Top 20 Best Video Game Openings Of All Time

It launched possibly the greatest superhero video game series of all time, and we were hooked from the beginning. Batman drives the Joker out of Gotham and back to Arkham Asylum in the Batmobile, giving us Gotham’s most famous location like we’d never seen it before. Rocksteady’s outstanding graphics were shown off right away as Batman escorts Joker into the asylum, only for him to promptly break out and get to work executing his master plan: taking over Arkham for himself. The intro was so good they even showed it again during a later fear gas sequence, only this time with Joker in the driver’s seat and Batman reduced to madness.

When the first “Half-Life” released, it was a revolutionary game, not to be outdone until its sequel a few years on. With no explanation, you’re dropped into the shoes of Gordon Freeman, a scientist, riding a tram through a mysterious, underground facility called Black Mesa. It was a marvel at the time just how long this on-rails portion is, transitioning through biomes without going to a loading screen. Like this wasn’t impressive enough, you get to witness the entire plot’s inciting event by accidentally opening a portal to another dimension. Science has no barriers in “Half-Life”, and that’s what this intro taught us. But of course, “Half-Life 2’s” City 17 is almost as iconic.

Some of the best intros are the ones that introduce you to a title’s core gameplay loops and mechanics as quickly as possible, eliminating the need for non-stop tutorials and explanations of complex systems. That’s what “NieR:Automata” did so well, giving players a whistle-stop tour of the different gameplay styles they’ll encounter. And though it’s not the first “NieR” game, it is the first many people played, so it also serves to introduce us to this world and its distinct visual design and race of intelligent androids sworn to protect humanity. It’s a little odd to open with a fighter pilot, bullet hell segment – but hey, it works.

Though it shared a name with an older series, 2017’s “Prey” was so far removed from what it was rebooting that it had a lot of worldbuilding to do. One of “Prey’s” most unique elements is the Looking Glass technology, electronic glass that is indistinguishable from reality. Of course, you don’t know about the Looking Glass when you start playing, which is what makes the revelation that those clear, blue skies you’ve been seeing are wholly artificial so mind-blowing. After shattering the glass to bust out of your apartment, you realize the world you’re living in is a lie; you’re actually on a space station, miles away from Earth, and worse, it’s been overcome by monsters and everybody else is dead.

Greece’s three most powerful gods – Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon – were all saved for the grand finale of “God of War III”, and Poseidon was the very first boss Kratos went toe-to-toe with. This made for an explosive opening segment, with Kratos fighting alongside the Titans to storm Mount Olympus. Poseidon attacks you with barrages of water and is certainly a formidable boss. Kratos still ends up getting thrown from Mount Olympus down into the Underworld, but he’ll have one less deity to defeat when he returns. And before all that, booting the game gives you an insanely good opening credits sequence.

We don’t know anything about the world or John Marston when “Red Dead Redemption” begins. We enter Rockstar’s fictionalized southwest at the turn of the century, with Marston dressed like a lone outlaw in a world quickly being subsumed by the “civilization” of the east. Marston’s being escorted through Blackwater by two government agents, the game’s ultimate villains, and is forced on a train to the last bastion of the Old West: New Austin. Trains are, of course, a hallmark of the western genre, so it makes sense to open with one. While traveling we get to see stunning landscapes and are introduced to the satirical tone of the story through John’s fellow passengers.

We hadn’t seen Leon for seven years by the time “Resident Evil 4” released, and he’d changed a lot in that time; no longer was he the rookie cop and last line of defense in Raccoon City, he’d grown into a slick and stylish government agent. He journeys to a remote, Spanish village to save the president’s kidnapped daughter, but almost immediately is beset by the parasitic, zombified villagers, one of whom is wielding a chainsaw. Though the game had taken the franchise into a new era of action-oriented gameplay, it’s still downright terrifying to experience this for the first time.

Spider-Man has had plenty of games, but Insomniac’s 2018 installment is the best at making us feel not only what it’s like to be Spider-Man, but what it’s like to be Peter Parker as well. The first thing we see is, of course, a spider, and then we get a long camera pan that shows us Peter’s family photos, his suit and gadget designs, and sets up Oscorp. Then Kingpin goes on the loose and it's down to Peter to go after him - while still avoiding paying his rent - and the cutscene seamlessly melts into smooth, web-slinging gameplay. It’s the traversal yet seen in a Spider-Man game, swiftly introducing you to the mechanics and the one-to-one recreation of Marvel’s New York City.

After “InFamous Second Son”, Sucker Punch went on a long hiatus, and it wasn’t clear right away what they were working on. It turned out to be an open-world samurai game in the tradition of classic Kurosawa movies, following one of the last samurais, Jin Sakai, after Tsushima Island is invaded by the Mongol Empire. It’s such a good opening because, despite their fearsome reputation and legacy, the samurai lose the battle and Tsushima succumbs to the Mongolians. It makes Jin’s growth as a character and as a warrior all the more important, as well as establishing the samurais’ unrelenting belief in honor during warfare.

