Patient Gamers

Skewed towards my taste in gaming, but still trying to think about humanity:

• UNDERTALE. My favorite videogame OAT, amazing storytelling, characters and soundtrack. This is my least replayable pick, but one that I would not want to lose
• The Binding of Isaac. Contender for the best Rougelike ever made, with an absurd level of replayability and great modding community
• Minecraft. Even though i don't care about Minecraft that much, the things that this game has accomplished is crazy. I would not want to lose Redstone or the amazing modding community it has. Tons of ways to play and, it's the most purchased game in history, I think it's worth perserving.
• Geometry Dash. I would not want to leave the "rithym game" (debatable) community with nothing. GD is also a game I'm super in love with. The community is great and at this point it's close to being its own gaming engine, so I think it fits here.
• Skyrim. This game I haven't played ever, but I know what it means to a lot of people. Considering the rest of my cartoony and slightly niche picks, I think having one, extremely moddable medieval single player helps to have variety.

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

OpenMW

MineCraft

GZDoom

DevilutionX

Wargus

Since all of humanity will only get the 5 games

To encourage local play with your friends we will keep the n64 versions of Mario kart, super smash brothers, and Mario party 2. These are universally enjoyable to all ages and the top 3 local experiences imo.

For people inevitably desiring a strategy game I will choose StarCraft 1. And the RPG shall be Baldurs gate 3 because it allows full custom campaign mods and people can thus create any rpg in it.

Mario kart 64

Super Smash Brothers (64)

Mario Party 2

StarCraft 1

Baldurs Gate 3

Not sure about 5,

but grim fandango should be one of them.

Elder scrolls Skyrim all expansions dlc

Age of empires 2 with expansions

Halo master chief collection

If it counts World of Warcraft classic as a private server

Baldurs Gate 3

Baldur's gate 3, tiny Tina's wonderlands, ff7, annnnd I'm not sure. The fourth and fifth slots are harder.

I would say pacman, but even if you gave me the arcade game for free, I don't think I could play it worth a damn now. Same with centipede (they were my favorites back in the day, but pacman I was good at).

The original Mario Kart could be in there. And I can't pretend that need for speed carbon couldn't compete for a spot either. I think I'd take Kart over Carbon though.

Yeah, fuck it, pacman and Mario kart. Those are the last two spots.

No! Wait!

Neverwinter, the mmorpg. Fuck mariokart, I'd take that one, assuming I could either have ai teammates that didn't suck, or could just keep a server for it running without cost/effort. Loved that game. Technically still love it, but when I stopped playing for a while, I got power crept and didn't want to play ptw style like it turned into. But my haste cleric? Fuck yeah!

• OpenTTD, easily. Would be nice if I could sneak in the og assets (music mainly) from Transport Tycoon Deluxe as well, but not critical
• Fallout: London - or does that count as 2 as it's a tc mod + basegame of fallout4?

really drawing a blank on the other ~3 games. Probably some mix of old Lucas Arts adventure games (indy atlantis, day of the tentacle, the dig...), imsims (dishonored, deux ex).

Forsaken 64 (multiplayer does things with "4th Dimensional" space I've never seen elsewhere, else this slot would belong to Descent)

No Man's Sky (open to others for this slot, but not aware of any that check the same boxes for me)

Minecraft (Factorio mods)

Armored Core (any besides 3)

Starcraft or Dawn of War or Total War ... so long as the best of the RTS genre is represented

Wait ... no new games ever? Wtf, just kill me. ... or rather, why bother rebuilding civilization only to stagnate like so?

My list is tailored towards inspiring a re-launch of the industry. I would rather disappear into Amish society than play the same five video-games forever more.

Do we get to save mods, too?

That's a huge factor. It'd put Rimworld and Minecraft squarely on the list for me, and I'd have to think about the others. There are some ridiculous mod communities out there though.

Well, I think games that have the greatest possibility between them make the best choices. So...

Stellaris. - I want a 4x and grand strategy and this one is a bit of both. Also considering how much it's changed since 1.0, the various versions of it provide a lot of variety in themselves. Also it's got great mod support. Its core systems have also been rebuilt a couple times, so I know it has a good deal of potential and isn't locked too hard into certain mechanics.

Conan Exiles. - This is a really weird choice cause the game isn't amazing in and of itself, or even all that good, and it's pretty buggy, but it's one of the most customizable, mod supported multiplayer games I know of. Maybe there's a better choice and if I had time to research it I'd pick that one. I know there's a multiplayer mod for Skyrim, for example, but I'm not technical enough to know if that has better possibilities than Conan. Hell, maybe Minecraft has potential here? I have never liked it much. It would be absolutely necessary to me that it can be updated to decent (not blocky) graphics though.

Elite: Dangerous. - This is another choice I'd like to research a better option for. The thing is I want a flight/space game, but I don't know enough about the genre, and this is the only one that immediately comes to mind. Its kind of my one mostly unselfish pick cause I haven't played this type of game in a long time.

Baldur's Gate 3. - It's not actually my favorite rpg or even my favorite Baldur's Gate, but Larian designed it with good mod support and tools. Also it can support multiplayer very easily. Like the others on this list, it's here for future adaptability; if we're never getting new games, mods of these 5 have to be as much like new games as possible.

An MMO. - This is the toughest one to answer myself cause I don't know enough about the back end of them. The trick is choosing the one with the most broadly applicable technical side. I want as much possibility in future development as I can get, and I'd really like one that isn't inextricably linked to the target based gameplay we currently know from most of them. If required to pick without research, I would reluctantly choose Guild Wars 2, cause it at least isn't tied to tab targeting, but I have no idea if it's good with my other criteria.

