Gaming

● Aliven.✎ 4

Honor of Kings

A five-a-side arena game played by more people than almost any other game on Earth, mostly in China, where it has reported over a hundred million daily players. The record's entry for the game that a state newspaper called poison: in 2017 Tencent imposed daily play limits on children after official criticism, the limits became national policy for all games, and the game stayed the highest-grossing title in the world.

▸ 2015peak 2017still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

One person sees a bomb and the others have a printed manual, and nobody can see both. Built at a 2014 game jam for early VR headsets and released in July 2015, it was the game that made a printed PDF part of the design, and the record files it as the only game most families have read a manual for.

▸ 2015peak 2016still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The 2015 Metal Gear, released as its director's name was scrubbed from the marketing and his departure from Konami became a months-long public spectacle, with a third chapter that existed only as a title card and a nuclear disarmament event that has never triggered. The record's entry for a masterpiece that trended for being incomplete, and for the Fulton balloon.

▸ 2015peak 2015†2016

● Aliven.✎ 4

Phantom Forces

A Roblox first-person shooter with real-world weapon names, bullet drop and a rank grind, built to prove Roblox could host a serious military shooter. The record's entry for the game behind Roblox's 'it is basically Battlefield' argument: it was the platform's flagship shooter for years, its players skewed older than Roblox's reputation, and it was cited whenever an adult asked what people over twelve did there.

▸ 2015peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Rocket League

Psyonix's football-with-cars game, released in July 2015 as a free PlayStation Plus title and downloaded by millions who had ignored its 2008 predecessor. 'What a save' as sarcasm, the cross-play push, an Epic acquisition in 2019 and a free-to-play switch in 2020. The record's entry for a launch made by a subscription giveaway rather than a marketing budget.

▸ 2015peak 2016still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Splatoon

Nintendo's paint-based shooter, released for the Wii U in May 2015 and one of the few good things to happen to that console. Squid kids, Splatfests that asked whether you preferred cats or dogs, and a third game in 2022 that became the fastest-selling game in Japanese history in its first three days. The record's entry for the series as a phenomenon.

▸ 2015peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Tactical Timeout

The thirty-second pause a team can call in Counter-Strike (added to the game in 2015) and Valorant to stop a losing streak, during which the coach speaks and the audience types 'timeout won't save them'. The record's entry for the sporting convention that esports adopted, and the phrase now used for any deliberate pause in an argument.

▸ 2015peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

The Order: 1886

Sony's Victorian werewolf game, released in February 2015 with black bars across the screen for cinematic effect, a run time of around five hours and a complete playthrough on YouTube before the shops opened. The record's entry for the 'cinematic' generation's cautionary tale, and for the phrase 'the game is the trailer'.

▸ 2015peak 2015†2015

● Aliven.✎ 4

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CD Projekt's 2015 open-world role-playing game, which sold six million copies in six weeks, put a Polish studio at the centre of the industry and gave the internet a card game it played instead of the story, a Bloody Baron quest it cited as the standard for writing, and a horse called Roach that stood on roofs. The record's entry for the launch that made the studio's later fall possible.

▸ 2015peak 2015still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Assassin's Creed Unity

Ubisoft's Paris game, released in November 2014 with a bug that removed characters' faces, leaving eyeballs and teeth floating in hoods, and a frame rate that made the company cancel its season pass as an apology. Revived in April 2019, when Ubisoft gave it away free after the Notre-Dame fire and the internet flooded its Steam page with thanks.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2015

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Crossy Road

A blocky chicken crosses an endless road, river and railway, one hop at a time, and a gift box gives out new characters at random. Made by three people in Melbourne and released in November 2014, it was the phone game of the following year and the record files it as the first big free game whose adverts were optional and whose players watched them anyway.

