Four new video games will be inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame this year. Among them, Wii Sports and The Last of Us enter.
The Sims, Animal Crossing, Pac-Man or even Grand Theft Auto III… All these games have one thing in common: they are part of the World Video Game Hall of Fame, a hall of fame dedicated to video games. 36 games made it into this shortlist of the best games of all time. Four new games were added to the list on May 4th: Wii Sports, Barbie Fashion Designer, Computer Space and The Last of Us.
To select the lucky winners, the Strong National Museum of Play again relied on four selection criteria: the game’s iconic status (almost everyone knows and remembers it), its longevity (it has enjoyed long-term popularity), its geographic reach (is in known to several countries) and finally its influence to know if the game had an impact on other games, other universes and society in general.
Bowling competitions and series adaptations
Wii Sports, the iconic game associated with the WII console when it was released in 2006, was therefore able to enter this very closed ranking. If golf, tennis or baseball were allowed to be played back then, the game still enjoys a good reputation today, especially in unusual bowling competitions among the elderly.
The Last of Us also marked its era in popular culture in general in other ways, with an initial release in 2013 and other gaming projects since. New life was also breathed into the saga with the release of a remake in September 2022 and a series starring actor Pedro Pascal in 2023.
The Barbie Fashion Designer game dates back more than 25 years and was released in 1996. And for that time, the video game that allows you to design clothes and outfits was a huge hit with more than 500,000 sales and $120 million in earnings only one year.
A true video game relic, Computer Space is an arcade space combat game released in 1971. Other nominees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame were also in the running, such as Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or FIFA International Soccer, ancestor of FIFA released in 1993. But they will have to wait for the next edition to hoping to be part of the video game elite.