We're more than halfway through the 2020s, so the decade rankings have officially started rolling in. Collider just published their picks for the 12 best games of the decade so far, and the lineup reads like a highlight reel: Elden Ring, The Last of Us, and a whole lot of arguing material packed in around them.

Elden Ring making the list feels inevitable. FromSoftware took a formula that ran on punishing solitude and dropped it into an open world made for sharing. Messages scrawled on the ground, gold summon signs outside every boss fog, entire Discords reorganizing their week around the same catacomb. I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: Elden Ring is an MMO wearing a trench coat. The community that formed around it in those first few months was the best multiplayer moment of the decade, and it never even needed a friends list to work.

The Last of Us showing up surprises nobody. Part II landed in 2020 and set the tone for a decade of games that treat storytelling as a core mechanic rather than a cutscene delivery system. You can love it or argue about it forever, and either reaction kind of proves the point.

My gripe, because there's always a gripe, is the usual one: the MMO lane gets skipped. Endwalker emotionally wrecked an entire player base in 2021 and showed what a decade-long story arc could actually pay off. FFXIV players know. And while I'm being territorial, the co-op monsters of the decade deserve their flowers too. Three playthroughs of Elden Ring for me. Two of them were co-op runs with guildmates who'd never touched a Souls game before, and they still talk about those nights.

That's the real reason these lists are worth reading, I think. The order is just the excuse. The fun part is the pile-on in the replies, everyone defending their pick like somebody came after their actual house. When a list like Collider's drops, my group chats turn into draft rooms for about 48 hours, and it's the best chaos of the month.

So go argue with it. Read the full ranking, then come tell me what's sitting at number one on your personal list, because I promise it won't match mine. And if the next Final Fantasy VII installment sticks the landing, expect me to be insufferable about the future version of this list. TJ already knows.