All throughout 2017, I heard a particular refrain on a near weekly basis: “This is one of the best years for gaming.” 2017 was definitely a strong year with a lot of very good games. But was it among the best ever? I wasn’t so sure, and expressed some skepticism about the claim in my own GOTY 2017 list. At the same time, I had never actually sat down and tried to rank all the years in gaming by my personal preference. After a brief conversation with @slag (thanks for sparking the idea!), I realized this could be something worth sitting down and doing. Where did 2017 actually stand for me personally?

What followed was a much tougher task than I could have anticipated, and far and away the most difficult ranking I’ve ever done. While ranking anything is a highly subjective and somewhat arbitrary process, I found ranking the years in gaming to be infinitely more so. How do you even decide one year is better than another? The year with the best game? The year with the most games? And how do you account for evolving standards over time? There are so many variables in play, and the longer I stared at this list the more I realized how impossible a task it was. Which means eventually I realized I had to toss out all the science and go with my gut. While it’s tempting to try and explain my process with all its caveats and experimental formulas, the only thing you really need to know is that this list is completely subjective in every way possible, wholly reliant on the games I played and my personal gaming tastes. As long as you keep that very important clarification in mind, this list will make a lot more sense than it would otherwise.

A few more other ground rules that may help:

• I was born in 1986. That almost certainly influences a lot of my preferences here.
• I decided to rank only the years 1991-2017. That’s 27 years for anyone counting, beginning with the SNES’ launch year, my first console. I’ve certainly played plenty of games released before then, but not enough to evaluate those individual years.
• I didn’t do much PC gaming until the late 90s, and even then it was pretty sparse for about another decade. There are also some consoles that I had little exposure to or missed entirely, most notably Sega’s stuff.
• I’m using original US release dates to decide what year a game belongs to. For games I played that never came out in the US, I use its original release Japanese release date. Also, I did not consider remakes, only original release dates.
• The push and pull between years with a small number of amazing games (quality) vs. the years with a large number of generally good games (quantity) was a constant struggle on this list, and something I tried to balance. I don’t think there’s a right answer here.
• More games come out every year than the previous year (think of it like a kind of inflation). This made comparing older years to newer years incredibly tough. I did my best to account for inflation and compare years based on their relative strength of their time.

Hopefully that covers the most important stuff. As I made this list, I came to realize just how valuable every single year is; they all have some great games, even the years that were considered worse at the time. So this list is all relative, and again, super subjective (and large chunks of it are splitting extremely thin hairs). I try to explain my picks as best I can, and if anyone has further questions feel free to ask! As difficult as it was, this was a fun and worthwhile exercise. I hope you enjoy it as well, and thanks for reading! Warning: this is long!

27. 1993. This is the only year in this span that didn’t have a single game I can point to as an all-time favorite, and it didn’t have the quantity it needed either. By any reasonable metric, 1993 couldn’t be anything but the bottom of my personal list, despite having a few really good games that I enjoyed. Reminder: I did not play many PC games in the early 90s (sorry, Doom).

1993 favorites: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Aladdin (both the SNES and Genesis versions), SimCity 2000

26. 1991. This is one of two years on the list to dodge the last place bullet by virtue of a single amazing game: Super Mario World. This is a personal top 10 game for me, and if we were judging years based on its best game (and in this case the wonderful console it launched with), 1991 would be near the top. It’s a shame, then, that its supporting cast was so sparse. For that, I can’t really justify this being any higher on the list; a single game does not a year make.

1991 Favorites: Super Mario World, Final Fantasy IV, ActRaiser

25. 2002. This is the other year that survives based on a single amazing game for me. And being Metroid Prime, it’s one of the few games I like as much or better than Mario World; this is one of the very few games that is a legitimate contender for my favorite game. 2002 also had a slightly stronger supporting cast than 1991, but for the most part I feel pretty similarly about these two years. Alas, Mario World and Metroid Prime really deserved better.

