Game of the Decade
1: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
Senior Editor Hayes Madsen: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the kind of revolutionary game that only comes around once in a consoles life cycle, except, this time it launched with the Nintendo Switch. While still retaining the quintessential elements of Zelda, Breath of the Wild manages to redefine a legendary franchise, and drive it in an exciting new direction.
There’s no other open world game out there that gives you the same sense of discovery as Breath of the Wild. The game liberally encourages you to explore, see what’s beyond the next ridge, climb to the top of that mountain.
The world of Hyrule is absolutely littered with puzzle shrines that house rewards, collectible Koroks to find, side quests to undertake, and new locations to discover.
The key here, however, is that nothing feels superfluous, it’s all meaningful in some way. Breath of the Wild reinforces this sense of exploration and freedom with a non-linear story that lets you approach things in any way you see fit.
If you want to go straight to Hyrule Castle and try to beat Ganon without any equipment, you can do that. Or you can uncover the story segment by segment and what really happened, all while preparing yourself for the final fight.
Every single aspect of Breath of the Wild is intelligently designed to tie into that core idea of freedom, from the climbing and stamina to the weapon and equipment systems.
After a generation of open world games with checklists and a million map icons, Breath of the Wild is freeing. Even after so many years Zelda finds a way to redefine itself, and it results in one of the greatest open world experiences ever made.
Congratulations to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for being named our Game of the Decade for 2010-2019!
It goes without saying, though, that every game on this list is fantastic and genre defining. Even the next 15 games that would have made this list if we kept going were all GOTY contenders for their respective years as well.
We are blessed to be able to live during a time where we’re seeing such rapid growth and progression in a hobby that we all love. The last ten years have seen video games evolve to a place none of us could have dreamed of when we were younger, and at Twinfinite we’re all looking forward to seeing how the industry grows with another ten years of effort and innovation.
