8 Games That Radically Changed How You See The World
These breathtaking video games changed your life.
It's probably fair to say that the majority of people primarily play video games to have fun and blow off some steam, but of course, many video games are so much more than junky, disposable entertainment.
Games can say a lot about the world around us, and in unique circumstances, they can even have a profound effect on how we view it, even changing our perspective entirely.
This is the triumph of great art, to expand our horizons and affect us in a positive way, making us more empathetic and open-minded, but of course, it's rare for any game to hit quite so hard.
And so the games that do manage to break through, then, tend to be totally unforgettable.
We may not play them very often precisely because of the impact they made, but they've forever changed how we live our lives.
From games that invite players to think critically about politics, to those that helped many process grief, and ones that even made us all better people, these video games left us all reconsidering the way we live our lives and our place in the universe...
8. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
It's truly staggering how well Metal Gear Solid 2 has aged over the last almost quarter-century.
Far from a merely well-oiled stealth-action sequel, Sons of Liberty is a shockingly ahead of its time slice of pop-fiction.
As a meditation on the flow of information and technology's role in making "truth" increasingly difficult to discern, Sons of Liberty basically feels like it predicted the nature of modern, algorithm-driven social media years in advance.
But on a broader level, Metal Gear Solid 2 also inspired an entire generation of young players to take a more active interest in the history and politics that define their very existence, while considering their lives through a more philosophical lens.
Sons of Liberty certainly left many confounded upon release, but it also broke new ground for a medium whose storytelling wasn't commonly held in a high regard in 2001.
For young players just starting to think about the wider world in a deep way, Sons of Liberty felt like being woken up from the Matrix.