▸ 2014peak 2015still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Destiny

Bungie's first game after Halo, released in September 2014 with $500 million of shipped copies, a story that had been cut before launch and a cave near the starting area where thousands of players stood shooting at a doorway for loot. The Loot Cave, patched within days, is the record's chief exhibit, along with 'I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain'.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2017

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Fish Plays Pokémon

A Twitch stream in August 2014 in which a betta fish called Grayson Hopper played Pokémon Red: a camera tracked the fish across a grid over its tank, each square mapped to a button. Thousands watched the fish not progress. A descendant of Twitch Plays Pokémon from February the same year. The record's entry for the least qualified player in the history of games.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2014

● Aliven.✎ 4

Five Nights at Freddy's

A night guard watches security cameras in a pizzeria while animatronic animals walk toward his office, and the doors run on a power meter. Made by one man after reviewers said his previous game's characters looked like animatronics, it was released in August 2014 and had a sequel within three months. The record files the jump scare as a business model.

▸ 2014peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

GOTY Discourse

The annual December argument about which game of the year was the game of the year, which has the same structure every year and a different exhibit: 2023 was Baldur's Gate, 2024 was the small robot, 2025 was a French RPG. The record's entry for a recurring meme with a date.

▸ 2014peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Gang Beasts

Gelatinous figures in costumes grab each other and try to throw one another off a roof, out of a window or into a mincer, with controls that almost work. Made by a small studio in Sheffield and released in Early Access in August 2014, it was the couch brawler of the streaming years and the record files it as the fight in which nobody can stand up.

▸ 2014peak 2017still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Goat Simulator

A Swedish studio's game-jam joke about being a goat, released on Steam on 1 April 2014 with most of its physics bugs left in on purpose. The trailer had already been passed round for two months. The record files it as the moment 'simulator' stopped meaning accuracy and started meaning chaos.

▸ 2014peak 2014still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Microsoft's 2014 compilation of four Halo games, whose online matchmaking failed at launch and stayed broken for months, prompting an apology, a free game and a class action. Rebuilt from 2018 and released on PC from December 2019, it became the collection it had been sold as. The record's entry for a launch that broke the trust of the Xbox's own audience, and for the slowest repair on file.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2015

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Hearthstone

A Warcraft-themed digital card game, made by a small Blizzard team, that became the biggest card game on Twitch in 2015 and the model for every digital card game after it. Its trend moment ended in stages: the 2019 suspension of a Hong Kong player for a protest statement, which became a boycott, and the closure of the Grandmasters league in 2022. Still played, quieter.

▸ 2014peak 2016still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

I Am Bread

A slice of bread crawls across a kitchen trying to become toast, controlled one corner at a time and losing edibility every time it touches the floor. It was Bossa's follow-up to Surgeon Simulator and proved the same trick works twice, briefly. The record keeps it for the phrase 'edibility meter'.

▸ 2014peak 2015†2016

● Aliven.✎ 4

Jackbox Party Pack

A bundle of party games played on one screen with everyone's phone as the controller, from the Chicago studio that made You Don't Know Jack. First released in November 2014, it became an annual series, and in the spring of 2020 it became the way people who could not be in a room together were in a room together. The record files Quiplash as the one that lasted.

▸ 2014peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood

A celebrity-simulator game in which the player climbs from E-list to A-list by attending events, buying outfits and being nice to Kim. The record's entry for the surprise hit of 2014: it earned tens of millions of dollars within months, its energy timer and premium 'K-stars' were mocked and then copied, and it was closed in April 2024 with a farewell message from its namesake.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2024

● Aliven.✎ 4

Mario Kart 8

Nintendo's kart racer, released for the Wii U in May 2014 with anti-gravity tracks and Luigi's death stare, then re-released as Deluxe on the Switch in 2017 where it became that console's best-selling game. The record's entry for a game that trended twice: once for a glare, once for being the thing in every Switch box for eight years.

▸ 2014peak 2017still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Monument Valley

A princess called Ida walks through Escher buildings that rearrange when you turn them, in pastel colours, for about ninety minutes. Made by a London design agency's games team and released in April 2014, it was the phone game people who did not play phone games bought, and a scene in House of Cards in 2015 made it the phone game politicians played. The record files the price debate.