2002 Favorites: Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Metroid Fusion

24. 2012. At this point things step up a notch. 2012 doesn’t have the quantity issue anywhere close to the previous entries on this list, but it still lacks depth for me. It had a handful of really strong games, but dropped off fairly quickly by the standards of the time. There are going to be a few years that fall into this category, and to me 2012 is the weakest of them based on my enjoyment of the games themselves.

There’s another theme here as well. I always thought the period from 2012-2014 felt really weird, and you’ll see all three of these years together here. I have a hard time separating them. I don’t know what happened, but that transition period into the PS4 and Xbox One generation was a noticeable dip compared to the previous decade or so. These years get judged more harshly due to the standards set by the preceding decade.

2012 Favorites: XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Journey, Mark of the Ninja, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Diablo III, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3, Far Cry 3, ZombiU, Rhythm Heaven Fever

23. 2014. This got a bad rap at the time, but when I looked back on it I found a surprising number of games I liked. It didn’t have many big standouts, and shared plenty of the issues I noted above with 2012. I think it was more of a quantity over quality year, but looking at it now, its quantity was solid. At least good enough to earn it a few spots on this list.

2014 Favorites: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Dark Souls II, Theatrhtyhm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, Far Cry 4, The Banner Saga, The Talos Principle, Shovel Knight, Titanfall, Transistor, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

22. 2013. Rounding out the 2012-2014 period is 2013, which had the best combination of quantity and quality of these three years to me (and the new consoles too), but otherwise suffered from many of their same issues: some solid games without many clear standouts, and then a noticeable drop off. Still, it did a little better in both regards, which earns it the higher spot.

2013 Favorites: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon X and Y, Papers Please, The Swapper, The Last of Us, Fire Emblem Awakening, Gone Home, Antichamber, Pikmin 3, Tomb Raider

21. 1996. This was a case of having a few really amazing games, and not much else. We’ll see this for a number of years in the 90s, and where these years place is dependent on the relative strength of those brave few games and how many good backups they could muster (which in this case was not many). 1996 was also notable for being the year that 3D became a thing for games in earnest, with the launch of the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64. If it only had one or two more good games, it would fare much better on this list.

1996 Favorites: Super Mario 64, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, Diablo

20. 1997. Similar to 1996, 1997 survived on a few really amazing games, and not much else for me. The main difference between the two is that I simply liked these few games ever so slightly more. And yes, I was one of the people who was blown away by Final Fantasy VII at the time.

1997 Favorites: Final Fantasy VII, GoldenEye 007, Age of Empires, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

19. 2000. This year had a handful of really strong games, and it would be higher if a few of them connected with me more personally. Two big examples are Deus Ex, which I played way too late for it to have the impact it might have otherwise had, and Vagrant Story, which I always thought was neat but never actually finished. Following in the shadows of the previous two years didn’t help it either. Still, there were some good ones here, and it was a solid year to close out the N64 and PS1 era.

2000 Favorites: Chrono Cross, Perfect Dark, Final Fantasy IX, Banjo-Tooie, Deus Ex, Counter-Strike, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

18. 2017. Ah, the year that inspired this list. I struggled a little on where to place 2017, as it’s still very recent. And it even landed lower than I expected, but after looking at all of this, I feel 2017 belongs somewhere in this section of years with a few big games followed by a drop off. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece, and there’s a half-dozen or so other games I really enjoyed here. But perhaps I didn't like as many of 2017’s games as much as most people, or maybe I liked games from other years more than most people. I also judge it more harshly on this list due to the high standards of the time.

2017 Favorites: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Hollow Knight, Pyre, Persona 5, Cuphead, Nier: Automata, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Super Mario Odyssey

17. 2001. This year was the coming out party for two new consoles, GameCube and Xbox, and both had some big games for their launch. In addition to having some games I greatly enjoyed, 2001 felt like one of those years that signaled a step up for the medium; all indications were that with new hardware and a new player in the scene (Microsoft), things were about to get real. And sure enough, they did. The only reason 2001 doesn’t place higher is that I didn’t enjoy some of its more popular games quite as much as most, most notably Grand Theft Auto III, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Final Fantasy X.

