Sweden selects 15 games representing country's cultural treasure, including Minecraft, It Takes Two, and Ground Control

Dataspelsbranschen, Sweden’s video game trade association, has published a list of domestic titles important for the country’s cultural heritage.

Minecraft (left), It Takes Two (right)

As Dataspelsbranschen explained on its website, an expert jury has selected 15 Sweden games from several hundred titles nominated by the public. They will be added to the country’s “cultural canon.”

“Games should be an obvious part of culture but are missing from most cultural policy documents,” the association stated.

The full list, which includes games from various genres and platforms, can be seen below:

• Stugan (1978 / 1986) — text-based adventure game developed by Kimmo Eriksson, Viggo Kann, and Olle E Johansson;
• BackPacker (1995) — world travel quiz game made by TATI Mixedia;
• Europa Universalis (2000) — classic grand strategy game by Paradox Interactive, which marked the beginning of one of the company’s major franchises;
• Ground Control (2000) — real-time strategy game, which put Massive Entertainment on the map;
• Battlefield 1942 (2002) — the first title in the Battlefield series, which set the main course for DICE for years to come;
• Amnesia – The Dark Descent (2010) — horror adventure game developed by indie studio Frictional Games;
• Minecraft (2011) — sandbox game originally created by Swedish programmer and designer Markus Persson and considered the best-selling video game of all time;
• Toca Tea Party (2011) — children’s mobile game for iPad developed by Swedish studio Toca Boca;
• Candy Crush Saga (2012) — King’s classic match-3 title, which is also one of the highest-grossing mobile games of all time;
• Star Stable Online (2012) — horse-themed MMORPG where players explore the world, do quests, take care of horses, and compete in races;
• Goat Simulator (2014) — game that started out as a meme, but eventually turned into one of the most successful projects in Coffee Stain’s portfolio;
• The Battle of Polytopia (2016) — 4X strategy game from indie studio Midjiwan, which combines stylized low poly graphics with deep mechanics;
• Budget Cuts (2018) — indie VR stealth game developed by Neat Corporation;
• Sayonara Wild Hearts (2019) — award-winning rhythm game created by indie studio Simogo;
• It Takes Two (2021) — hit co-op game from Josef Fares and his Hazelight Studio with over 16 million copies sold globally.

“The games have had an impact over time, are created by both men and women, for both adults and children,” Dataspelsbranschen said. “Our ambition with this list is for it to raise the bar, increase knowledge about games, and be relevant and accessible. These are all games that have been created independently, and the IPs have made their breakthrough as games.”

The organization may expand the list with more games in the future. Among the most obvious candidates are Valheim (may be added after its 1.0 launch) and Helldivers 2.