Timeless Games Turning 25 Years Old in 2025

2000 was an incredible time for video games, both on console and on PC. The Sega Dreamcast had burst onto the scene in North America the previous year after having already established a firm foothold in Japan, and the PlayStation 2 wasn’t far behind. At the same time, PC gamers were set to get either direct sequels or spiritual successors to some of the best and most important games of the late 1990s, with the year’s top releases still standing tall as some of the best games ever released. 25 years later, we’re taking a look at the timeless games that are turning a quarter century old in 2025, all of which are somehow just as fun today as they were back at the dawn of the new millennium.

• Release Date — February 3, 2000
• Developer — Capcom Production Studio 4
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Survival Horror
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Dreamcast

It might not be as groundbreaking as Resident Evil 4, but CODE: Veronica is still a hugely important entry in the Resident Evil franchise. The first game in the series to switch from pre-rendered backgrounds to fully 3D environments, CODE: Veronica was a major visual overhaul of the Resident Evil series at the time of its release, and it had the tried-and-true franchise gameplay to back it up. It’s a bit overly campy and is arguably one of the more difficult Resident Evil games, but CODE: Veronica remains a blast and was undoubtedly one of the Dreamcast’s great exclusives while the console was still active.

• Release Date — February 10, 2000
• Developer — Square Product Development Division 4
• Publisher — Square
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 92% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — PlayStation

25 years later, Yasumi Matsuno’s Vagrant Story still somehow feels ahead of its time, blending real-time dungeon crawling and exploration with a unique and multi-faceted combat system allowing for unprecedented levels of control and customization. Together with its smartly written and darkly mature narrative, Vagrant Story stands as one of the best games on the PS1 from a company that developed a significant number of hits on the console.

• Release Date — April 27, 2000
• Developer — Nintendo EAD
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 95% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Nintendo 64

Instead of letting all the work that went into Ocarina of Time be a one-and-done affair, Nintendo EPD (under the leadership of new Zelda franchise steward Eiji Aonuma) helped craft one of the series’ all-time greatest sequels with The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Majora’s Mask might look like Ocarina of Time and feature similar gameplay elements, but it’s an entirely different and darker experience that has a surprising amount in common with the esoteric and surreal elements of Link’s Awakening. It’s no surprise Majora’s Mask remains many series fans’ favorite game in the series 25 years later.

• Release Date — May 22, 2000
• Developer — Rare
• Publisher — Rare
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 97% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Nintendo 64

Another Nintendo 64 follow-up to arrive in 2000 was Rare’s spiritual successor to GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark. In many ways, Perfect Dark is a far superior game to GoldenEye, especially where its single-player campaign is concerned. Mixing elements of the burgeoning immersive sim genre with standard arcade-style FPS gameplay pulled straight from GoldenEye‘s design template, Perfect Dark is almost Rare’s answer to games like System Shock and Deus Ex, and it remains just as timeless and iconic as those all-important PC entries in the FPS genre.

• Release Date — June 12, 2000
• Developer — Creative Assembly
• Publisher — Electronic Arts, Sold Out, Sega
• Genre — Turn-Based Strategy, Real-Time Tactics
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC

A quarter century later, Creative Assembly still maintains a stranglehold on the style of gameplay it debuted in Shogun: Total War, going on to create an entire franchise utilizing its unique blend of turn-based grand strategy and real-time tactical battles featuring massive armies. At the time of its release, there was nothing quite like Shogun: Total War, and today there’s very little else out there to compare to the rest of the Total War series. Somehow, the first game in the franchise is still many fans’ favorite title, for nostalgia as much as how perfectly it nails its mix of gameplay elements.

• Release Date — June 23, 2000
• Developer — Ion Storm
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive
• Genre — FPS, Immersive Sim
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — PC

Warren Spector is perhaps one of the most important creators to help push the envelope for PC gaming, working first at Looking Glass Studios on groundbreaking titles like System Shock and then going on to helm Thief: The Dark Project before delivering 2000’s Deus Ex. Deus Ex is the culmination of Spector’s work over the previous decade, serving as one of the foundational games of the immersive sim genre and influencing countless titles in its wake (not to mention spawning an entire franchise of excellent games). 25 years later, its blend of FPS gameplay, stealth, and RPG-style character progression and freedom still feels fresh.

• Release Date — June 28, 2000
• Developer — Blizzard North
• Publisher — Blizzard Entertainment
• Genre — ARPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC

The first Diablo was a massive success for Blizzard that helped establish the formula for the modern ARPG, and Diablo II somehow outdid it by every possible metric. For many series fans, Diablo II is still the best game in the series ahead of both Diablo III and Diablo IV, helped in large part by its perfect balance of core classes and the many different ways that players could build them out and keep playing for hundreds of hours in the series’ all-time best endgame loop.

