Gaming

● Aliven.✎ 4

Mafia City

A mafia-themed strategy game whose advertising, a chart of a boy in a hoodie becoming a suited boss with the voice-over 'that's how mafia works', became a meme in 2018. The record's entry for the mobile advert as a template: the phrase was parodied across YouTube and Reddit, the game was downloaded by people who then discovered it was a city-builder, and the developer leaned into it for years.

▸ 2017peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Mass Effect: Andromeda

BioWare's 2017 Mass Effect, released in a state whose facial animations, all wide eyes and sliding walk cycles, became a meme in the ten-hour trial before the game was out. 'My face is tired', said one character, and the internet agreed. EA ended story support in August 2017. The record's entry for a launch mocked into the ground for its faces, which were fixed, and its story, which was not.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2017

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

NBA 2K18

The 2017 basketball game in which the Virtual Currency system reached the point of buying haircuts, and the player's character started at a rating that could only be lifted with money or hundreds of hours. Review-bombed on release, mocked for the barber, and the record's entry for the year a sports game's microtransactions became a general-interest scandal rather than a niche one.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2018

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Night in the Woods

A cat called Mae drops out of college and comes home to a Pennsylvanian mining town where the shops are closing and her friends are tired, and the plot only turns supernatural after several hours of talking. Kickstarted in 2013 and released in February 2017, it was the year's most quoted indie game about being 20 and broke. The record files the dialogue.

▸ 2017peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

PUBG

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the Steam Early Access game that turned the battle royale from a mod into an industry in 2017, with a frying pan that stopped bullets and a plane that everyone jumped out of at the same time. It broke Steam's concurrent record at over three million players in January 2018, and then watched Fortnite take the children. The record's entry for the game that started it.

▸ 2017peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Pity System

The guarantee that, after enough failed pulls, you get the thing — the mechanism that makes gacha survivable and the word that made 'I'm at 78 pity' a sentence a person can say without shame. The record's entry for a kindness with a spreadsheet.

▸ 2017peak 2024still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Royale High

A Roblox fantasy school of fairies and royals in which players attend lessons, farm diamonds and buy gowns with names and lore. The record's entry for the platform's dress-up economy before Dress to Impress: in 2020 it was among the most-played games on Roblox, its seasonal sets sold out in the sense that virtual items can, and its diamond-farming routes were shared like exam notes.

▸ 2017peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Slay the Spire

A card game in which you build a deck as you climb a tower, and lose it all when you die. Released into Early Access in November 2017 by a two-person Seattle studio, it defined the deckbuilding roguelike so completely that the genre is described by its name. The record files it as the game that made 'one more run' a card game phrase.

▸ 2017peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

EA's 2017 Star Wars shooter, whose progression through paid loot boxes produced the most downvoted comment in Reddit's history, a Disney phone call, the removal of microtransactions the night before launch, and gambling investigations in Belgium and the Netherlands. The record's entry for the launch that turned a monetisation model into a legislative matter.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2020

● Aliven.✎ 4

Super Mario Odyssey

Nintendo's 2017 Mario, in which a hat named Cappy let players possess a dinosaur, a frog and a slab of meat, and a New Donk City musical number, 'Jump Up, Super Star', made the internet cry over a plumber. The record's entry for the Switch's first-year double, alongside Breath of the Wild, and for the moment the console's launch stopped being a question.

▸ 2017peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nintendo's open-world Zelda, released the same day as the Switch in March 2017 and the reason most people bought one. Perfect scores, a Korok under every rock, physics clips of Link being launched by a minecart, and years of every open-world game being compared to it. The record's entry for a console launch carried by one game.

▸ 2017peak 2017still up

● Alivev.✎ 3

Third-Partied

To be attacked by a third team while finishing a fight with a second one in a battle royale, and so to lose a match one had just won; a term in general use from PUBG in 2017 and the standard explanation in every post-game recap since. The record notes the third party is always someone else, and never the person recounting it.