Even in its worst games, “Fallout” has a long tradition of outstanding opening sequences – but “New Vegas” might be the best of the bunch. We get the usual slow zoom-out that was first seen in the original game, but the plot is also established very rapidly. We hear “Blue Moon”, we see the Lucky 38, the whole Las Vegas strip, and we see both NCR and Legion soldiers. Finally, we arrive in Goodsprings, where it turns out we’ve been captured by Matthew Perry in a checkered suit who delivers one of gaming’s most iconic lines. And then he shoots you in the head. In a matter of minutes, you see the technology, setting, key factions, and story. Now that’s a straight flush.

The first “Portal” was great, but it didn’t have much of a story in the end; “Portal 2” changed that by producing one of the best, and funniest, video game narratives of all time, and it all started with this bombastic opening sequence. With Chell kept in stasis for an unknown length of time, she’s finally broken out of her decaying, fake apartment by Wheatley, who pilots the entire apartment and crashes it through a few walls. But perhaps the true opening comes a little later, at the end of the first chapter, when you inadvertently reawaken GLaDOS and she goes about rebooting herself and repairing Aperture Science.

After being asleep for an initially unknown amount of time, Link is awakened in a pool of mysterious, blue liquid. He’s deep in a temple brimming with strange technology, with little guidance on what has happened or how he got there. But eventually, by gathering equipment and studying the temple, Link breaks out, and what follows is a moment you won’t soon forget: the entire vista of the Great Plateau stretches out ahead as the stunning musical score kicks in. You enter a vast, open world you’re almost completely free to explore however you like. In this perfect scene, it’s just Link and the natural beauty of Hyrule.

After “Far Cry 2” tackled African arms dealers during a deadly civil war, “Far Cry 3” sent us to an isolated, Malaysian archipelago ruled by drugs. But at first, it seems like it’s all fun and games – literally. We’re given a montage of a group of college kids having the time of their lives, drinking, partying, and doing extreme sports. However, it’s soon revealed that this is all footage on Jason Brody’s phone, and the whole group has been kidnapped by Vaas who wants to hold them to ransom. We meet one of gaming’s greatest villains and stage a break-out, with lethal consequences, in this tropical hell.

The opening stage of “Super Metroid” is a masterclass in how to build tension and unease in a game, right from the title screen onwards. Samus thinks she’s gotten ahead of the Space Pirates in her study of the Metroids, but upon leaving the innocent Ceres space colony, the Pirates attack. You don’t know this right away, however, and traverse empty, ominous hallways just waiting for something to jump out. Ultimately, something does: Ridley, Samus’s arch-nemesis, stops her just before she recovers the Metroid larva. And yes, he’s just as horrifying as always, and you’ve got to defeat him and then escape before the colony explodes.

The first “Mass Effect” was a relatively uncomplicated story about Shepard becoming the galaxy’s greatest hero. But BioWare flipped that on its head with “Mass Effect 2”, by immediately killing off Shepard in the first five minutes of the game. The Normandy drifts through space only to encounter an intimidating ship, which turns out to belong to the Collectors and possesses extremely advanced weapons. Shepard can’t save everyone, including themselves, seemingly perishing in the void of deep space after helping Joker to safety. It was an unprecedented way to start the second game in a trilogy, and showed that BioWare wasn’t afraid to kill off characters – even if Shepard does return a few minutes later.

The crowning jewel in the entire “Uncharted” series is, without a doubt, the train sequence from the opening of “Uncharted 2”. What a cold open: we see Nate, bleeding extensively from a gutshot, trapped in a train carriage hanging perilously from a snowy clifftop. To make matters worse, the carriage is going to fall into the ravine at any moment. Still suffering from a potentially fatal injury, Nate has to climb out of the train and escape, in what’s easily one of gaming’s greatest set pieces. Even “Drake’s Deception’s” plane crash in the Arabian desert couldn’t top the train.

This franchise has always been at the absolute cutting-edge of graphics, and none more so than “Final Fantasy VII”. The first 3D “Final Fantasy”, it became famous for seamlessly transitioning from cutscenes to gameplay, especially in the opening sequence where Cloud and the rest of Avalanche leave the train. This was extremely impressive back in 1997, as were those charming, early polygons and detailed pre-rendered backgrounds. The entire opening level, with the team infiltrating one of Shinra’s reactors and blowing it up, brought gaming into a new era. And it was just as powerful when recreated for the 2020 remake.

The first new IP from Naughty Dog in a while, “The Last of Us” needed to have an opening powerful enough to launch a new franchise. The game begins with Joel and his twelve-year-old daughter Sarah, the latter of whom has stayed up late to give Joel a birthday present. Later in the night, there’s a breaking news bulletin and a hospital blows up in the distance; the zombie outbreak has begun. “The Last of Us” has, without a doubt, the most heartbreaking intro of any video game, when Sarah is shot and killed by a soldier – despite the fact she and Joel aren’t infected. We only knew her for a short time, but her profound loss remains raw.

It’s 1960 and we’re on a plane doomed to crash into the Atlantic Ocean near an ominous, art deco lighthouse. Built by megalomanic industrialist Andrew Ryan, Ryan’s golden face is the first thing you see when you enter. You find a bathysphere and begin to descend into the ocean while listening to a pre-recorded speech from Ryan about his ideology. But nothing prepares you for the first moment you see Rapture, Manhattan-under-the-sea, in all its decaying, mid-century glory. In the first ten minutes we’ve seen all the game’s core elements: Ryan, the city, splicers, plasmids, and the Little Sisters; Ken Levine wasted absolutely no time and set everything up perfectly.