Live ranking

The full ranking.

5,035 video games face off in duels and 368,051 duels have already been settled. The ranking is recomputed with every vote: filter by genre, decade, platform or period.

94 games Reset

  1. 1 Streets of Rage 2 1992 · Beat 'em up 1,839
  2. 2 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 1992 · Platformer 1,748
  3. 3 Mortal Kombat II 1994 · Fighting 1,713
  4. 4 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 1994 · Platformer 1,713
  5. 5 Sonic the Hedgehog 1991 · Platformer 1,692
  6. 6 Gunstar Heroes 1993 · Platformer 1,674
  7. 7 Samurai Shodown 1993 · Fighting 1,633
  8. 8 Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium 1993 · JRPG 1,623
  9. 9 Earthworm Jim 2 1995 · Platformer 1,606
  10. 10 Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty 1992 · Strategy 1,590
  11. 11 Comix Zone 1995 · Beat 'em up 1,586
  12. 12 Disney's Aladdin 1993 · Platformer 1,576
  13. 13 Sonic & Knuckles 1994 · Platformer 1,573
  14. 14 The Lion King 1994 · Platformer 1,571
  15. 15 Rocket Knight Adventures 1993 · Platformer 1,565
  16. 16 Zombies Ate My Neighbors 1993 · Shoot 'em up 1,547
  17. 17 Ecco the Dolphin 1992 · Action-adventure 1,546
  18. 18 The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare 1992 · Platformer 1,543
  19. 19 Mortal Kombat 3 1995 · Fighting 1,538
  20. 20 Worms 1995 · Strategy 1,536
  21. 21 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 1995 · Fighting 1,533
  22. 22 Dynamite Headdy 1994 · Platformer 1,520
  23. 23 Castlevania: Bloodlines 1994 · Platformer 1,518
  24. 24 Marble Madness 1984 · Puzzle 1,516
  25. 25 Contra: Hard Corps 1994 · Platformer 1,511

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FAQ

Questions about the ranking

How is this ranking established?

The ranking comes solely from player votes, in duels between two games. Each vote updates an ELO score, the rating system used in chess: every game starts at 1,500 points and its score moves duel after duel.

How often is the ranking updated?

Continuously: every duel voted immediately adjusts the score of the two games involved. The badge on the right shows how each game's rank moved over the past seven days.

How many games take part in the ranking?

5,035 games, selected for their fame, face off in duels. The full GameForever catalogue covers tens of thousands of titles, across every era and platform.

How can I see the best games by genre, decade or platform?

Use the filters at the top of the page: genre (RPG, FPS, platformer, strategy...), decade and platform (PC, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, SEGA). Filters combine, and the selection is numbered from 1, from the highest ranked down; each game's world rank stays shown on its own entry. The period filter instead ranks on the points gained recently, from 7 days to 12 months (all time by default).

Why can an indie game finish ahead of a blockbuster?

The ELO score measures neither sales nor budget, but the preferences expressed in duels. An indie game that regularly wins its match-ups against higher-ranked titles climbs mechanically, owing nothing to its production budget.

What is the difference between the position in the list and the world rank?

The position is that of the selection on screen, numbered from 1 and carried on from page to page: filter on RPGs and the top RPG becomes number 1. The world rank depends on no filter and is shown on each game's own entry, along with its duel count and win rate.

Why rank by duels rather than by a score out of 10?

Absolute scores saturate: nearly every game that matters ends up between 7 and 9, and what is left of the gap often says more about a site's audience than about the games. A duel asks a question you cannot answer with "both", and it lets a 1994 game and a 2024 game be compared without correcting anything: they are not scored on two scales, they are set against each other.

Vote on a duel