What games are just objective masterpieces?

Portal 2.

There are a lot of answers, mine will be drowned but... there it is. In no particular order :

• Final Fantasy X
• Clair Obscur : Expedition 33
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 (but you had to be there when it came out)
• Metal Gear Solid 3
• Shadow Hearts : Covenant
• Kya : Dark Lineage (the bugs were a feature)
• Horizon : Zero Dawn
• Megaman (any megaman will do)
• Crash Bandicoot Trilogy
• Spyro Trilogy
• Pokemon Yellow/Crystal/Emerald
• Pokemon Jade (yes that bootleg version)
• The Last of Us (pt. I & II)
• Astroneer
• GTA : Vice City
• Unreal Tournament 2004
• CS 1.6 played in the most dirty lan at your disposal
• Control
• Tetris
• Neverwinter Nights 2
• Dragon Age : Origins
• Quake III
• Bomberman

Just out of curiosity, listing the games mentioned here as of this writing by their date of release:

RDR2. Witcher 3. Fallout New Vegas.

• Portal 1/2 of course.
• Grim Fandango. (Flawed yes, but absolutely a masterpiece)
• Psychonauts.
• Fallout New Vegas.
• System Shock (the original).
• The Longest Journey.
• Mass Effect. Maybe.

Okay, now do it all on a bell curve.

What's the most absolute medium game, to which all other games are compared to, and if worse, fail, or are better and pass?

What's left of edith finch.

Such an amazing game. Absolute masterpiece.

• Chrono Trigger
• Disco Elysium
• Sekiro
• Zelda Ocarina of Time
• Bioshock
• Portal
• Half Life
• Nier Automata
• Tetris

Flawed Masterpieces

• Minecraft (surprising)
• Dragon age Origins
• Team Fortress 2
• Fallout New Vegas
• Dark Souls
• Every Baldur's Gate

Masterpiece in my heart: Terraria

Katamari Damacy. It has a reputation for being silly Japanese nonsense, but the gameplay is brilliant, the graphics are timeless, the soundtrack is incredible, and it has some surprising thematic depth.

Immersive sims: Prey, Dishonored, Deus Ex

Story-driven: The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Halo, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted, HL2, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Splinter Shock, The Walking Dead

Platformer: Braid, Ori and the Blind Forest, Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Limbo

Action/roguelike: Bastion, Hades

RPG: Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect

Puzzle: Lumines, Puzzle Quest, World of Goo, You Must Build a Boat, Reigns, Threes, Meteos

Other: Desert Golfing

Metro 2033. Played it in the dark with good surround sound headphones on, and it's positively claustrophobic.

Last Light is good too, but at little too optimistic IMHO. 2033 nails that endless pit of despair feeling, with just enough lucky breaks that you might make it through.

Holy shit somehow no one has mentioned:

Nier Automata

It counts as a masterpiece because of how well it blends game design, gameplay and story. I have played very few games as thoughtful, or that weaved the gameplay together into the story it was telling in such a meaningful way. I never thought once in my life that I would think philosophically about bullet hell but somehow Nier Automata has something profound to say and even manages to say it using bullet hell as a gameplay mechanic.

On top of all this, it also has a lot to say about classical philosophers, their works, and honestly deeply subverts things they had to say. It asks tough questions about their thoughts and ideas, once again, through gameplay. Numerous characters are named for classical philosophers: Pascal, Jean-Paul, Simone, Engels, Immanuel... (Yoko Taro obviously has feelings about how Jean-Paul Sartre treated Simone de Beauvoir.)

Further, Yoko Taro is doing something that a lot of game developers fail to manage to do: He is embracing gaming as a storytelling medium and eschewing the traditional three-act arc from film. Because gaming is not film. As Marshall McLuhan posited, "the medium is the message" and unlike other developers Taro's writing is aimed at the medium he is working in instead of leaning on the ropes and tropes of other mediums. (Referring back to above, tying the gameplay into the story, focusing on the medium)

It's basically impossible to not break down into tears at the ending.

Don't write it off because of the scantily clad anime women. Stay for the depth of the human condition. It is truly a masterwork in multiple respects.

How come no one has mentioned “Life is strange” yet? Also, “A plague tale”.

SOMA was great

My Picks...

Deus Ex (So many games try to be this and fail)

Cyberpunk (This one eventually measured up)

Alpha Centauri (Innovation mixed with familiarity and setting)

Fallout 2 (they're all good. Fallout 2 is special)

Kotor (Star Wars story telling in a beautiful way)

Baldur's Gate 2 and 3 (I'm stunned that 3 was a worthy successor)

Homeworld (One of the World's truly beautiful games)

Supergiant games' holy trinity: Bastion, Transistor and Pyre.

Also, the only Borderland games 1 and 2; don't believe the lies there are no more true Borderlands games and no there most certainly is no movie.

There's also one other, but you'll need a crowbar or a gravity gun in hand for me to tell you about it.

Journey

There is not a single word in the game, barely any control but the game take you through an emotional story.

It's multiplayer in a sense that you might meet another player, they can help you, you can help them or just continue on your path and despite not having any words it just fell like a genuine, pure connection with someone.

And the music is amazing.

Team Fortress 2

The best teamshooter game to date, endless copy cats that suck ass.

