Despite making a big splash upon release, some games really haven't aged all that well. There are a select few, however, that are truly timeless and remain just as enjoyable today as they were when they were first released. Naturally, many publishers seek to capitalize on this, either by remaking or remastering their games or simply re-releasing them on newer, more powerful hardware as the years go by.
Although buying what is often the same game multiple times isn't for everybody, many see it as an easy and convenient way to enjoy classic titles without having to rummage around for their old consoles and cables. These days, it's a fairly common practice, with many games appearing across two different console generations. Though a lot less common, some even have physical releases across three.
10 Skyrim
Many consider Skyrim to be the very best of the Elder Scrolls games and it's difficult to argue too much with that assessment. It's one of the most engrossing video games ever made, with hundreds of hours' worth of content crammed into it. With the right mods, this can easily turn into thousands.
The game was first released for seventh-generation consoles in November 2011 and received a PS4 and Xbox One release just shy of five years later. The release of SkyrimAnniversary Edition will mark a full decade of Skyrim and will come exactly one decade on from the game's original debut.
9 Grand Theft Auto 5
In the 12 years between 1997 and 2009, Rockstar developed six mainline GTA titles, four sizable expansion packs, and four spinoff titles for handheld devices. In the 12 years since, however, the studio has put out only one Grand Theft Auto game. To say that the developer seems keen to milk every drop of profit out of the series' most recent installment would therefore seem like something of an understatement.
Grand Theft Auto V was first released for seventh-generation consoles in September of 2013 and received PS4 and Xbox One versions the following year. It will make the leap to ninth-generation systems on November 11, 2021, which, interestingly, is the exact same date that the Skyrim Anniversary Edition will be dropping for the PS5 and Xbox Series platforms.
8 FIFA 14
Though GTA V and Skyrim are perhaps the most notable examples of games that have been released for three different console generations, they are far from the first to do so. FIFA 14 isn't either, but it did beat the pair by an entire generation thanks to EA's decision to continue supporting the PS2 long after the system was discontinued in the states.
Given that the PlayStation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all time and remains popular in some countries even to this day, it's easy to understand why FIFA 14 was released for the system as well as the PS3 and PS4. As a result of its availability, the game went on to become one of the best-selling FIFA games ever, with more than 17 million units sold.
7 Just Dance 2017
EA isn't the only publisher that continued to release one of its franchises on a discontinued system. Ubisoft did the exact same thing with its Just Dance games, with 19 of them releasing for the Nintendo Wii in the decade between 2009 and 2019; the last of which was Just Dance 2020.
Three of those games, Just Dance 2017, Just Dance 2018, and Just Dance 2019, were released simultaneously for the Wii, the Wii U, and the Switch. Interestingly, it wasn't the lack of a Wii release that brought this impressive run to an end, but instead Ubisoft's decision not to release Just Dance 2020 for the Wii U despite it being a newer platform.
6 Pokemon Red & Blue
Franchises like FIFA and Just Dance are often criticized due to their annual entries being largely the same. Somehow though, the Pokemon series has for the most part managed to escape this criticism despite each of the mainline entries being released in near-identical pairs. This has been going on for more than a quarter of a century now since the Game Boy releases of Pokemon Red & Green.
The games were first released in Japan in February 1996 before making their way west as Red & Blue just a few years later. An updated version, Pokemon Yellow, was released for the Game Boy Color the following year. Since then, the games have been remade twice, resulting in FireRed & LeafGreen for the Game Boy Advance and Let's Go! Eevee & Pikachu for the Switch.
5 Street Fighter 2
While on the subject of updated versions, Capcom's hugely influential fighting game, Street Fighter 2 definitely deserves a mention. Since hitting arcades in 1991, the game has been updated on no less than five occasions, with the latest resulting in 2017's Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers for the Nintendo Switch.
The first console release of Street Fighter 2 came a quarter of a century earlier, with the game first making its way to the SNES in 1992. Since then, it's been ported to systems belonging to every subsequent console generation, albeit as part of collections in recent years. The game even received a Brazil-exclusive Sega Master System port in 1997, making it one of only a handful of games to be ported to a previous generation console in the years following its release.
4 Chrono Trigger
The Super Nintendo release of Street Fighter 2 helped to cement the console's place as the home of fighting games. It was the home of a lot of other genres too though, including platformers, adventure games, and, perhaps most notably, RPGs. The SNES boasted an amazing library of role-playing games, but the pick of the bunch was arguably Chrono Trigger.
Square's epic time-travel adventure was released for the system in 1995, though has since been ported to a number of other platforms. A PlayStation port was released in 1999 and a DS version came later in 2008. The PlayStation port was even bundled with another great JRPG in Final Fantasy IV; which, along with Final Fantasy V & VI, has also been released across three different console generations (SNES, PS1 & GBA).
3 Final Fantasy XIV
After the first ten mainline Final Fantasy games, Square Enix decided to try something a little different with Final Fantasy XI. Rather than a single-player offline experience, the game took the form of an MMORPG and ended up being a huge hit in Asia. Eight years later, the developer followed this up with Final Fantasy XIV, which, after a rocky launch, remains popular to this day and continues to receive regular updates and expansions.
Though PC players make up the lion's share of the game's total player base, there are plenty of people playing Final Fantasy XIV on console as well. This is because the game was also released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013, the PlayStation 4 in 2014, and, most recently, the PlayStation 5 in early 2021.
2 Dragon Quest X
Though many consider Final Fantasy to be the largest jewel in the Square Enix crown, there's an argument to be made that the Dragon Quest series is every bit as big. Granted, it took a little longer to really take off in the west, but the role that the series played in the development and refinement of the JRPG genre was just as important.
With that in mind, it came as little surprise when the series got its own MMORPG in the form of Dragon Quest X. Sadly, however, the game was never released in the west, with its Wii, Wii U, and Switch ports never leaving Japan. An offline version is currently in development though, so a western release is still possible, albeit a little unlikely.
1 Resident Evil 4
Though rereleases, remasters, and remakes are incredibly common these days, that hasn't always been the case. Unless one's talking about the Resident Evil franchise, that is, in which case it's been pretty standard ever since the series made its debut in the mid-to-late-nineties. Most mainline installments now have versions spanning multiple console generations, but none more so than Resident Evil 4.
The game was first released as a GameCube exclusive in early 2005, though, by the end of the year, had already been ported to the PlayStation 2. It was later released for the next two generations of PlayStation consoles and, among other things, has also received ports for the Wii and the Switch.