12 Most Influential Action Video Games Of The 2000s, Ranked

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The influence of action games made in the early 2000s is still felt to this day, and with good reason. The 2000s was an era of experimentation, and many franchises found their main voice during this landmark decade. Action is always about pushing the envelope of spectacle, and that’s exactly what these video games did.

These games and many more would set the standards for the industry. Several of them, such as , became best-selling video games in their own right. While there’s no way to cover every single influential game made during the period, these titles stand out and have more than earned their place in gaming history for the influence they've had over subsequent video games.

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Superhero games were notoriously rocky until Rocksteady was able to finally do the genre some justice with. The game follows Batman as he escorts the Joker, his arch-nemesis, to the asylum after the Joker orchestrates a mass breakout from Gotham's Blackgate Prison. Once inside, the Joker takes control of the asylum and Batman must navigate the treacherous facility, facing off against the Joker and his gang of intelligent villains.

The biggest influence that had on the games industry is its “Freeflow Combat” system. This standardized many melee-based action games in the coming decade, such as the likes of and. On a more minor scale, it also influenced the spread of “Detective Mode” in several stealth-based video games.

is a third-person shooter series that takes place on the planet Sera. The story follows Marcus Fenix and his team, Delta Squad, as they fight against the Locust Horde, a race of underground-dwelling creatures who emerge and threaten humanity.

While it doesn’t make any huge