Collider highlights ten influential science-fiction games it considers “blueprints” for later titles, judging them by innovation, design, gameplay, storytelling, popularity and critical reception. The article argues that major games rarely innovate in isolation, instead building on earlier successes that established enduring genre conventions.

– Space Invaders (1978): credited with helping define arcade hits, alien-invasion games and escalating difficulty.
– Mass Effect 2 (2010): presented as a benchmark space opera for its branching narrative, detailed worldbuilding and large-scale storytelling.