The Strong Museum's World Video Game Hall of Fame has long stood as a curated collection of some of the most influential video games ever made. In recent years, it has inducted the likes of Halo: Combat Evolved, The Legend of Zelda, Minecraft, Final Fantasy 7, and more, quickly becoming a vast library of the medium's most seminal releases.
Today, the collection brought a further four games into its ranks, with the Strong Museum announcing the 2021 inductees via a press release on its website. The games will be displayed at the company's museum in New York, where they'll feature alongside the various other inductees from prior years.
2021's class is comprised of four absolute classics, with Animal Crossing, Starcraft, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Microsoft Flight Simulator all joining the museum. The titles beat out a hefty list of other nominees, including Portal, Call of Duty, FIFA, Guitar Hero, FarmVille, Tron, and Mattel Football. Speaking on why each game managed to get the nod, The Strong Museum had a lot to say.
Animal Crossing was celebrated for giving players "the freedom to complete activities and collect objects as they liked." It's especially well deserved considering Nintendo's blockbuster franchise has managed to become such a global phenomenon again over the last year, with New Horizons helping players stay connected despite the ongoing restrictions of the pandemic. As for Starcraft, the museum praises Blizzard's iconic classic for taking "the real-time strategy genre to new heights." The game has gone on to become one of the strategy genre's most acclaimed and widely recognized properties since its inception back in 1998, inspiring numerous other titles in its wake.
As for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Strong Museum recognizes it as spawning "one of the best-selling 'edutainment' franchises," combining education and entertainment through a long-running and very successful series. Finally, Microsoft Flight Simulator got the nod for being "the most popular, longest-lasting, and most influential flying sim of all time." The museum applauded the game for offering advanced systems that are accessible to all players, noting how it allowed both amateur and professional aviators to navigate the skies. The franchise is currently more relevant than ever, with Microsoft releasing a new iteration of the franchise last year.
The four games join a long list of experiences that have been added to the World Video Game Hall of Fame in the years since its creation back in 2015. Last year's World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees were comprised of Minecraft, Bejeweled, Centipede, and King's Quest, while prior inductions have added classics like Doom, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Donkey Kong. It'll be interesting to see if any of 2021's other nominees are inducted during 2022's Hall of Fame, with the lineup featuring an array of influential games that will likely grace the collection sooner rather than later.
Source: The Strong Museum