▸ 2017peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Universal Paperclips

A button that makes a paperclip, then an AI that makes paperclips, then an AI that has converted all matter in the universe into paperclips. A browser game by the director of the NYU Game Center, released in October 2017 and played by everyone in tech Twitter for a fortnight. The record files it as the thought experiment that became an idle game and the idle game that became a warning.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2018

● Aliven.✎ 3

Victory Royale

Fortnite's on-screen phrase for winning a match, from the mode's launch in September 2017, and the thing a hundred players enter each game so that one can see it. The record notes it became the standard schoolyard announcement of any victory whatsoever, including at board games.

▸ 2017peak 2018still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 3

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

PUBG's victory message, borrowed from old Las Vegas craps-table slang and shown to the last survivor of a hundred from the game's early-access launch in March 2017. The record's entry for the phrase that was briefly the most-typed sentence in gaming and is now said mainly by people who remember 2017.

▸ 2017peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Bacon Hair

The default Roblox avatar whose free hair item resembles rashers of bacon, and by extension any new or unbothered player who never changed it. The record's entry for the noob's successor: the term arrived when the yellow-headed classic avatar was retired as the default around 2016 and the Pal Hair took over.

▸ 2016peak 2019still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Clash Royale

A real-time card game in which two players drop troops onto a small arena and try to destroy each other's towers in three minutes. The record's entry for the mobile game that made the chest timer a meme: it was the top-grossing app in dozens of countries within its first month, its laughing-king emote became the most-hated sound in the medium, and its later monetisation changes drew backlash in the gaming press.

▸ 2016peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Dead by Daylight

The asymmetric horror game of June 2016 in which four survivors repair generators while one killer hunts them, which became the licensed home of every slasher franchise and a streaming staple long after most 2016 games were forgotten. The record files it as the game where Michael Myers and a Stranger Things demogorgon share a lobby.

▸ 2016peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Enter the Gungeon

A bullet-hell dungeon crawler in which the enemies are bullets with faces, the guns are jokes, and the goal is a gun that can kill the past. Made by four former Mythic Entertainment developers and released in April 2016, it was the roguelike of that year's Steam and Twitch, and the record files it for a table you can flip.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Firewatch

A man called Henry takes a summer job in a Wyoming fire lookout in 1989 and talks to a woman called Delilah on a walkie-talkie, and the mystery is smaller than the trailer implied. Released in February 2016, it was the first big hit of the walking-simulator era to sell like a proper game, and the record files it for the orange poster and for its studio's later DMCA claim against a large YouTuber.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Golf With Your Friends

A crazy-golf game for up to twelve players with no turns, so that every ball flies at once and everyone talks over each other, released into early access in 2016 and turned into one of the reliable pandemic co-op games by its full release in May 2020. The record notes that the courses include a haunted mansion, and that nobody plays it for the golf.

▸ 2016peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Houseparty

Group video calls for teenagers that briefly became group video calls for everyone. Lasted one pandemic and was closed by a games company that had bought it for reasons it never explained.

▸ 2016peak 2020†2021

● Aliven.✎ 4

Human: Fall Flat

A soft white figure called Bob with a flat head and arms that grab anything wobbles through puzzle worlds and falls off most of them. Made by one Lithuanian developer and released in July 2016 to modest sales, it became a hit the following year when an online multiplayer update landed on streaming channels. The record files it as the best-selling wobbly man.

▸ 2016peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

IRL Stream

Streaming from outside — a street, a shop, another country — with a phone and a backpack transmitter, which became the format of the mid-2020s when the biggest names walked out of their rooms and took the audience with them. The record's entry for the walk as content.

▸ 2016peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Ludo King

A phone version of the board game Ludo, with online rooms, voice chat and a small studio in Mumbai behind it. The record's entry for the lockdown game of India: in spring 2020 it was the most-downloaded game in the country and among the most-downloaded in the world, family groups played it across cities in the evenings, and a game most people had last played on a folding board became the year's biggest social app.

