When the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) launched, it was an instant success following some of the legendary Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Nintendo sold out the initial shipment of 300,000 systems within hours, making it one of the best-selling consoles of all time. While not quite as big of a quantum leap as the jump to the N64 would be, the SNES was a technical powerhouse for its time.
The system offered now-classic games and follow-ups to some of the best NES games with Mortal Kombat, Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and, of course, some of the best Mario games. The system brings back fond memories for lots of players, but because it was so long ago, some of our favorites have been lost to time. To highlight some of these missing classics, we have compiled a list of some of the best games the SNES had to offer.
If you’re diving into Nintendo history, you should also check out our round-ups of the best Game Boy Color, best Nintendo 64 games, and best Game Boy Advance games. There are also a lot of great Nintendo titles included in Digital Trends’ ranking of the top 50 best video games of all time.
Few video game series carry the reverence the video game industry holds for the best The Legend of Zelda games. This franchise has been around for almost 30 years and has introduced generations of gamers to fantastic games. It’s one of the most influential series, on par with titles like Super Mario games. There are points to be made for which Zelda game is the best today — many people would argue for a more recent entry, Breath of the Wild — but for a long time, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was the pinnacle of the series and the best game in the SNES’s stellar library. This installment in the Legend of Zelda franchise is a classic because of the outstanding gameplay. A Link to the Past is an incredibly exciting adventure, and it also introduces concepts that you will recognize from other Zelda games, including the Dark World, or the Sages. The story of A Link to the Past influenced the subsequent games in the franchise. The vast lands of Hyrule and the Dark World are jam-packed with secrets to uncover, making for a thrilling playing experience. The game’s secrets and exploration mechanism are memorable. Finding a cave’s entrance was a wildly exciting adventure, allowing you to imagine all the challenges and hidden treasures awaiting you. The dungeons in A Link to the Past are perfect examples of the ones all The Legend of Zelda games are famous for. A Link to the Past dungeons aren’t easy, but they’re fair. Winning the exclusive treasures and weapons deep within them transforms Link from a green-clothed explorer into a formidable warrior. Other video games encourage players to crush their foes, but A Link to the Past manages to provide entertainment and a challenge without promoting needless violence. To win the game, you have to defeat Ganon and all the other villains – but you’ll spend most of the game solving puzzles and unraveling adventures. A Link to the Past delivers a unique experience by focusing on independent exploration rather than simply hunting and killing. Like other games in the Legend of Zelda series, A Link to the Past instills child-like wonder and curiosity while cultivating a deep appreciation of a plot and the power of character.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”