2010s
Kickstarter funds retro revivals. Preservation becomes a priority. Nostalgia goes mainstream.
2010
6 eventsAmnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia stripped players of weapons entirely, creating pure helplessness horror where darkness itself became a threat and looking at monsters drove you insane.
Beam Software ends
Beam Software (1980–2010)
Fallout: New Vegas
Obsidian Entertainment's *New Vegas* brought choice, consequence, and sharp writing back to the *Fallout* series in this beloved Mojave wasteland RPG.
Melbourne House ends
Melbourne House (1977–2010)
NetherRealm Studios
NetherRealm Studios rose from Midway's ashes to revitalise Mortal Kombat and create Injustice, establishing the modern template for story-driven fighting games.
Tecmo ends
Tecmo (1967–2010)
2011
5 eventsDark Souls
Dark Souls refined FromSoftware's Demon's Souls formula into a genre-defining action RPG known for challenging combat, interconnected world design, and cryptic storytelling.
Minecraft
Minecraft's procedural voxel world and creative freedom made it the best-selling game of all time, transforming indie development and spawning an entire genre of survival crafting games.
Red Barrels
Canadian indie studio Red Barrels created the *Outlast* series, revitalising first-person survival horror with a focus on vulnerability and tension.
The Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaac wrapped roguelike mechanics in disturbing religious imagery and bodily horror, achieving massive success through endless item combinations and dark humour.
Steve Jobs dies
Apple's co-founder and visionary leader dies of pancreatic cancer at 56, ending an era of personal computing.
2012
11 eventsChunsoft ends
Chunsoft (1984–2012)
Dishonored
Dishonored revived the immersive sim with supernatural abilities, player choice, and levels designed for creative problem-solving in a plague-ridden steampunk empire.
Hotline Miami
Dennaton Games' *Hotline Miami* combined ultraviolent top-down action with surreal narrative and pulsing synthwave to create an unforgettable fever dream.
Hudson Soft ends
Hudson Soft (1973–2012)
Jack Tramiel dies
Jack Tramiel (1928–2012)
Kickstarter transforms game funding
Double Fine Adventure raises $3.3 million on Kickstarter, proving crowdfunding can revive genres abandoned by publishers.
Mike Singleton dies
Mike Singleton (undefined–2012)
Psygnosis ends
Psygnosis (1984–2012)
Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi brought affordable single-board computing to education and hobbyists, becoming the platform of choice for retro gaming projects.
The Bitmap Brothers ends
The Bitmap Brothers (1987–2012)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Firaxis's 2012 reboot kept X-COM's two-layer structure and permadeath while replacing Time Units with a two-action turn — a different design sharing a premise, and the game that made XCOM-like a genre label.
2013
3 events2014
9 eventsAlien: Isolation
Alien: Isolation recreated the original film's terror through an unkillable xenomorph with adaptive AI, proving licensed games could achieve artistic excellence.
Elite Dangerous
David Braben's Elite Dangerous revived the legendary space trading franchise with a 1:1 scale Milky Way galaxy, proving procedural generation could create universes.
Ian McNaught-Davis dies
Ian McNaught-Davis (1929–2014)
Irrational Games ends
Irrational Games (1997–2014)
Neversoft ends
Neversoft (1994–2014)
Q Entertainment ends
Q Entertainment (2003–2014)
Ralph Baer dies
Ralph Baer (1922–2014)
Shovel Knight
Yacht Club Games' 2014 action-platformer that captured the NES aesthetic perfectly while incorporating decades of design lessons.
Team Cherry
Team Cherry's three-person studio delivered Hollow Knight's vast Metroidvania on a modest Kickstarter budget, then supported it with years of free content updates.
2015
5 eventsClimax Entertainment ends
Climax Entertainment (1990–2015)
Life is Strange
Life is Strange combined episodic narrative with time manipulation mechanics, exploring teenage life, friendship, and consequence through player choice.
Maxis ends
Maxis (1987–2015)
Pillars of Eternity
Obsidian Entertainment's crowdfunded *Pillars of Eternity* revived the classic isometric RPG, proving appetite remained for deep, text-heavy adventures.
Satoru Iwata dies
Satoru Iwata (1959–2015)
2016
5 eventsImagine Publishing is acquired
Imagine Publishing (2005–2016)
Lionhead Studios ends
Lionhead Studios (1997–2016)
No Man's Sky
Hello Games' No Man's Sky launched controversially incomplete but became gaming's greatest redemption story through years of free updates that delivered on original promises.
Seymour Papert dies
Seymour Papert (1928–2016)
Pokémon GO sends millions into the streets
Niantic's augmented reality game becomes a global phenomenon, briefly making mobile gaming a shared outdoor experience.
2017
7 eventsEutechnyx ends
Eutechnyx (1987–2017)
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight delivered a vast, melancholic Metroidvania through hand-drawn insect kingdoms, challenging combat, and secrets that rewarded dozens of hours of exploration.
MiSTer FPGA
The open-source FPGA project that recreates vintage computers and consoles in hardware, achieving accuracy impossible with software emulation.
Ray Kassar dies
Ray Kassar (1928–2017)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Breath of the Wild reinvented the Zelda formula with emergent gameplay, physics-based puzzles, and unprecedented freedom in a vast open world.
ZX Spectrum Next
A community-funded FPGA Spectrum in a Rick Dickinson case: a Z80N at up to 28MHz, 128 hardware sprites, Layer 2 graphics, three AY chips and SD storage — while still running the 1982 machine's software.
Nintendo Switch blurs home and portable gaming
Nintendo's hybrid console succeeds where Wii U failed, proving there's still a market for dedicated gaming hardware.
2018
5 eventsBen Daglish dies
Ben Daglish (1966–2018)
Celeste
Matt Thorson and Noel Berry's 2018 precision platformer that combined brutal difficulty with an affecting story about mental health and self-acceptance.
Dead Cells
Dead Cells merged roguelike permadeath with Metroidvania exploration, creating fluid combat and persistent unlocks that made each death feel like progress.
Rick Dickinson dies
Rick Dickinson (1956–2018)
Telltale Games ends
Telltale Games (2004–2018)