2001 Favorites: Super Smash Bros. Melee, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Paper Mario, Pikmin, Civilization III, Halo: Combat Evolved, Final Fantasy X

16. 1994. This was, by far, the hardest year to place on this list. Between Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VI, it has two legitimate top 10 games for me. And at least one (maybe both) of them are among the precious few games in my “favorite game” conversation. I seriously don’t think any other year can front a pair of games this important to me. The problem is, of course, there wasn’t a lot else to back them up. So what to do with a year with unparalleled quality, but disappointing quantity? Somewhere relatively close to the middle, I suppose.

1994 Favorites: Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X

15. 2015. This is the part of the list where I can stop making big excuses about lack of quantity or quality; from here on every year is generally solid in both categories. The main differentiator is simply how much I liked the games on offer. And given that, it makes sense that 2015 is at the bottom of this batch. It had a lot of games I really liked, but not quite enough stand out above the other, similar years. Still, it was a deep year with a lot of variety; something that doesn’t always get enough credit.

2015 Favorites: Axiom Verge, Super Mario Maker, Bloodborne, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Pillars of Eternity, Ori and the Blind Forest, Life is Strange, Rise of the Tomb Raider

14. 2011. There was a period in the late 2000s where I felt like big games were just coming out nonstop. 2011 seemed to cap that period, yet in a lot of ways I feel it suffered from heavy sequilities for the previous years’ games. That’s the main reason it felt less impactful to me, but there’s no denying it had a lot of really wonderful games. I mean, Dark Souls ya’ll.

2011 Favorites: Dark Souls, Bastion, Top Spin 4, Portal 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Outland, Gears of War 3, Pushmo, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Dead Space 2

13. 2004. By this point in time the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era was in full swing, and 2004 was a great year with a lot of games I liked for those platforms. As we’ll see later, it got heavily outclassed by the years just before and just after it, at least for me, which makes it feel less important in some ways. But when I look over this list of games, it’s still pretty amazing how many good ones came out in 2004. I even say this as someone who didn't care for most of 2004's most popular games, like Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, World of Warcraft, or Half-Life 2, and yet I found more than enough past those. This was a great period for gaming, and 2004 held its own.

2004 Favorites: Ninja Gaiden, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Pikmin 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Katamari Damacy, Burnout 3: Takedown, Tales of Symphonia, Metroid: Zero Mission, Astro Boy: Omega Factor

12. 2009. This was an odd year in some ways, and it produced a lot of unique and personal picks. Like the previous three spots on this list, 2009 was a deep year with a lot of variety. But something about the particular games here connected with me strongly, even when they don’t always look like the best games on paper. It’s an admittedly personal pick, but that’s what this list is all about. I spent a lot of time with a lot of these games, and many of them hold a special place in my heart. I wouldn’t trade that for a second.

2009 Favorites: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Demon’s Souls, Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Shadow Complex, Resident Evil 5, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Little King’s Story, Rhythm Heaven, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Splosion Man, Dragon Age: Origins, Infamous

11. 2006. This was a year that didn’t quite have the depth of some other years near it on this list. But it got close enough, and the games it did have were real bangers. In the relative scheme of things it was a year for quality, and there are some big personal gems here that carry it a long way. It also felt like a transition year, with both the PS3 and Wii coming out, along with the Xbox 360’s first must-have games. For better or worse, 2006 gave us the HD era and motion controls. The results were exciting if nothing else.

