• Journey
• Shadow Of The Colossus
• Shenmue 1
• Half-Life 1 & 2

One that comes to mind is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

• Street Fighter II - Not the first fighting game, but the one that kicked off a massive cultural phenomenon, and defined so much of the format that every fighting game since has taken influence from.

• Puyo Puyo Tsu - Although this game never got a chance to shine in the west, in Japan this game was just as influential to the puzzle game genre as Street Fighter II was to fighting games. I often describe Puyo 1 as the Street Fighter 1 of puzzle games, but I think you could make a case for whether 1 or Tsu really belongs in the museum, since 1 was plenty popular at release and did inspire other puzzlers even before Tsu hit the scene. However, Tsu is the game that really established puzzle games as a serious competitive genre, with large tournaments being held all the way back then.

• Beatmania - The original vertical scrolling rhythm game. Could include either the original, one of the first editions of IIDX, or even a current cabinet.

• Dance Dance Revolution - While Beatmania gets credit for being the first, and for being plenty popular in Japan, DDR is what popularized the genre in overseas markets. And for good reason, it's equally notable for not being played with typical inputs.

• Rogue - The thing that a whole bunch of other games are like. Except now most of the games we say are like this, aren't really like this at all...

• Like every major Nintendo game - fuck it not even gonna list them all

All of them.

Terraria, a monument to indie games and the craft itself, gave tons of free content and still does, unlike the popular pay for expansion models on a half finished buggy game of their contemporaries

Also Journey and Flower for different reasons

Limbo.

I really like the atmosphere. They created so much with such an minimalistic graphic style.

Factorio.

I don't know where to start. Overall a great example that some people like to optimize and put way more effort into this game than their job. Zeitgeist?

Tomb Raider.

RDR2

Everything 1Upsmanship puts on their "Celestial Hard Drive".

Or, Minecraft.

Shadow of the Colossus is the first that comes to mind. I'd probably toss in Final Fantasy VII, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and DOTA 2 because I'm addicted to it

Doom, Minecraft and Touhou

for a more "traditional paint" like experience, Gris is just gorgeous to look at

E.T. for Atari

Black and White

My then-girlfriend-now-wife and I went to a temporary video game exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image. A lot of the mainstays you'd expect were there, particularly from the arcade era, including ground-breaking titles like Dragon's Lair (which is fascinatingly beautiful and a bad video game at the same time). At one point, one of the signs mentioned moving on from vector graphics, which my wife had no idea what that meant, so I immediately looked around for an Asteroids machine. You don't really get how one of those games looks unless you're playing on the genuine article. That's the kind of thing that probably ought to be in a museum most.

I recently went to Galloping Ghost in Illinois, which is now the world's largest arcade. It's got nearly every arcade game you can think of, and they do a good job fixing them up. They have an F-Zero AX machine. I've always wanted to play one of those. I went to Galloping Ghost two years in a row, and it was broken both times. Turns out they're having trouble sourcing the displays. As you go around the place, most machines are working, but even only a year later, more of them had display problems. I imagine even just getting regular old CRTs is going to make this kind of thing way harder as time goes on, and a good CRT does affect how these old games look, because they were designed for them. This is the kind of burden I'd expect a museum to take on.

For me, it has got to be tetris. It is still thriving, even today. Anyone can understand the base concept and play it : it's simple and enjoyable, anywhen. Plus, it runs on remotely anything.

There is video game museums already:

https://www.computerspielemuseum.de/en/43-Homepage.htm

Dwarf Fortress is, in fact, in a museum.

Dwarf fortress

I think the better question is what about games deserves to be in a general history museum? The advent and changes of technology and the implementation is far more important than the examples of it in use. There are very few games on their own that would qualify as "culturally impactful" to the greater world by their sheer existence. (Mario, Pokemon, and Tetris immediately come to mind).

If we are talking about a "video game museum/exhibit" then the list broadens a lot, but it's less about the "what" and more the "why" that needs focused.

Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, Sega Rally, Unreal and also Unreal Tournament

Assuming a single game, Minecraft. It should be a kids museum style where you can build things. You can make each room a different biome or structure.

Half Life Dead Space Minecraft Terraria Stardew Valley Uhhh...how do you do line breaks in comments? This looks like trash.

Anthem

(For history purpose, just like there are museums for the Holocaust or the WTC)

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

Also what’s the game in the screenshot?

Ocarina