The Best Video Game Franchises of All Time

Ranker Games
Updated June 23, 2023 333.4K votes 20.7K voters 182.9K views
Over 20.7K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Best Video Game Franchises of All Time
Voting Rules
Vote up the best franchises in all of gaming.

If someone asked you what the greatest video game franchise of all time was, how would you answer? If you grew up in the 80's and 90's, classic franchises like Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda might appeal to you more. However today's gamers have insanely good franchises to sink their teeth into as well, including Grand Theft Auto, God of War, Halo, Deus Ex, and so much more. This list takes your opinion into account, rather than sales, popularity, and reviews, so vote for your favorite game franchises no matter how mainstream or highly-rated they are. All genres are included here, whether it's a RPG, platformer, first person shooter or an adventure game.

You can add any franchise that's missing to this list of the greatest game series of all time, as long as there have been 3 or more games in the franchise so far. That means we're not including games like Minecraft, League of Legends, and DotA. 

Most divisive: Sonic the Hedgehog
Ranked by
  • The Legend of Zelda
    1
    The Legend of Zelda, subtitled The Hyrule Fantasy in its original Japanese release, is a 1986 action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo, released in North America in 1987 and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon. During the course of the game, the player sees Link from a top-down perspective and must navigate him through the overworld and several dungeons, defeating enemies and finding secrets along the way. The inaugural game of the Legend of Zelda series, it was first released in Japan as a launch title for the Family Computer Disk System peripheral. More than a year later, North America and Europe received releases on the Nintendo Entertainment System in cartridge form, making the game the first home console title to include an internal battery for saving data. In 1994, this version would be released back in Japan, now named The Legend of Zelda 1.
  • Super Mario Bros.
    2
    Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform video game internally developed by Nintendo R&D4 and published by Nintendo as a pseudo-sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. It was originally released in Japan for the Family Computer on September 13, 1985, and later that year for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, Europe on May 15, 1987 and Australia in 1987. It is the first of the Super Mario series of games. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario and in a two-player game, a second player controls Mario's brother Luigi as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist Bowser. In 2005, IGN's poll named the "pioneering" and "highly influential" title as The Greatest Game Of All Time, considering it to have aided in resurrecting the crashed American video game market of the 1980s. The game's mid-1980s release served to further popularize the side-scrolling subgenre of the already popular platform video game genre of the early 1980s.
  • Pokémon
    3

    Pokémon

    5,270 votes
    Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version, originally released in Japan as Pocket Monsters: Red & Green, are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy. They are the first installments of the Pokémon series. They were first released in Japan in 1996 as Red and Green, with Blue being released later in the year as a special edition. They were later released as Red and Blue in North America, Europe and Australia over the following three years. Pokémon Yellow, a special edition version, was released roughly a year later. Red and Green have subsequently been remade for the Game Boy Advance as Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, released in 2004. The player controls the main character from an overhead perspective and navigates him throughout the fictional region of Kanto in a quest to master Pokémon battling. The goal of the games is to become the champion of the Pokémon League by defeating the eight Gym Leaders, then the top four Pokémon trainers in the land, the Elite Four. Another objective is to complete the Pokédex, an in-game encyclopedia, by obtaining the 150 available Pokémon.
  • Mario Kart
    4

    Mario Kart

    8,000 votes
    Super Mario Kart is a 1992 go-kart racing video game developed by Nintendo EAD for the Super Famicom and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game of the Mario Kart series, it was launched in Japan on August 27, 1992, in North America on September 1, 1992, and in Europe on January 21, 1993. Selling nine million copies worldwide, the game went on to become the third best selling SNES game of all time. Super Mario Kart was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console in Japan on June 9, 2009, North America on November 23, 2009, and in Europe on April 2, 2010. Super Mario Kart was re-released again on the Wii U's Virtual Console in Japan on June 19, 2013, Europe on March 27, 2014, and in North America on August 6, 2014. In Super Mario Kart the player takes control of one of eight Mario series characters, each with differing capabilities. In single player mode players can race against computer controlled characters in multi-race cups over three difficulty levels. During the races, offensive and speed boosting power-ups can be used to gain an advantage. Alternatively players can race against the clock in a Time Trial mode.
  • Final Fantasy
    5

    Final Fantasy

    3,861 votes
    Final Fantasy is a fantasy role-playing video game created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, developed and first published in Japan by Square in 1987. It is the first game in Square's Final Fantasy series. Originally released for the NES, Final Fantasy was remade for several video game consoles and is frequently packaged with Final Fantasy II in video game collections. The story follows four youths called the Light Warriors, who each carry one of their world's four elemental orbs which have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends. Together, they quest to defeat these evil forces, restore light to the orbs, and save their world. The game received its name as it was believed that it might be the last title Square ever released, as the company was facing bankruptcy. Instead, the game was a great commercial success, received generally positive reviews, and spawned many successful sequels and supplementary titles in the form of the Final Fantasy series. The original is now regarded as one of the most influential and successful role-playing games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, playing a major role in popularizing the genre.
  • Red Dead Redemption
    6
    This game is an open world, western action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles on May 18, 2010. The game, set during the decline of the American Frontier in the year 1911, follows John Marston, a former outlaw whose wife and son are taken hostage by the government in ransom for his services as a bounty hunter.