2006 Favorites: Elite Beat Agents, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Gears of War, Company of Heroes, Final Fantasy XII, Okami, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Dead Rising, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

10. 1992. Trying to decide where to place the better years from the 90s was tricky; as I said in the intro, more games come out every year than the previous year. Given that, it’s important to remember the context for each year, and by that measure 1992 was pretty incredible. Not only did it give us The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, one of my absolute favorites, it also had a handful of really great games to back it up (including a pair of the all-time great beat-em-ups). That’s a lot by the standards of the time, making it one of the best years of the 16-bit era. And on some level it still competes with more modern times. That’s extra impressive.

1992 Favorites: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy V, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Super Mario Kart, Mario Paint, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2

9. 2010. This was another very difficult year to place. Between Mass Effect 2, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and Civilization V, it had a trio of games that almost no other year can match, all games I adored and spent a ton of time playing. They're all personal top 10 contenders, and 2010 gave them a few other strong games as back up too. I even say all of this as someone who didn’t like Red Dead Redemption. But I have to admit that, by the standards of the time, it drops off slightly too quick in the quantity department. If it weren’t for that it’d rise even higher, as the games it does have are incredible, and it has just enough of them to earn this very high spot.

2010 Favorites: Mass Effect 2, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Civilization V, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Limbo, Super Meat Boy, BioShock 2, Heavy Rain

8. 2016. If 2015-2017 is to go down as the defining period of the current generation of consoles, then 2016 is the one that resonated with me the most. It’s a combination of both quality and quantity too. In Doom, it had a game that rivals almost any out there for me. And the list of games I enjoyed from 2016 is surprisingly long and varied; there’s not many years that can beat it on quantity. I remember great games just coming out every month throughout 2016.

2016 Favorites: Doom, The Witness, Dark Souls III, Forza Horizon 3, Fire Emblem Fates, Civilization VI, Hyper Light Drifter, Titanfall 2, XCOM 2, Superhot, Firewatch, Hitman, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Salt & Sanctuary, Inside, Picross 3D: Round 2

7. 1999. This had the impossible task of following up the esteemed 1998, but by my count it did quite well for itself; I think it’s very deserving of a high position all of its own. In the context of its time it had a lot of great games, and some really unique ones I got super into. It was also at the height of my personal JRPG fever, which defined a period of my life, and one of the first years I played a lot of PC games. So maybe there’s some nostalgia in play here, but I won’t hold that against it. 1999 was a fun time.

1999 Favorites: Final Fantasy VIII, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Super Smash Bros., Syphon Filter, Medal of Honor, Alpha Centauri, System Shock 2, Jet Force Gemini

6. 1995. Where many years during the SNES era had one or two great games, 1995 had four: two of my favorite platformers, and two of my favorite JRPGs. Those also happened to be the genres that defined the SNES for me. Even past those four it has a decent supporting cast for the time period. It’s often hard to compare years from the early 90s to modern ones for the sheer difference in the number of games released, but 1995 makes the comparison easy. It’s just good, and probably the SNES’ best showing for quantity and quality, at least for my tastes. The Genesis even got a great game in there, and if I was into PC gaming at the time I’m sure it’d look even better.

1995 Favorites: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Ristar, Mario’s Picross

5. 2007. It’s funny, when 2007 was happening I remember people calling it one of the best years ever. I was skeptical at the time, as I remember a lot of that talk being about first-person shooters, namely Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and The Orange Box, which were not all games I loved at the time. However, when I sat down and looked at the games for this list, I realized 2007 had more variety than that. In retrospect I feel like 2007-2008 was the period where games really started diversifying a lot, and that’s not to be taken lightly. Over the next few years we started seeing new genres, new twists on old genres, and small games start to take the spotlight. 2007 was the start, and it was exciting. It also has some all-time favorites if there was ever any doubt about its quality.

