the historical rankings do not reliably show how the consensus has shifted over time. Showing this would require the data and algorithm to be consistent.

Content warning: genocide.

The last time I posted about Palestine here on the home page, I began by saying, "My news feed over the last few months has been a constant stream of the most horrific crimes imaginable [perpetrated by the IDF against the Palestinian people]." That statement has remained disgustingly relevant ever since. But, in recent months the genocide has become so blatant that even those strong words do not capture the horrors being inflicted upon the Palestinian people.

Last week, the Israeli publication Haaretz ran an article with the headline, "'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid." This is not hyperbole. The IDF is committing daily massacres of unarmed, starving Palestinians.

The starvation itself is also a deliberate, genocidal tactic. To quite Chris Hedges, "Israel is weaponizing starvation. The objective is to dismantle all remnants of civil society and reduce Palestinians to herds of desperate scavengers who can be driven from historic Palestine." Nothing more needs to be said.

It's a mistake to think that this has nothing to do with gaming. Besides the more insidious connections between the gaming industry and the military industrial complex, it affects gaming because gamers are a highly international community. This very website has been visited by people from Palestine (and this was before any statement had appeared in solidarity with them), and it's a certainty that they are part of countless other gaming communities as well. They can see your silence. It's time to speak up.

Free Palestine.