Shadow of the Colossus

Fumito Ueda, Kenji Kaido, and Team Ico's transcendent, emotional minimalist action-adventure masterpiece on the PlayStation 2, released in October 2005, winning Game of the Year at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards and holding a 91/100 on Metacritic, widely celebrated as the single most compelling evidence of video games as high art, following young wanderer Wander riding his faithful horse Agro across the desolate, forbidden Ancient Land to strike a tragic pact with the entity Dormin to resurrect a maiden named Mono, eliminating all standard towns, dungeons, and minor enemies to focus exclusively on finding and scaling 16 colossal divine beasts (Colossi) as living, breathing climbing puzzles, pioneering procedural fur shading, physical grip stamina climbing, and Kow Otani's awe-inspiring symphonic score.