▸ 2014peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Murder Mystery 2

A Roblox round game with one murderer, one sheriff and a room of innocents, and a trading economy for knives and guns that has run for over a decade. The record's entry for the game whose real trend is not the rounds but the trading: the value of a virtual knife called a Chroma is discussed with the seriousness of a commodity market, and scam warnings about it circulate among children who have never seen a stock.

▸ 2014peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Nidhogg

Two fencers in flat colours fight a tug-of-war across a set of screens, and the winner is eaten by a giant worm. Shown at festivals and parties for years before its January 2014 release, it was the couch game of that year and the record files it as the best proof that a game can be famous for years without existing on sale.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2018

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

An octopus in a suit pretends to be a human father, with each limb steered separately and every household task turning into wreckage. It began as a student project in 2010, and the 2014 sequel arrived exactly as the wobbly-physics craze peaked. The record files it next to Surgeon Simulator, but with a better story.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2016

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Piano Tiles

Black tiles fall in four columns and you tap them and not the white ones, faster and faster. Released in March 2014 by a Chinese developer under the name Don't Tap the White Tile, it became a global chart-topper within weeks, and the record files it as the game that turned a piano into a reaction test and back again.

▸ 2014peak 2014still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 3

Rush B

The Counter-Strike call to run straight at bombsite B with no plan, typically attributed to Russian-speaking teammates and immortalised in the 2015–16 meme 'Rush B, cyka blyat'. The record notes it is the only strategy in the game that can be shouted by someone who has not looked at the map.

▸ 2014peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Shovel Knight

A blue knight with a shovel fights eight other knights in a game that looks like it is from 1989 and controls like a game from 2014. Funded on Kickstarter in 2013 by a studio formed from ex-WayForward staff, it became the standard example of a crowdfunded game that actually shipped, and then kept shipping free campaigns for five years.

▸ 2014peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Soulslike

A genre named after a game: any action game with bonfires-by-another-name, stamina, a dodge roll and a habit of killing the player until the player improves, in the style of Dark Souls (2011). The record notes the term was in use by 2014 and that by 2022 it described roughly half of everything, which is the fate of every genre named after one game.

▸ 2014peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

The Sims 4

The life simulator that outlived its own sequel plans, released in September 2014 without pools or toddlers and still selling expansion packs a decade later. Free to play since October 2022, and the base for a modding and custom-content economy larger than most games. The record files it for the longevity, not the launch.

▸ 2014peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Threes

A sliding number puzzle where ones and twos become threes and threes double up, built over fourteen months and released in February 2014. Within weeks a free clone called 1024 appeared, then 2048, and the free version became more famous than the original. The record files it as the clearest case of a game losing its own trend.

▸ 2014peak 2014still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Unturned

A free zombie survival game with blocky characters, made by a sixteen-year-old in Canada and released on Steam in July 2014, where it sat in the most-played list next to games with hundred-person teams. The record files it as the first big proof that a teenager with a free game could out-draw a publisher, and that the players did not care who made it.

▸ 2014peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

VRChat

A social platform of user-made worlds and avatars, playable in a headset or on a monitor, in which anyone can be anything. The record's entry for the virtual world that became a meme factory: in January 2018 it filled Twitch with Ugandan Knuckles, a small red echidna asking strangers if they knew the way, and in 2022 it saw a revolt over an anti-cheat update that broke players' mods.

▸ 2014peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Watch Dogs

Ubisoft's hacking game, shown at E3 2012 in a demo that made the audience believe a new console generation had arrived, and released in May 2014 looking noticeably worse. Modders then found the demo's graphics settings disabled inside the PC files. The record's entry for the word 'downgrade' entering the vocabulary, and for the phone that turned traffic lights green.