Games I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• Fez - cute little 2D/3D platformer. It's amazing and very wholesome
• Stalker: Shadow of Chenrobyl - dunno what exactly is it, perhaps the settings and the grit, but it has a special place in my heart. It's about average FPS, but not too long and for me enjoyable
• F.E.A.R. - very good FPS, with amazingly scripted enemies, decent horror elements (not compulsory - you might miss some of them if you're not looking).
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - for me the best 3rd person action adventure ever. Best combat hands down (or head, or torso, you choose), streamlined blade dance at your fingertips. You play with your enemies, and you get many tools. There are some locked camera issues.
• Touhou: Lost branch of time - If you liked Slay the Spire, but wished for colorful mana, this is the game for you. It has anime artstyle, I usually focus on the cards, though it might turn some people off
• Dota 2 - Dunno if it was mentioned and I didn't see, but the mechanics are absolutely amazing, the things the game lets you get away with are incredible. 10/10, but other people might bring your experience down. Specially friends. Can play against custom (workshop) bots. Still takes too long to git gud. I studied the game for 10 years and still sucked.
• Divinity 2: Original Sin - also haven't seen a mention, everybody talks about BG3, I haven't yet played it, but D2:OS was also a masterpiece. Haven't played a lot of TRPGs, this was a blast, with easily set up multiplayer. Played through it twice completely, with many abandoned runs.
• CS 1.6 - remember that? I lost my childhood to that. They don't make counter strikes this good anymore.
• Synthetik - top-down rougelike shooter, with amazing weapons and physics and classes and enemies and mechanics and 2 person multiplayer
• Dwarf Fortress - the real objectively best game :D strategy simulation of the 3D box world, predecesor to both Minecraft and Terraria, but with A LOT more sand in your box. They are still extending it. And it's on Steam if you want a UI.
• Terraria (Calamity mod) - Terraria is obviously a great game, but what makes it 20/10 is the mods. Calamity specifically. Tripple the content, 5x the difficulty (20x if you try Infernum), amazing multiplayer experience. Don't install Infernum if you haven't beaten at least Revengeance on Calamity. Trust me, it will fuck you up.
• Yakuza 0 - how could I forget about this masterpiece? Story done absolutely right, that game had no business making me feel so strongly about it. Cool combat, very funny moments, but I cried during it. If you haven't tried it, check it out. You won't regret it.
• OpenTTD - Trains. Do you like to create and manage big rail systems? This is for you. And your friends. Only noobs use planes. Only psychos use boats. Nobody uses only vehicles.

We'll see how much is recency bias and how well it will stand the test of time, but I really think Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will be on this list going forward. It's definitely one of the best games I've ever played, and I've played a lot of games. It's not perfect, but it's close enough in all the parts that actually matter.

Otherwise there's your usual suspects:

• Disco Elysium
• Portal
• Half-Life 2
• Bioshock 1
• Final Fantasy VI
• Chrono Trigger
• Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Last of Us
• Baldur's Gate 2

Curious to hear what the criteria for "masterpiece" is, otherwise I think it is just peoples' subjective opinion of what makes a great game that they also think others might agree about being a great game. Genuinely curious, interested in discussion, not saying this to shut down any of the answers here.

Nethack

Inside.

Well, none because favorites are super subjective, but I'll shout out my favorites because no one else did:

1. The Wonderful 101
2. Bayonetta
3. Ninja Gaiden II
4. God Hand
5. Viewtiful Joe
6. Catherine
7. Gravity Rush
8. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R
9. Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
10. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
11. Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion
12. Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi

Chromehounds was the greatest mech game on shitbox 360 and you can't change my mind.

The sheer variety in player created metas was glorious to behold. Sure, you could play how the game encouraged you to play and hang your weapons in "normal" configurations. But you could also bury whole teams in indirect fire with a triple double from across the map. You could build a little punchy boi buggy with a dick piston, cockpit, wheels, and nothing else. You could even try to sweat the meta in the chicken leg howitzer or the turtle up in the armored crab.

The only limits were creativity and spacer availability lmfaooo

I think Bioshock 1, Inscryption, Portal 1 & 2(I believe that 2 wouldn't be so loved if we didn't already love 1, I like to think of them as a set), Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil, Nier Automata, and Okami.

Is disco Elysium the one with all the talking? Like multiple books worth of text? No thanks

Btw how is RDR2 not on the list?

The Spyro the dragon trilogy for me is just an absolute masterpiece.

Final Fantasy VII, IX and X are three master pieces

Metroid prime and fusion

Fatal Frame trilogy on the PlayStation 2, Forbidden Siren, Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 2 are amongst the best of the best

For me it's Journey. That game gave me an emotional experience I've never had in any other.

Zelda Breath of the wild for me. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom but breath of the wild scratched a perfect itch for me. Especially master mode. Well over 1000 hours played.

I'm going to take this as "games that I never see anyone question their quality." (I don't even like all these games myself)

• Sonic 3 & Knuckles
• Kirby Planet Robobot
• Doom 2016
• Street Fighter III: Third Strike
• Pac-Man
• Balatro
• Steins;Gate
• The House in Fata Morgana
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
• Gran Turismo 4
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Mega Man X
• Mega Man X4
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Hollow Knight
• Bloodborne
• Elden Ring
• Balder's Gate 3