The Play Station 4 and Xbox One generation is quite possibly the best one to date. Across the seven years of its dominance, the way players interact with games and with each other within the bounds of these games has changed rapidly. It was a transformative period, during which new genres have burst onto the scene, while others have all but disappeared from the mainstream.
The games released for the eighth-generation consoles were incredibly big, ambitious titles. Developers focused on giving the players as much freedom as possible to approach their titles, while those who stuck by creating linear, story-centric experiences have pushed the boundaries of imagination to astonish gamers with new ways to uncover captivating narratives.
10 Death Stranding
When the news of Hideo Kojima developing a brand new IP first broke out, the entire project was shrouded with mystery. The only thing the gaming community was certain of was that it was going to be weird. As it turned out, that prediction was more than correct.
Death Stranding remains a divisive title to this day. While the game's fans praise the innovative approach towards combat and world exploration, others hate the game's slow pace and unusual gameplay, playfully describing it as a "postapocalyptic FedEx simulator." Regardless of the way it divided gamers and critics alike, Death Stranding remains one of the highlights of the last console generation, as it showed that there is still plenty of room for innovation in the seemingly over-exploited open-world genre.
9 What Remains Of Edith Finch
It is not a common occurrence for games that can be beaten in under two hours to send shockwaves across the entire industry, and yet that's precisely what What Remains of Edith Finch managed to do. This "walking simulator" with a completely novel approach to environmental storytelling has pushed the boundaries of the kind of stories that games were able to tell.
Uncovering the unfortunate circumstances of the deaths of the Finch family members is a fascinating experience in its own right, but it also makes for a deeply emotional experience that provokes thought and fills players with an appreciation of their own lives, no matter how mundane they may seem at first glance. What Remains of Edith Finch is the ultimate proof that video games are more than mindless entertainment.
8 Cyberpunk 2077
At one point, it seemed as though the eighth generation was the pinnacle of what consoles could achieve. Players found it difficult to imagine what kind of a game could push these seemingly immortal pieces of seven-year-old hardware to their limits. And then Cyberpunk 2077 came along.
CD Projekt Red's overly ambitious title defined the absolute limits of the PS4/XB1 generation of consoles and will forever save as a warning sign to developers that it is never a good idea to forcefully launch a game on hardware that is clearly not capable of handling it. Cyberpunk 2077 is, without a doubt, a great game, but it's just one of those "generation-defining" titles that should only be played on next-gen consoles.
7 Horizon: Zero Dawn
At first glance, the Guerilla Games' masterpiece doesn't really bring anything new to the table in terms of open-world gameplay. However, a game does not get lauded as one of the best titles of an entire generation without being an exceptional piece of entertainment.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is one of, if not the best, open-world games released on an eighth-generation system. Having introduced incredibly satisfying bow mechanics that have been copied countless times since, as well as an easy to learn, but difficult to master combat system, this Play Station exclusive should serve as a shining example of how to design an open-world game without turning it into a repetitive grind-fest.
6 GTA 5
Rarely does a game released on a previous system get lauded as a current-gen-defining title, but GTA 5 was no ordinary game. Rockstar's gangster simulator has, once again, redefined the dominant single-player open-world trends, freshened up the gameplay it was known for since the debut of GTA 3, while simultaneously revolutionizing the online multiplayer sphere.
GTA Online became a mass-scale, record-breaking phenomenon that is currently enjoyed by countless players across three (!) console generations. Although many fans raised concerns about GTA Online being the reason why there is so little news about the development of the sixth title in the series, creating a game that sucked some gamers in for an entire console cycle is undeniably an achievement that Rockstar can be proud of.
5 No Man's Sky
Back in 2016 when No Man's Sky was released, it rendered gamers furious with Hello Games' broken promises regarding the title's gameplay and exciting open-world mechanics. However, five years into its existence, No Man's Sky is an entirely different game. Bursting with life and things to do, the story of Sean Murray and his dev team became the ultimate real-life redemption arc.
This title is also a symbol of one of the most prevailing trends of the eighth generation: early-access titles and neverending update cycles. The jury is still out on whether this model of releasing new games is sustainable in the long run, but it certainly helps developers avoid massive launch-day humiliations such as the one endured by Hello Games.
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
This game needs no introduction. While The Witcher franchise was already a somewhat established name among RPG fans, it was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that truly earned CD Projekt Red a seat at the table of the most prominent AAA games developers. It may have been buggy at launch, but the incredible writing and the immersive world more than made up for the launch-day troubles (that were fixed not long after).
The third Witcher didn't only define the PS4/XB1 generation, but it has also helped redefine another massive, albeit struggling (at the time) franchise. Without The Wild Hunt, we would have never gotten Assassin's Creed: Origins, the reboot that revitalized the series. The influence of CDPR's will surely continue to echo across the role-playing genre in the years to come.
3 Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 took everything that the first title did well, and combined it with some of the gameplay innovations introduced in GTA 5 to produce the ultimate open-world experience that only Rockstar could deliver. The sheer realism and depth of the game's systems were enough to turn it into one of the best games of the generation, but the deep, masterfully written and acted-out story elevated RDR2 to new heights.
Given the amount of money and effort poured into this game's development, players are not likely to receive a sequel for another couple of years. As proven by Rockstar's track record, though, it is likely more than worth the wait.
2 The Last Of Us Part II
Since it was quite possibly the most eagerly-anticipated game of the PS4 era, players were anxious about whether or not Naughty Dog could meet the expectations set by The Last of Us back in 2013.
It is safe to say that the developers more than managed to satisfy the gamers with The Last of Us: Part II, a game that didn't only serve as a continuation of the first title's story but was also able to cover even more complex and difficult themes in the process. The result? The best, most mature, narrative-driven experience in recent years.
1 Fortnite
A lot of hardcore gamers outright despise Fortnite for what they think it represents: the "normification" and infantilization of gaming, a title capitalizing on the mindless following the most recent pop-culture trends. While their arguments are understandable, they fail to see Fortnite for what it really is.
It is mainly thanks to the Epic Games' battle royale phenomenon that gaming has truly entered the zeitgeist. They allowed video games to leave the sidelines and move right into the center of public discourse. Nobody who cares about the future of video games can deny what Fortnite has done to normalizing gaming in the eyes of the masses and creating dozens of thousands of avid players.