The Last of Us Tops the 100 Greatest Games List — A Ranking That Won't Publish Its Yardstick

The day a top-100 list of the greatest games in history was published by a major US games outlet, the number one spot went to The Last of Us. Within an hour, the comment section had split into two camps: one calling it the cinema of gaming, the other calling it the safest pick a voting panel could possibly make. Almost nobody argued that The Last of Us is a big game. They argued about something the editorial team never published: the yardstick.

I re-read the whole list that night, and what stopped me was not the number one spot but how the piece told its story. The controversy came first. The ranking came second. A table was built to start an argument, and then people argued for real.

Kinda Funny Games, a US games outlet with a large following, published a list of the 100 greatest games of all time. The Last of Us — developed by Naughty Dog, released in 2026 — took first place; The Last of Us Part II also made the list. The community split into three camps: those defending the first game on story and historical impact, those arguing the sequel is superior on combat systems, and a third group arguing that a mechanics-first title such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice deserved a higher spot because it wins on design rather than script.

The piece acknowledges all three camps. But the evidence for a “wave of controversy” consists of lines such as “one player said” and “many people believe”. No platform, no count, no timeframe. The only quantitative data in the entire article is the rank itself — 1 out of 100. No sales, no completion rate, no methodology. The piece also frames industry history as a ladder “from Pong to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” — a game released in 2026. Using a 2026 release as the endpoint of history and then declaring a 2026 game the peak is a familiar and heavily biased way of writing canon.

In my own work I have written a great deal about VAR. The millimetre offside line turns the referee into the match's editor: he no longer judges, he chooses which frame to judge from. Rankings operate the same way. When the editorial team publishes no weighting — how much for story, how much for systems, how much for historical impact, how much for popularity — every position can be read through any yardstick at all. The defenders talk about legacy. The critics talk about mechanical depth. They are not arguing with each other; they are grading two different exams. A ranking that hides its weighting is an op-ed wearing the clothes of a spreadsheet.

The second device is subtler. The piece notes that even its critics concede The Last of Us is “one of the most outstanding games in history”. That sounds fair, but it is how a minority opinion is converted into near-consensus: concede the weaker claim to entrench the stronger one. I have seen this exact construction in esports GOAT debates — “everyone admits this player is a legend, but...”. The first clause clears the road; the second is what is actually being sold. In sport we call that building a line. In journalism we call it an emotional frame.

The only thing in the article still usable a month from now is the “safe versus ambitious” pairing: the first game perfected a proven formula, the second experimented and hurt itself. That pairing transfers directly to esports. One team wins with a verified meta; another wins with something nobody has read yet. Fans reward the second with praise and the first with trophies. Rankings do the opposite: they put the safe one on top.

Game canon works the way leagues work their academies. The visible — a stunning debut, a cutscene clipped for social — is always rewarded faster than the invisible: systems, balance, the durability of a mechanic. In football, clubs pay for a famous striker faster than for a grassroots coaching course, even though the course pays off over ten years. In games, a cinematically staged title reaches the top of a list faster than a systems-deep one, even though the systems are what people still play a decade later.

The article's appendix contains one thing worth logging, and worth only logging: the esports headlines attached to it. The LCK is said to have doubled its viewership after six years of franchising; GAM Esports appears as a VCT Pacific 2027 partner; LOUD returns to VCT Champions 2026; MLBB Vietnam is mentioned for its potential global competitiveness. Four lines, no figures, no sources, no dates. For someone hosting a sports podcast in the US, that is a verification queue, not evidence. But if the LCK number holds up, it becomes the strongest argument yet for franchising in any region weighing the end of promotion and relegation.

Based on my own experience covering matches and rankings, I keep one rule: a ranking that will not state its yardstick is measuring engagement, not quality.

Here is where I could be wrong. It is possible the outlet did publish its criteria in another video, and the write-up simply did not repeat them — in which case my criticism targets an article, not a panel. It is also possible I am applying the wrong standard: I work in competitive sport and read a single-player canon with box-score eyes, while this is a product with no opponent, no meta, no patch. And the controversy may be milder than the piece describes; with a 100-title list, noise is the default state rather than an event.

Có những trận cầu không nằm trên sân cỏ, mà nằm sâu trong lòng người — some matches are played not on grass but deep inside people. A ranking's comment section is one of them. In 2026, on my blog “Hiệp Ba”, a male commentator mocked me for an unpopular argument about Chicago Fire. I did not delete the post; I cross-checked Opta data and rewrote it. Chicago Fire taught me that football always knows how to trample the script.

A testable prediction: within 30 days another “greatest of all time” list will appear, and it too will publish no weighting. If I am wrong, send me the criteria table. If I am right, the worrying part is not that The Last of Us finished first. The worrying part is that we have grown used to grading things when nobody will say what is being graded — in games, and in sport. I set out to write about a games ranking in order to write about football, and it turned out I was writing about myself.