Honestly, I think I'm gonna need another four or five years until I figure out which game to call GotD for 2010-2019. There's just so many excellent contenders!
Breath of the Wild revolutionized Zelda and open world games. It's physics and game engine inspire endless improvisation.
Mass Effect 2 was just peak Bioware, before EA ruined them. Sadly I don't think we'll get another Bioware game as good as that. Sometimes really damned good game genres die out because of changes in the industry. For example: We'll never see another modern multi-million dollar turn based Final Fantasy in the vein of FF7-9 again, because Square changed over the years. Sure we get good turn based JRPGs like Octopath, but Square will never again pour tens of millions into an epic turn based RPG. Another good example of this is how the collectathon platformer almost went extinct after N64 was replaced with Gamecube.
Dark Souls didn't bring new ideas to the table. That was Demon Souls. It just refined them to perfection, cementing the Souls-Like genre.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was peak 3D Mario IMO. Odyssey comes pretty close, but Galaxy 2 is a much longer game. It also has Yoshi!
Odyssey, because it's a Mario game with a what amounts to a billion power ups!
God of War for those little boat stories, and the way that damned lake was just so explorable.
The Last of Us for the storytelling, and the first game to really, really push graphics like never before this decade.
Witcher 3 for having a story that can be taken in so many damned directions depending on what you did in the first two games. That and for pushing graphics to the limit this gen. This is still the game that I think most people should use to test their new PC rigs with!
Mario Kart 8 because it had the best tracks, and was just plain the best refinement of the series in 30 years.
The entire Xenoblade series because Monolithsoft is the king of making the explorable, yet confusing landscape that you can just get lost in.
Fire Emblem Awakening for saving the series. Three Houses for keeping things amazing.
Poke'mon X/Y for bringing the series to 3D, introducing Mega forms (which had a huge impact on the meta), and having an excellent (for its time) online feature.
Etrian Odyssey IV for bringing the niche series to full 3D, and combining the best of Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, and Turn Based Combat. Seriously! Play this game you guys!
Hollow Knight because it's basically Super Metroid on crack, with Souls-Like elements, it's own hand drawn art style, and the most interesting, charming world in any game ever.
Horizon Zero Dawn because it took so many good ideas from other games and merged them perfectly.
Monster Hunter World for modernizing the series, and going multiplatform.
Into the Breach because it captured the idea of fending off giant monsters with mechs so damned well. Punch this one bug, to push it into another bug that is just barely alive killing both! Artillery strike this one tile to push the four bugs around it so they wind up falling into the sea, hitting each other, or blocking other bugs from spawning.
Splatoon series because it injected life and new ideas into the stale as hell shooter genre.
Civ 6 Gathering Storm because if you are running it with quick combat on, and with a new Ryzen CPU turns don't take time anymore! The loyalty system from Brave New World solves the city spam problem from past games too. Now, if only the AI would be updated past caveman levels.
Smash Ultimate for being the Ultimate Smash game? :D
Neir Automata, and Undertale for shattering that 4th wall and showing us what game narratives can really do!
Sekiro, because the combat is on a whole other level compared to other Hack n' Slash games.
Stardew Valley for perfecting the farming sim.
Sonic Mania for finally bringing Sonic back to his full 2D glory days, and then taking it even further with so many damned good ideas!
Then there's all the games that I haven't quite had a chance to sink my teeth into this decade, but I heavily suspect are awesome. Persona 5, Ys series, Trails of Cold Steel Series, Yakuza 0, Minecraft, Divinity 2, Dragon Quest XI, RE2 Remake, Bloodborne, Owlboy, and quite a few that I'm forgetting at the moment.
In hindsight the 2010's were clearly one of the best decades for gaming. The indie scene really took off leading to a lot of innovation, as well as resurrection of older genres. The power of the 8th generation of game consoles really let developers do new things, but it mostly came down to having all these big open worlds with almost no loading screens. This decade spawned the Switch, which will probably go down in many people's minds as the best Nintendo console.
Sure, we did get MTX, GaaS, pathetic overpriced DLC, this decade, but looking back that all seems like something not worth worrying about. Like all of that is pointless forgettable bickering when set next to the amazing experiences all the good devs gave us this gen.
