Quake and GoldenEye Among 2025’s World Video Game Hall of Fame Inductees

It’s like a flashback to my childhood—four old school video games just got the thumbs up from the World Video Game Hall of Fame. I know, right? I didn’t even know there was such a Hall of Fame for these things until now. But yep, The Strong National Museum of Play broke the news on Thursday, and I kind of geeked out a bit.

Here are the lucky ones: Defender, that addictive shooter by Williams Electronics; GoldenEye 007, Rare’s magical journey to making a whole generation obsessed with spies; Quake by id Software, because apparently blowing things up in a virtual world never gets old; and then there’s Tamagotchi. The digital pet thing was honestly the bane and joy of my existence growing up. Remember trying to keep that little creature alive while your teacher wasn’t looking? No? Just me?

So, here’s the deal: these games beat out some serious contenders from the 2025 nominees list. Talking heavy-hitters like Age of Empires and Call of Duty 4. I’m kind of surprised Angry Birds didn’t make it. Have you ever tried getting a three-star score on every level? I thought it was a spiritual journey or something.

The Strong folks say these winners aren’t just games but part of our culture. They look at this stuff with four big questions in mind: Is it iconic? Did it stick around? Did it travel the globe? And does it have that massive influence thing going on? Quake, by the way, is the second game from id Software to make it in. Doom got in back in 2015. Do I still scream silently when a demon attacks out of nowhere? Possibly.

Anyway, the committee’s all hyped about the impact of this year’s fab four. And I get it—each of these games etched some weirdly nostalgic, pixelated engravings on our brains. Since 2015, they’ve been adding to this hall of fame, piece by piece. Last year was all about Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, Ultima, and SimCity. Feels like a walk down memory lane, but with a lot less cartridge blowing—if you know what I mean.