I’ll start the ball rolling. For me, I’d probably have to go with:

Skyrim - first off, it’s my most played game ever, and also my most purchased game too. Is it the best game ever made? No, I don’t even think it’s the best Elder Scrolls game. But there’s something so captivating about it for some reason and I can’t help but always go back to replay it all these years later. If mods are allowed to survive the video game apocalypse then it makes it a very easy choice but I’d still choose it even if it had to stay vanilla.

Pokemon Soul Silver - something for kids to play, but also my favourite Pokemon game and one of my most replayed games ever. Between having your Pokemon follow you around, the Johto region plus Kanto, and also the music, I think it’s the best Pokemon game ever made, and a game I can’t go without playing the rest of my life.

Elden Ring - I was torn between this or Dark Souls III, but I went with ER because (1) it’s more accessible, and again remember every other game is permanently destroyed so this does affect everyone, and I’d like to be at least a little nice in my choices, and (2) I find myself able to replay it a bit more, especially with the DLC. I’ve mentioned it many times before but I truly believe SotE is the best content FromSoft has ever put out, so it would be a shame to have it destroyed.

Hitman: World of Assassination - it’s sort of cheating as this was originally three separate games, but they’re all bundled together now and Steam recognizes it all as a single game in my library, so I’m including it. Plus it’s my list and my post so I say it counts. Anyway, I don’t see Hitman posted a lot on Lemmy, but it’s my second most played game ever and I really do think if you can get over the admittedly high cost to get all the content it really is a masterpiece of a game. It’s also got way more replayability than you’d initially think just looking at it, so it’s a great contender for this post. This is another Skyrim situation where I don’t think it’s a top pick for greatest game of all time but it’s just so easy to replay that I couldn’t omit it from here.

Dishonored - I really didn’t know what to put for my last choice. I was tempted to do another massive open world game like Red Dead Redemption 2 or cheat again and do another bundle game like Mass Effect Legendary Edition or Halo Master Chief Collection, but I decided to go with a game that is a bit less intensive to complete but is still really fun to jump back into and try a new style with. I feel like it’s a bit of an underrated game these days. I know it was very well received and sold well but I don’t hear about it enough when talking about modern-ish classics. This is probably my favourite game that’s not a sandbox or open world, aside from the FromSoft games. The art style is gorgeous, the story is engaging, the DLC is a great add-on, the gameplay is diverse and super fun, it’s just such a great game all around.

My list is probably going to be very different from everyone else’s, but that’s part of the fun.

Pokemon, FF7, GTA San Andreas, Resident Evil 4, Portal

Minecraft and then just build games inside of it?

Tears of the Kingdom and Minecraft would be important to save for their infinite playability due to their physics and craft engines. Final Fantasy 6 for story. Stellaris so people could have a competitive, chess-like monster to wrap their mind around. And Bonk for TurboGrafx16 so everyone could know that game design just doesn’t happen overnight.

Factorio. Not sure I’d need anything else

if anthologies are allowed:

Activision Anthology: Remix Edition
Atari Anthology
Sega Genesis Classics
Namco Museum Archives
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

I’m a novice gamer, so someone who’s got more experience with retro gaming history could probably come up with a list that includes the greatest possible number of titles for preservation

could we have a link to the video you mentioned?

• Half-life 2 (Garry’s mod)
• Quake 2 (plenty of mods)
• Desert Bus (Penn and teller’s smoke and mirrors)
• Luanti (Open source Minecraft)
• Turtle WoW (So I can quest in vanilla’ish)

For me I’d say…

Borderlands 2 Left4Dead 2 Destiny 2 Zombies Ate my Neighbours (SNES) Pokémon (ZA has me at the moment but I’d say keep Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire)

CO-OP shooters with single player elements are what I’d play more than anything else to avoid it being the same thing over and over, Destiny has hit hard times recently but still has a lot to give.

ZAMN is just cool.

I can lose hours shiny hunting and mucking about in the Pokémon games so easily has to be one around.

Zelda Link’s Awakening … this one somehow has both the most Nostalgia and replayability for me even though I have also played the N64 Zeldas when growing up

Factorio - of course can’t go without Cracktorio

Caves of Qud - really good mix of roguelike and open world RPG. Lot’s of replayability as well.

Diablo 2 Resurrected - one of my favrotie games of all time. Got back into it recently on Switch and it’s just soo good. Also big Nostalgia for me

Mario Kart Double Dash - need to have something I can play with my wife and Mario Kart is just the Couch Multiplayer game. Double Dash is my favorite entry of the series as well

I’d say I hit a solid ish genre mix as well with it. Pity I couldn’t fit an FPS though

• Chrono Trigger - It’s pretty much the perfect RPG: great story, cool art, replayable, not too long or grindy.
• Earthbound - I admit I have a lot of nostalgia for this one, but it’s still a game I’ve replayed at least a half-dozen times.
• Final Fantasy Tactics - Fantastic story, plenty of character customization, and some extremely broken builds if you know what you’re doing. Also, did I mention the story?
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - THE metroidvania. Great gameplay, soundtrack, and visuals.
• Hollow Knight - Fun to play, difficult to master. Has a lot of charm and plenty of secrets to discover.

There are plenty of other games I would love to throw on the list, but some would require a ton of mods or just didn’t quite make the cut for me.

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Tough. If this is all I get forever I’ll go for replay over best games ever.

Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, good 5k hours

Monster Hunter World(Iceborne), like 5-10k in that

NieR Automata, less so for the replayability and more for the music

FFX For same as above

Aaaaand hm. Oh I want some childhood. Majora’s Mask.

• Deus Ex - this game will last forever, especially with mods (like my Randomizer mod lol)
• StarCraft 2 - I just love watching the esports, and with no other esport games available I guess this would be pretty huge
• The 7th Guest - this is a bad pick but I’m obsessed with the game
• Doom - I mean, come on, obviously
• maybe some kind of builder game, I’m not into any currently but someone else said Factorio and that sounds like a good pick as a game you can keep playing forever, or maybe Stardew Valley or something accessible like that so everyone can play forever, or OpenRCT2

• Puyo Puyo Champions - Extra selfish pick, in this scenario now people would have to play it and we’d have a healthy playerbase again. I’d finally get to fulfill my dream of large offline tournaments.
• Skullgirls - See above.
• Stepmania - I was tempted to say Wacca or Chunithm, but in this scenario Stepmania would be ideal for nearly infinite content, as well as offering both keyboard and pad playstyles in one game.
• Slay the Spire - My pick for casual second monitor content. I’m also assuming the modding scene is allowed to continue, in this scenario it’d suddenly have everyone making tons of new characters.
• Super Mario Maker 2 - Actually took me a bit to think of what the last game should be. Gotta be an endless game, but I didn’t want to duplicate genres by just adding another fighting game or puzzle game. Though if we’re allowing romhacks to count as part of the game, if new romhacks can continue to be made, substitute Super Mario World instead.

Hmm, tough one. I’m going to maximise replayability and this assumes all DLC too

• RimWorld
• Factorio
• Balatro
• FTL or Slay the Spire
• Civ 6 or Cities Skylines

Honourable mention to several JRPGs from Squaresoft

Edit: I’m now reading the thread and second guessing everything. But gonna keep my original list