How to Play Gaming Tournament

Overview

Gaming Tournament is a free online bracket game that settles the debate once and for all: which video game is your all-time favourite? Every session draws 32 games at random from a pool of 66 classics and runs them through a single-elimination tournament. You pick the winner of each matchup based on personal preference — no trivia knowledge required.

The tournament runs across 5 rounds and 31 total picks. At the end, your champion is revealed alongside a ranked Top 5 based on total wins.

Step-by-step guide

1. 1
   Start the tournament

   Click Start Tournament. 32 games are drawn at random from a pool of 66 classics and shuffled into 16 first-round matchups. Each session uses a different random draw, so no two tournaments are the same.
2. 2
   Pick your favourite in each head-to-head

   Two games appear side by side with their cover art, year, genre and studio. Click the one you would rather play. There is no right or wrong answer — this is about personal preference, not trivia knowledge.
3. 3
   Winners advance through 5 rounds

   The game you pick moves on to the next round. The bracket progresses through Round of 32 (16 picks), Round of 16 (8 picks), Quarterfinals (4 picks), Semifinals (2 picks) and finally the Grand Final (1 pick). 31 choices in total.
4. 4
   Crown your champion

   After the Grand Final, the last game standing is your champion — your all-time favourite video game based on pure head-to-head preference. A brief transition screen announces each new round as it begins.
5. 5
   Discover your Top 5

   The results screen shows your personal Top 5, ranked by total wins across all rounds. Your champion won 5 rounds. The runner-up won 4. Games that fell earlier rank by how many rounds they survived before losing.

Bracket structure

Top 5 ranking

After the Grand Final your results show the 5 games that accumulated the most wins across all rounds. The ranking works as follows:

When multiple games share the same win total, they are ranked in the order they were eliminated during the tournament.

The game pool

The 66-game pool covers every major genre from the last three decades: open-world (GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3), action-RPG (Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Sekiro, Cyberpunk 2077), FPS (Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike 2, DOOM Eternal), puzzle (Portal 2, Portal), indie (Hades, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Stardew Valley, Terraria), strategy (Civilization VI, Total War: Warhammer II), survival (The Forest, Subnautica), and more.

Tips for a better result

• Pick the game you would genuinely rather play today — nostalgia and reputation can skew your answers if you let them.
• If a head-to-head feels impossible, imagine you can only keep one of the two games forever and the other disappears. That constraint forces a real answer.
• Try replaying the tournament on different days. Your Top 5 may shift depending on what you have been playing recently — both outcomes are valid.
• The random draw means some difficult matchups appear in Round 1 while easier ones reach the final. This is intentional — it mirrors real tournament seeding and keeps results unpredictable.