Taking place through traffic-packed city streets, the races rewarded players for risky manoeuvres, providing extra time to shoot past competitors. Guildford-based developer Criterion built its Burnout series of arcade driving games around two principles: speed and style. “Football, but with remote control cars” is a likely pitch for Rocket League, but who expected it would become one of the most skilful and enduring multiplayer games released in decades? Rocket League is elegant and ageless: it will probably still be played in 20 years, in living rooms and in tournaments.

It’s an accessible, multifaceted racing treat. Barn finds and destructible signs rewarded exploration, while a multitude of driving challenges provided structure and challenge. Boasting a gigantic selection of cars and an inventive AI-assisted multiplayer component, the game was designed around simply letting the player have fun, no matter what they did or where they drove.

Photograph: MicrosoftĬombining an open-world structure with the energy of a music festival, Forza Horizon made arcade-style racing games fun again. But what about the mother and young child using a fake passport to rejoin the rest of their family? Or an undocumented refugee who you could reject as a possible terrorist, but who may in fact be a desperate civilian? Papers, Please is a powerful illustration of how we can become complicit in inhumane systems, and the ways games can invite us to explore complex ethical dilemmas. You are a border officer in a war-torn country where people are constantly trying to smuggle things past you: drugs, weapons, falsified IDs.

One of several games that kicked off the indie-game renaissance of the 2010s, Limbo’s monochrome style and relatively short running time belie the extraordinary effort and fastidiousness that went into its creation, evident in everything from the sinister movements of a giant spider to the precise physics that power its puzzles. The central character here is a boy on the run from death, or perhaps already dead.

Games you can play in real life