History museum The Strong Museum has announced its annual World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists, with twelve games duking it out to be inducted into the prestigious annals of gaming history.
As ever, you can vote for your favorites on The Strong’s official website. Voting is open between March 14th and March 21st, with the final inductees into the Hall of Fame being revealed in May.
Previous years’ inductees have included games like StarCraft and Animal Crossing, and finalists have included Candy Crush Saga, Sid Meier’s Civilization, and Half-Life, among many others.
Here’s the full list of this year’s finalists.
- Elite
- Guitar Hero
- Myst
- Resident Evil
- Tokimeki Memorial (Japan-only dating sim series published by Konami)
- SimCity
- Metroid
- You Don’t Know Jack
- Asteroids
- Neopets
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
- Ultima
As you can see, it’s a pretty diverse list, and one that includes a series that’s never seen an official Western translation in the form of Tokimeki Memorial (although a fan translation patch for the SNES version was released in 2022).
This also isn’t the first time a few of these games have been shortlisted for the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Myst appeared in the 2017 and 2019 lists, for instance, and Metroid made an appearance in 2018’s list.
The criteria on which The Strong urges you to vote are as follows: “status, longevity, discovery, and innovation”. It’s important to keep those categories in mind when voting.
The three games with the highest total of public votes will join three submissions from “members of the International Selection Advisory Committee”, with the public acting as a single member of said committee.
Every year since 2017, four games have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, but in 2015 and 2016, five games were introduced to its hallowed halls. Will there be four, five, or more this year? You’ll have to wait until May 9th to find out.
