I’m a huge fan of Sci-Fi. Yet somehow, I’d not realized until recently what a huge portion of video games fall squarely within the genre. Looking at the biggies of 2010, we’ve got Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach, Vanquish, Limbo, Super Street Fighter 4, Mass Effect 2, and God of War 3, all of which are some flavor of science fiction. There’s also Rock Band 3 and Civilization 5 which are not science fiction, and Red Dead Redemption (which although I haven’t played it, doesn’t seem like sci-fi) but it really does seem like the sci-fi games outnumber those that aren’t.

If we look at game genres, so many of them have a strong sci-fi tilt. FPS games can be military shooters such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, or ArmA, but so many more are Halo, Crysis, Resistance, TF2, Half-Life, Monday Night Combat, FEAR,or STALKER. Role-playing games and MMO games are even more strongly typed to sci-fi – I can’t think of a single one that doesn’t have some fantastical element. Horror games and god games seem to have the supernatural inherent in their types, and even adventure games are more sci-fi than not. I also cannot think of one platformer without some manner of sci-fi.

RTS games, casual games, fighting games, and stealth games are a mix, but for every Company of Heroes, Diner Dash, Virtua Fighter, or Splinter Cell, I’ll give you three Starcraft, Plants vs Zombies, Marvel vs Capcom, or Thief games.

The sports and racing genres seem to be the only ones that have more realism than fantasy, and even they are not entirely devoid of Blood Bowl or Mariokart games, which feature orc linebackers and sentient mushrooms.

Maybe the sci-fi/video game connection was obvious to you, but I’d never previously put much thought into it.