▸ 2016peak 2020still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

MeepCity

A Roblox social game of houses, fishing and a round pet called a Meep, and the first game on the platform to pass a billion visits, in 2018. The record's entry for the pre-Adopt Me hangout, remembered for its parties, which were the place a generation first met strangers online and which were removed in 2020 after years of complaints about what happened in them.

▸ 2016peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Miitomo

Nintendo's first smartphone app, a social toy in which the player's Mii answered questions about themselves, visited friends' Miis and dressed up for photos. The record's entry for the app that was everywhere for a month: it reached ten million users within weeks in spring 2016, filled Twitter with Miis in absurd costumes, and was closed in May 2018 after most of them had left.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2018

● Aliven.✎ 4

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

A five-a-side arena game in the League of Legends mould, built for phones and for South-East Asia, where it became the most-played game in several countries. The record's entry for the mobile MOBA as a national sport: it was a medal event at the 2019 South-East Asian Games, its developer was sued by Riot over similarities and later bought by ByteDance, and its tournaments fill arenas in Jakarta and Manila.

▸ 2016peak 2021still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

No Man's Sky

Hello Games' procedurally generated space game, promised on chat shows by its lead developer and released in August 2016 to the discovery that the multiplayer, the giant creatures and the fleets were not in it. The record's entry for the gap between a trailer and a game, and for the longest apology in the medium: eight years of free updates that turned the joke into a recommendation.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2017

● Aliven.✎ 4

Overcooked

Up to four cooks in a kitchen that is on a moving lorry, or on ice, or splitting in two, shouting about onions. Made by two former Frontier developers in Cambridge and released in August 2016, it became the game that couples were warned about, and Overcooked 2 in 2018 extended the argument. The record files it under 'relationship test'.

▸ 2016peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Overwatch

Blizzard's hero shooter, released in May 2016 after a beta that had already made its characters more famous than the game. Game of the Year, Tracer's pose argument, an entire adult-animation industry built on its models, and a launch that felt like a new Blizzard. The record's entry for the original, which was switched off in October 2022 and replaced by its sequel.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2022

● Aliven.✎ 4

Persona 5

Atlus's stylish high-school heist RPG, released in Japan in September 2016 and worldwide in April 2017, whose menus alone were a trend, whose streaming restrictions produced a week of outrage, and whose protagonist Joker arrived in Smash in 2018 to a reaction that the record considers the series' true global launch. The entry for the moment Persona stopped being a cult.

▸ 2016peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

PokéStop

A real-world landmark — a mural, a church, a plaque nobody had read — turned into a spinning blue marker in Pokémon Go in July 2016 and briefly the most visited object in its neighbourhood. The record notes that businesses paid to be one, cemeteries asked not to be, and that a great deal of local history was learned by accident.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Pony Island

A pastel arcade game about a running pony that turns out to be a corrupted machine built by Lucifer, with fake crashes, fake desktop pop-ups and a menu that argues back. Released in January 2016 by a Canadian developer, it was the streaming and Steam-review curiosity of that winter, and the record files it as the game that taught the trick the developer's later games perfected.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2018

● Aliven.✎ 4

Rec Room

A social platform of user-built games and rooms with stick-limbed avatars, started in VR and spread to consoles and phones. The record's entry for the virtual world that children took over: it began as a headset novelty for adults playing paintball, and by 2021 it had tens of millions of accounts, a valuation that made the news and a reputation as the place where every Quest headset's first hour was spent shouting.

▸ 2016peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Slither.io

Snake, but with everybody else's snakes on the same board, and dying when your head touches one of them. Released in March 2016 by a single developer, it topped the app charts within weeks and produced a summer of YouTube videos of very long glowing worms. The record files it as the second wave of the .io craze after Agar.io.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Stardew Valley

A farming game built by one person over four and a half years in Seattle because the Harvest Moon games had stopped being good enough. Released in February 2016, it kept selling for a decade, and a free update in 2024 pushed its player count higher than at launch. The record files it as the indie game that never had a peak, only a slope upward.

