This decade has truly been an amazing one for gaming, with brand new groundbreaking titles and innovations in the industry. I’ve taken this opportunity to talk about some of my best games this decade. Though I wish I could talk about all my favorite games this decade, I’ll just be touching on my best three.

The first game on my list is The Witcher 3: Wild hunt, and of course, you know The Witcher 3; it’s that game that nobody could shut up over in 2015. I was among the few who thought of it as over-hyped at the time, and oh boy, was I wrong. It all began when my friend wouldn’t shut up about it, so I decided to finally try it out. That was most definitely the right decision. The first thing I noticed when booting it up was not the graphics (though they are pretty great), but the lush and vibrant world in the game. The world of The Witcher 3 has more attention to details than I had ever seen at the time. NPCs interact with one another, the weather affects the mood of the environment, and even Geralt himself is affected by time changes. You would notice time effecting his beard length, which is a nice touch.

When the story eventually starts to pick up, you can tell that the devs and people involved in this game put their heart into it, with the fantastic writing and even better characters. The voice acting brings them to life as if they were real too, enhancing an engaging story that rivals hits such Uncharted and The Last of Us. It does an excellent job of keeping you invested, and with the long hours you’ll spend on this game, it is truly a godsend.

With these characters come the choices you’ll have to make. Unlike other games that claim to include hard-hitting, important decisions, The Witcher 3 proves it with missions having choices that could endanger people’s lives, villages and the potential to lose important characters as well.

The choices you make will impact the story. Referring back to the length, CD Projekt Red is one of the few devs that gives players value for their money, with the base game alone being over 100 hours long including sidequests. That doesn’t even factor in the two massive expansions which bring the length to about 200-300 hours. With long, engaging, and entertaining side quests that range from helping an old lady find her frying pan to assassinating a king; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a fantastic game and a huge success. If you haven’t played this gem, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Sure it might take a while to finish, but you’ll be happy spending every minute of your time on it.

The next game, among others, is one I could not leave out due to the lasting effect it had on me after completing it thoroughly. That game is Persona 5.

I’m a huge Persona fan, and I’ve enjoyed all the games in the series. That’s why when Persona 5 released It was a huge deal for me and other Persona fans. There is so much to love about this game, from the awesome cell-shaded characters, amazing eye-catching UI to the interesting, unique story and characters. In this game, like many others in the series, you are the protagonist. The main character of which this story is told about. Nick-named Joker, you are the leader of the phantom thieves; whose goal is to dive into the physical manifestation of their targets psyche, their ‘palaces’ and steal their hearts, represented as a treasure to them.

For me, the beauty of Persona has always been its duality of fighting shadows, stealing treasures and upgrading your stats, while also being an average teenager with classes, jobs, hobbies, and relationships to maintain. You can, and will spend hours of your time on this earth enjoying the brightly colored world of Persona 5. Every aspect of the game is well fleshed out, from upgrading personas, weapons, to the things combat has to offer. The non-combat related mechanics are fleshed out as well, such as how you spend your hobbies and improve your overall skills as a person.

Every game Atlus makes is detailed, expressive, and caters to what the fans of their franchises would love. Persona 5 is a showcase of this. You’ll spend around 100 hours on Persona 5 but with characters brimming with personality, intriguing story, concepts and a beautifully crafted town of Tokyo; you’ll wish this experience never ended. If you haven’t played Persona 5 or any Persona game really, do that now.

If you’re perceptive, you’ll notice the games so far take long hours to beat, and that is simply because a short game has a harder time leaving an impression on me. With that, the final game that made a great impression on me the most this decade is Warframe. 

Warframe had a bit of a rough start; it was a game barely anyone knew and a game no publisher wanted because they thought it would fail. Still, developer Digital Extremes kept working on it, and now it’s by far one of the best free to play games in existence with over 26 million players worldwide. Warframe isn’t the game it used to be and now comfortably competes with games like Destiny.

In Warframe, you are a tenno (a space ninja), member to a race of ancient warriors who have awoken from centuries of cryosleep to find themselves at war in a planetary system with different factions. As a tenno, you use Warframes along with powerful weapons and abilities to complete missions. Weapons come in a variety of different classes and skills which can be upgraded with a modding system.

Be warned, those who hate the grind should stay away. The main focus of Warframe is the grind itself, but the result and process are most of what you’ll enjoy. The game takes a lot of hours for you to get even close to starting the real path to becoming a tenno. Each weapon, Warframe, and mod has to be earned, which will take hours of effort in both acquiring the materials needed to craft them as well as the real-time it takes to craft the item. Or you could also buy platinum to speed the process up and/or buy the item itself but wheres the fun in that?

For players who start playing Warframe, it’s not uncommon to be overwhelmed with the several different systems in the game. However, a fantastic game such as this comes with an incredible community that is always looking to help new tenno. Join a clan, ask questions, co-operate, and become well versed in the art of Warframe. When I first started, what kept me especially interested were the fantastic people, the mystery behind the fleshed out lore of the game, and the excellent combat and transversal system. If you long to play an incredible game that you can fill hours of your time on this holiday, then look no further than Warframe; all for the low price of nothing.

These have been my most memorable and impactful games of this decade, and I can’t wait to see what the next decade will bring.

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