▸ 2014peak 2014†2014

● Aliven.✎ 4

Welcome to Bloxburg

A Roblox life simulator of jobs, houses and neighbourhoods, famous for charging 25 Robux to enter for years while nearly everything else there was free. The record's entry for the pay-to-enter game that made the Sims a Roblox genre: its build mode filled YouTube with house tours, its pizza-delivery job was a rite of passage, and its 2023 sale to a large games group put a single Roblox game in the business pages.

▸ 2014peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

A Dark Room

A text page with a button that says 'stoke fire', then a stranger, then wood, then a village, then a map, and then something else. A browser game by a Canadian developer released in June 2013, it was ported to iOS by a different developer and reached number one in the App Store in April 2014 with no pictures at all. The record files the first button.

▸ 2013peak 2014†2015

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Gearbox's Aliens shooter, released in February 2013 after six years and a 2012 demo that turned out to be a different, better game than the one sold. A class action followed, then a lawsuit between publisher and developer, and in 2018 a modder found a single typo in a config file had been disabling the alien AI for five years. The record's entry for the launch as a lesson in what a trailer is.

▸ 2013peak 2013†2013

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Antichamber

A white maze where corridors lead back to where you started, stairs go down into the room above, and a gun places coloured cubes that behave like fluid. Made over seven years by one Australian developer and released in January 2013, it was the year's puzzle game that people described as 'non-Euclidean' without checking. The record files the signs on the walls.

▸ 2013peak 2013†2016

● Aliven.✎ 2

Banner (Gacha)

A limited-time draw in a gacha game featuring one or two characters at raised odds, named for the promotional image, and the unit of time by which a gacha player's month is organised. The record notes the banner was standard in Japanese mobile games by the mid-2010s and reached the West with Fate/Grand Order and Genshin Impact.

▸ 2013peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Candy Box!

A page that counts candies, one per second, in ASCII text, and slowly grows a shop, a quest system and a dragon out of the counting. Made by a nineteen-year-old French student and released in April 2013, it was the first idle game to go viral on its own and appeared four months before Cookie Clicker. The record files it as the origin that the more famous game admits to.

▸ 2013peak 2013†2014

● Aliven.✎ 4

Cookie Clicker

A browser page with a large cookie that you click, then buy cursors and grandmas to click for you, then leave open overnight. Made in a few days in August 2013, it became the game that defined the idle genre and a small moral panic about what a game even is. The record notes it is still running and still counting.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Don't Starve

A gentleman scientist called Wilson is dropped into a pen-and-ink wilderness by a demon and has to not starve, not freeze and not go mad, while a cluster of shadowy hands puts his fire out. Released in April 2013, it was Klei's survival hit, and the 2016 multiplayer version made it a permanent fixture. The record files the Tim Burton comparison as accurate and tired.

▸ 2013peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Dumb Ways to Die

A railway safety campaign from Melbourne in which cheerful beans die in stupid ways to a jingle, followed by a game of quick mini-tasks in which they do it again. The video went viral in November 2012 and the game in May 2013, and the record files it as the only public-safety advert that made it into the App Store's top ten.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Game of War: Fire Age

A strategy game of empires and alliances whose real product was its advertising: a campaign starring Kate Upton in armour, reportedly costing tens of millions, followed by a Super Bowl slot in 2015. The record's entry for the mobile game as advert: it was among the top-grossing apps for two years, and the joke that the adverts were better than the game was made by people who then spent thousands inside it.

▸ 2013peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Geometry Dash

A cube jumps to the beat through spikes, dies, and starts again, and the level editor produced a community that treats a five-minute level as an art form. Made by one Swedish developer and released in August 2013, it was a playground obsession by 2014 and, after a six-year wait for its 2.2 update in 2023, still is. The record files the phrase 'extreme demon'.

▸ 2013peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Grand Theft Auto V

Rockstar's Los Santos crime game, released in September 2013, which reached $1 billion in sales in three days and then refused to leave. Sold across three console generations, kept alive by GTA Online, and the object of a decade-long joke about how long its successor was taking. The record notes that a launch this big becomes a permanent feature rather than a moment.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up