▸ 2016peak 2024still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Super Mario Run

Nintendo's first Mario game on a phone, an auto-runner in which the player only taps to jump, released with a free taste and a single ten-dollar unlock. The record's entry for the pricing argument: it was downloaded tens of millions of times in its first days, and the fraction who paid became the most-quoted statistic in the industry, used by every free-to-play developer to explain why they did what they did.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Titanfall 2

Respawn's 2016 shooter, released by EA in the seven days between Battlefield 1 and a Call of Duty, and remembered as the best game nobody bought that year. Its campaign, in which a robot learns to trust a man, became a word-of-mouth object; its multiplayer was later made unplayable by hackers for years. The record's entry for a launch sabotaged by its own release date.

▸ 2016peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

Wobbly ragdoll armies from different centuries collapse into each other on a green field, and the player watches. Released as a free pre-alpha in April 2016 by a Swedish studio and turned into a running April joke each year, it was a YouTube fixture for years before its 2019 Early Access. The record files it as the sequel in spirit to Goat Simulator, with more halberds.

▸ 2016peak 2019still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Ultimate Chicken Horse

Four animals take turns placing a trap on a platform level, then all of them have to run it, and points only come if some of you fail. Made in Montreal and released in March 2016, it was the couch and streaming party game of the following year, and the record files it as the most polite way to ruin a friend's evening.

▸ 2016peak 2017still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Agar.io

A browser game in which you are a circle, you eat smaller circles and larger circles eat you, with hundreds of strangers in the same petri dish. Announced in a 4chan thread in April 2015 by a Brazilian teenager, it was one of the most searched games of the year and the record files it as the birth of the '.io game'.

▸ 2015peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Arsenal (Roblox)

A Roblox arena shooter in which every kill hands the player a different weapon, ending with a golden gun and a knife. The record's entry for the platform's first shooter to feel like a competitive scene: it filled the front page in 2019, its skins and taunts turned into a collectible economy, and its 'BRUH' and 'Delinquent' skins became the way an entire age group recognised each other.

▸ 2015peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Batman: Arkham Knight

Rocksteady's 2015 finale, a well-reviewed Batman game on consoles and a PC port so broken that Warner Bros. withdrew it from Steam within days, restored it in October and then offered full refunds to anyone who had ever bought it. The record's entry for the first major game to be unsold, and for the Batmobile, which the console players complained about instead.

▸ 2015peak 2015†2015

● Aliven.✎ 4

Bloodborne

FromSoftware's gothic Souls game, released for the PlayStation 4 in March 2015 and never for anything else, which is the trend: a decade of pleading for a PC port, a 60fps patch or a remaster, and a running joke that Sony has forgotten it exists. The record's entry for a game whose absence from other platforms became more discussed than its presence on one.

▸ 2015peak 2015still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Color Switch

A ball taps upward through spinning rings and must pass through the segment that matches its colour. Made by an American developer using a no-code tool and released in December 2015, it hit number one in the App Store within weeks and was downloaded tens of millions of times, and the record files it as the last of the one-tap chart games before the genre ate itself.

▸ 2015peak 2016†2018

● Aliven.✎ 4

Fate/Grand Order

A gacha role-playing game in which historical and mythological figures are summoned as servants, with pull rates that became a genre-wide cautionary tale. The record's entry for the whale as a public figure: it was among the highest-grossing mobile games for years, its fans posted receipts for thousands spent on one character, and 'roll for Gilgamesh' entered the language of people who had never read the epic.

▸ 2015peak 2018still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Her Story

A police database from 1994 with hundreds of video clips of one woman being interviewed, searchable by word, and no other interface. Made by a former Silent Hill writer and released in June 2015, it was the year's best-reviewed cheap game and reopened full-motion video as a serious form. The record files the search box as the game.

▸ 2015peak 2015still up