• Release Date — June 29, 2000
• Developer — Smilebit
• Publisher — Sega
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Platformer
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Dreamcast

A few of the more timeless games from 2000 are near-perfect time capsules of the turn of the century, capturing the fashions, style, and music of the era as cultural touchpoints to look back on fondly. Jet Set Radio is just such a game, taking place in a not-too-distant future at the time of its release while simultaneously shining a spotlight on the different underground subcultures of Japan. Jet Set Radio is a fun enough game about skating around Japan and spray painting graffiti, but its visuals, music, and all-around style are arguably the title’s definitive features that cement it as one of the year’s most important releases.

• Release Date — June 29, 2000
• Developer — Capcom
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Fighting
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Dreamcast

If you owned a Dreamcast, chances are either you or a friend had a copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and that’s because it’s easily the greatest 2D fighting game on a console with a library chock-full of them. The original Marvel vs. Capcom was one of the better launch titles to coincide with the Dreamcast’s North American release, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 knocks it out of the park with a better roster, better story mode, 3v3 battles, and an astounding number of unlockables. To this day, the Dreamcast version of the title is still recognized as one of Capcom’s all-time greatest console ports.

• Release Date — September 19, 2000
• Developer — Neversoft
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — Sports
• Review Aggregate Score — 98% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — PlayStation

Unsurprisingly, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on PS1 remains one of the best-reviewed games of all time, beat out only by the review aggregate scores for other timeless classics like SoulCalibur and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Like many other sequels on this list, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 takes the already excellent formula of its predecessor and improves upon it significantly, adding not just new stages and new skaters (as well as a killer new soundtrack), but game-changing new abilities to string combos together like the manual and stance-flip. Tony Hawk games would never be the same after.

• Release Date — September 21, 2000
• Developer — BioWare
• Publisher — Black Isle Studios, Interplay Entertainment
• Genre — CRPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 95% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — PC

BioWare went two-for-two with its work on the Baldur’s Gate franchise, first helping to establish the modern template for the CRPG genre with the first game and then somehow improving upon near-perfection with its sequel, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Baldur’s Gate II arguably has a bit of a better story with more intrigue, but its gameplay is more of what players loved about the original Baldur’s Gate, and it’s the year’s definitive CRPG, even over the excellent Icewind Dale.

• Release Date — October 15, 2000
• Developer — Game Freak
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Genre — RPG, Creature-Collector
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% – Gold (Generally Favorable); 91% – Silver (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — Game Boy Color

2000 would also end up being the year when the Pokémon franchise made its color debut courtesy of Pokémon Gold and Silver. The introduction of color visuals to the series was a major stepping stone for the franchise that helped bring millions of new players on board, and the games themselves were absolutely massive in comparison to Red/Blue/Yellow. It’s no wonder that many fans still consider Gold and Silver to be two of the best games in the franchise, only to be outdone by their later generation remakes on the Nintendo DS.

• Release Date — October 26, 2000
• Developer — Namco
• Publisher — Namco
• Genre — Fighting
• Review Aggregate Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 finally made its North American debut in the fall of 2000 after launching a year prior in Japan, and its slate of launch titles was a “who’s who” of beloved PS1 franchises with next-generation entries to showcase the console’s power. The best of them all was Tekken Tag Tournament, which remained one of the best games in Namco’s popular fighting series until the release of Tekken 7 many years later. The 2v2 matches of Tekken Tag Tournament gave the PS2 one of its best couch co-op games for years, and it was the reason many players (myself included) initially made the jump to get Sony’s next-gen console.

• Release Date — November 7, 2000
• Developer — AM2
• Publisher — Sega
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Simulation
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — Dreamcast

Despite the fact that it’s a game that perhaps bit off more than it could chew, there’s no faulting the ambition and scope of Shenmue. Regardless of how it handles its mix of action-adventure and social sim gameplay, Shenmue is inarguably one of 2000’s most important releases, pushing the envelope forward for immersion in interactive media and helping to establish the gameplay formula that would come to define not just Sega’s Yakuza games, but in many ways inspire the 3D Grand Theft Auto titles.

• Release Date — November 14, 2000
• Developer — Square
• Publisher — Square
• Genre — JRPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — PlayStation

After years away from the franchise, Final Fantasy IX saw the return of series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi to the role of producer, bringing the franchise back to its high fantasy roots for its final entry on the PS1. The result is that Final Fantasy IX feels like both an unearthed classic entry and a love letter to longtime fans of the franchise, delivering everything players love about the series as a whole in a single title. One of the PS1’s best RPGs and arguably the best Final Fantasy game (at least mechanically) on the console, Final Fantasy IX is a series high point that’s celebrating its 25th birthday in just a few months. Fingers crossed we get a remake announcement.