Now, you'll notice I didn't pick any games without multiplayer, and that's cause if these are going to be the only 5 games left until the end of time they should all support multiplayer. No single player only need apply.

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.

I'll pick 5 genre (4x/building sim/strategy, RPG, Sandbox, Sport, and maybe racing) then choose the best open source game in each genre.

A very good closed source, mod-able game will be limited on what technology exist when it was made. While an open sourced game would have a lot of possibilities. It will count as an update, not a new game.

Based on my currently highest time spend in the game, in no particular order: Terraria, Dark Souls 3, Factorio + expansion, Stardew Valley.

The last one kinda depend on some caveat: Fallout 4(assuming mods also survived), Project Zomboid(if the dev will still working on it), or dying light(assuming some mods also survived). Else Prey 2017.

Edit: honestly i would put Monster Hunter 4U up there, but not sure if i can still take the early game grind, World kinda ruined a bit of 4U but it still a significantly better game.

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?

Skyrim

Fallout 4

Ratchet & Clank

Morrowind

The Witcher 3

Id pick 5 games that have infinite replayability like dwarf fortress or other roguelikes

• Garry’s Mod (general sandbox)
• Arma ~~3~~ Reforger (war and life sim sandbox)
• GTA V (VI if we buy enough time)
• ~~Skyrim (heavily mod-able medieval RPG)~~ Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
• ~~Luanti (voxel foss sandbox with potential)~~ No Man’s Sky 2025

Edit: The focus here was on replayability and modding. Garry's Mod, Arma 3 and GTA cover car racing, shooting, partying and roleplaying. KCD is for history and single-player. I can't wait to play it! No sports games made it into my list. Maybe people can rebuild Wii Sports or something in Garry's Mod, I don't know. Last minuted, I switched to No Man's Sky 2025 over Luanti. Go explore the vast universe y'all! It's a completely different experience compared to my other picks. I've heard it's good now, so I'll go for it blindly.

• Stardew Valley
• Sims 4
• Skyrim
• Sim City 4
• The Arcana (app)

Can't say Mass Effect cause I would need the trilogy :(

All games for replayability!

Stardew I can play with friends.

Sims 4 and Sim City 4 are about building a life/world, so it's hard to get bored.

Skyrim is Skyrim- as much as i've played it I havent finished all storylines.

The Arcana has so many dating options with 2 different routes for each. The art is amazing.

Nah just destroy them all, maybe I can get my friends to learn Bridge with me. If not, Canasta will suffice.

I'd probably go for historic impact if there's no more games I'd want a good selection of what people considered major titles of video game history. Maybe one classic, one old console, one arcade fighter, one modern PC, and one online shooter.

Pong

The legend of Zelda

Tekken 3

World of Warcraft classic

Team fortress 2

• 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.

Do I get the mods, too (because, realistically, who plays games only unmodded? Children? Console gamers?)?

So, if yes, half life and half life 2.

If not....

1. Minecraft - this feels like a no brainer. Also needs to have some mod packs. I would choose some fat as fuck packs. But if I only was allowed to choose one, I would choose one of the biggest mod packs that has the most mods in it.

2. Counter-Strike: Source - has to have all custom maps currently available. There's nearly an infinite amount of content there. But even without custom content, I still think a core pvp FPS is necessary to this list.

3. Some kind of an mmo. One that has instances of large quantity of player content that can be saved. Social games are incredibly important, to at least me. I don't love WoW. I don't really play MMOs, either, except for one, and it's largely because my partner loves it. So, maybe Guild Wars 2.

4. A co-op dungeon crawler that can be used for role playing. So, maybe like.... Neverwinter Nights? Or maybe Phantasy Star online...2? Diablo.....?nahhh... PoE maybe.

5. Some kind of very simmy racing game with simulation physics. Beam.Ng?

The "no new games will ever be made" is a hard one, because I instinctually want to save games that could be used as inspirational "seed" games for people to use as ideas to make new games.

My instinct is to treat this as a "all games are dying. What games would you take to restart?" But in reality, this is "what are your favorite games?" There's a lot of nuance between those two questions, and the lists would be extremely different. So, my list is kind of trying to merge those two concepts.

factorio, noita, some random tower defense game, city of heroes, and Minecraft..

Man.... tough choices.

I'm saving Dark Souls 1. It's a beautiful game, great replay value I've barely begun to tap into, and really cool multiplayer features. Also a game I'd love to introduce more people to.

I'm also saving Hollow Knight. Trying to beat Pantheon of Hallownest, or Steel Soul mode, may just keep me busy until I die single-handedly.

I'm also saving Silksong. Screw it, same reasons as Hollow Knight, selfishly I want em both. I would go just Silksong, but it lacks the updates and endgame content that Hollow Knight has been fleshed out with.

Mario Odyssey? I got really into speedrunning this for a while, and it was a blast. I could get back into that, and push it a lot further with all the free time I'd have now that I'm not playing much else.

There really should be a multiplayer game on this list.... I'm tempted by UFO 50, but that feels like cheating, so... Mario Kart World? The online is kinda trash, because they push the intermission courses too hard, but local multiplayer isn't so affected, and mechanically the rail and wall grinding is deep mechanically, and I could sink a lot more solo playtime time into mastering all the time trials, which I loved dabbling with.

Really, this whole list is defined by games I could speedrun and otherwise try to get thousands of hours of playtime and challenges out of them.