2007 Favorites: Super Mario Galaxy, BioShock, Aquaria, Mass Effect, Portal, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, Picross DS, God of War II, Jeanne d’Arc, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, Rock Band, The Witcher, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2

4. 2008. Speaking of 2008, it turns out that, at least for me, 2007 was simply the warm up act. 2008 outclasses it in almost every way, especially in the depth and variety department. While both years have a lengthy list of great games, 2008’s is stronger on the whole, and has a lot more variety too. There are some personal, quirky picks here, and 2008 was the real coming out party for indie games as well. Even past 2007, it’s hard for me to find many years with a list of games this long that I love this much. Hence such a high position, and if anything part of me wants to move it higher. The only thing holding it back is that my top games for 2008 aren’t quite as strong as those in the years above it, but they're darn close. And I didn’t even like Grand Theft Auto IV or Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, arguably 2008’s most popular games. What a year.

2008 Favorites: Dead Space, The World Ends With You, Burnout Paradise, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Braid, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, Valkyria Chronicles, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, World of Goo, Sins of a Solar Empire, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Prince of Persia, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2

3. 1998. Yes, I know, this is supposed to be #1. For the longest time, 1998 has been considered the pinnacle of gaming years, and it’s not hard to see why. It had a slew of games that were not only great, but also groundbreaking and influential. Genres were created and/or perfected this year, and it’s when 3D games really came of age in a big way. I think all of that is true, and nobody would be wrong to put 1998 on top. However, for me personally, some of the big games of 1998 didn’t grab me, primarily Metal Gear Solid and Suikoden II. Additionally, I haven't played a whole host of well-regarded games like Fallout 2, Baldur’s Gate, Xenogears, Thief: The Dark Project, Gran Turismo, Grim Fandango, and probably some others I’m forgetting.

Yet even with those caveats I think 1998 deserves to be near the top of this list. It’s importance to the industry is apparent, and I still liked a good number of games from the year. That includes a few all-time favorites of course, and by the standards of the time, my personal list of games I liked from 1998 is still incredible.

1998 Favorites: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, StarCraft (plus Brood War), Pokemon Red and Blue, Banjo-Kazooie, Final Fantasy Tactics, Half-Life, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

2. 2003. So how do you top 1998? Release a crapton of games I really like. This is where things get extra personal, as these top two years made their mark by having a long, long list of games I greatly enjoyed from all sorts of genres. The selections from both years include more all-time favs than any other year as well. In a way it’s weird that these are the two years on top, and part of this likely has to do with my age, and some amount of time and place. And there’s likely some degree of me liking a lot of these games more than most people did. Regardless, something about this period of gaming really clicked with me. The argument for these top two years is very simple: the quantity and quality of their games, from top to bottom, is more impressive to me and my tastes than any other year on this list. Given that, I figure the games should speak for themselves. There’s no caveats anymore; just a lot of games I really like.

2003 Favorites: Fire Emblem, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Freedom Fighters, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Top Spin, Gladius, Beyond Good & Evil, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Viewtiful Joe, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

1. 2005. For me, 2005 had it all. No fewer than four all-time favs, including two likely top 10ers in Resident Evil 4 and Civilization IV. The former is even a strong “favorite game” candidate. It had a long list of quality games in my favorite genres or franchises, with many of them among my favorite entries. It had some varied and wonderful brand new games that kicked off great new franchises, or did things I’ve never seen before. It was the coming out party for the Nintendo DS and the launch of the Xbox 360, which introduced the HD era and Xbox Live Arcade (an important first step for smaller games). It saw the aging GameCube and PlayStation 2 produce some of their best games. It was a conflux of platforms and technology that was kind of weird, yet somehow produced a lot of exciting stuff. That’s not even to mention some popular games I didn’t like or didn’t play.

I have no further explanation why 2005 turned out how it did, and I know not all of these games will connect with everyone. But this was a year where almost everything connected with me, and that’s what this list is about. By virtually every measure, 2005 is my sweet spot, and my favorite year in gaming.

2005 Favorites: Resident Evil 4, Civilization IV, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, God of War, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Shadow of the Colossus, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Mario Kart DS, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Psychonauts, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved