As someone who's been playing games long enough to remember blowing into cartridges, I have a complicated relationship with anniversaries. By the time 2024 rolled around, I was thirty-two and already feeling the squeeze: games I could swear I picked up last week were suddenly half a decade old. Now that we're in 2026, looking back at those milestones feels like finding an old save file on a memory card you forgot you owned.
That said, 2024 wasn't just another year of 'wow, time flies' moments. It was packed with significant birthdays across nearly every era of gaming. From five-year-olds that still feel modern to thirty-year-olds that shaped entire genres, the celebration roster read like a hall of fame induction ceremony.
| Anniversary | Notable Games |
|---|---|
| 5 years | Disco Elysium, Control, Death Stranding, Sekiro, Outer Wilds |
| 10 years | Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dark Souls 2, Destiny, Hearthstone |
| 15 years | Minecraft, Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Pokemon HeartGold |
| 20 years | World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas, Paper Mario 2 |
| 25 years | Pokemon Gold & Silver, Super Smash Bros., Resident Evil 3 |
| 30 years | Final Fantasy 6, Super Metroid, Sonic 3, Donkey Kong Country |
The five-year club: modern classics that aged fast
Let me start with the ones that hurt the most. Disco Elysium, Control, and The Outer Worlds all turned five in 2024. I'll be real with you—I still think of them as recent releases. Disco Elysium's detective work and Kim Kitsuragi's patient sigh feel timeless. Control's Ashtray Maze remains one of the most dazzling sequences I've ever played.
Around the same age, Death Stranding, Sekiro, and Outer Wilds also hit five. These three couldn't be more different: one asked me to balance packages across a lonely landscape, one demanded precision parry perfection, and one whispered cosmic mysteries through a time loop. Yet they all managed to redefine what a video game could make me feel. Crackdown 3, Jedi: Fallen Order, the Resident Evil 2 remake, Pokemon Sword & Shield, and The House in Fata Morgana rounded out the group.
Ten years old: a loaded birthday party
The ten-year milestone in 2024 felt like a class reunion. The Game Awards itself hit double digits, and the first Game of the Year winner, Dragon Age: Inquisition, joined it on the cake table. Shovel Knight, Transistor, and Child of Light were there too—remember those? I do, fondly, even if they sometimes slip under the radar compared to the heavyweights.
And oh, the heavyweights. Dark Souls 2's Western release, Bayonetta 2, Titanfall, Destiny, Alien: Isolation, Five Nights at Freddy's, and Hearthstone all turned ten. Each one pushed its genre forward in its own stubborn way. Alien: Isolation still makes me hold my breath, and Hearthstone probably still owns a chunk of my late nights.
Fifteen years old: Minecraft leads the teenagers
Here's where things got loud. Minecraft, which started life quietly in 2009 before its full release two years later, turned fifteen in 2024. Love it or hate it, you can't deny the blocky sandbox is one of the most recognizable games on Earth. Its fifteenth party wasn't lonely either. Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Dragon Age Origins, Bayonetta, Left 4 Dead 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and my second-favorite game of all time, Pokemon HeartGold, all joined in.
Mass Effect 2—my absolute favorite—sat at the awkward age of fourteen, not quite invited but still very much on my mind.
Twenty years old: the revolutionaries
If you think fifteen is impressive, the twenty-year-olds in 2024 absolutely cleared the room. World of Warcraft turned twenty, which is the perfect age to drop out of college and farm gold for the rest of your life—kidding, but barely. Its influence on online multiplayer is almost impossible to overstate.
2004 didn't stop there. Halo 2, Pikmin 2, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Burnout 3, The Minish Cap, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door all celebrated two decades. That group alone covers first-person shooters, open worlds, strategy-adjacent gardening, and some of the best platforming ever made.
Twenty-five years old: old enough to buy a six pack
By this point, the games were officially adults. Pokemon Gold & Silver topped my personal list, since they built directly toward my HeartGold obsession. But they had plenty of company: Soulcalibur's home release, Chrono Cross, Crash Team Racing, Resident Evil 3, Unreal Tournament, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Donkey Kong 64, Mario Golf, Syphon Filter, Pokemon Snap, Super Smash Bros., and Spyro 2 all hit twenty-five.
I miss the days when being ID'd for a six pack still applied to these games. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Moving on.
Thirty years old: ancient machines from my ancestors' time
Finally, the thirty-year-olds. NBA Jam's home release, Disney's Aladdin, The Lion King, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy 6, Super Metroid, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 all reached three decades in 2024. I was thirty-two that year, and yet somehow I convinced myself I was still young while these games—actual pieces of history—looked like relics dug up from an archaeological site.
What strikes me now, in 2026, is how little distance there really is between eras. A kid discovering Minecraft today can trace its roots back to the same creativity that fueled Pokemon Snap. A player overwhelmed by Elden Ring might find comfort knowing that Dark Souls 2 was already carving that punishing path back in 2014. Anniversaries aren't just marketing; they're mile markers for how the medium grows, borrows, and sometimes eats its own tail.
So yes, 2024 threw us a huge parade. Now imagine what 2034 will look like. Time's relentless, isn't it?
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