With the average gamer spending a staggering 8.45 hours a week playing video games, and gaming being as popular as ever, have you ever wondered about the environmental impact of playing the world’s favourite video games?
Interested to find out more, researchers at MinimumDepositCasinos.org — a certified carbon-neutral company — dug into the data from the gaming platforms Steam and Metacritic to find out which of the top-rated games produce the most CO2.*
The top-rated games fuelling CO2 Emissions:
|
Rank |
Top Rated Games (Metacritic |
Metacritic Score/100 |
Average Time to Complete (hrs) |
CO2 (kg) Production to Complete |
|
1 |
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim |
94 |
125 |
26.85 |
|
2 |
Persona 5 Royal |
95 |
122 |
26.31 |
|
3 |
Baldur's Gate 3 |
96 |
107 |
23.08 |
|
4 |
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion |
94 |
99 |
21.25 |
|
5 |
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn |
95 |
99 |
21.18 |
|
6 |
Elden Ring |
94 |
97 |
20.86 |
|
7 |
The Orange Box |
96 |
79 |
17.06 |
|
8 |
BioShock Infinite |
94 |
56 |
11.94 |
|
9 |
Grand Theft Auto V |
96 |
55 |
11.83 |
|
10 |
Sid Meier's Civilization II |
94 |
53 |
11.36 |
|
11 |
Mass Effect 2 |
94 |
37 |
7.88 |
|
12 |
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut |
97 |
34 |
7.28 |
|
13 |
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City |
94 |
28 |
5.99 |
|
14 |
Quake |
94 |
28 |
5.91 |
|
15 |
Diablo |
94 |
20 |
4.30 |
|
16 |
BioShock |
96 |
17 |
3.62 |
|
17 |
Half-Life 2 |
96 |
16 |
3.44 |
|
18 |
Portal 2 |
95 |
15 |
3.12 |
|
19 |
Half-Life |
96 |
14 |
2.97 |
|
20 |
Grim Fandango |
94 |
12 |
2.47 |
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim dominates in first place, with a lengthy completion time of 125 hours on average, this creates a startling 26.85kg of CO2 per person. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, released in 2011 is a single-player role-playing game (RPG) earning a 94/100 on Metacritic, with critics regarding this dynamic game as utterly brilliant and one of the most captivating RPGs of its generation.
Taking the title for second place is 2022’s Persona 5 Royal with a completion time of 122 hours, subsequently creating 26.31kg of CO2 per player. This Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) that follows Joker and his friends as they juggle school and vigilantism proves popular with critics with a score of 95 out of 100 on Metacritic.
The RPG, Baldur's Gate 3 lands in third place with 107 hours required to complete the game, producing 23.08kg of CO2. Bursting with adventure, magic and intricacies, this game is well-loved with a rating of 95/100 on Metacritic.
Other big names land in the top 20, including the fan favourite Grand Theft Auto V which generates 11.83kg of CO2 in the 55 hours of playtime, placing in 9th.
