LittleBigPlanet

The adorable Sackboy and his world stitched together from fabric, cardboard, and found objects brought a unique platformer to the PS3, built on the philosophy of Play, Create, Share. Players make their way through a charming campaign full of physics-based puzzles, but the real magic lies in the elaborate level editor, which lets you build almost anything, from simple jumping sections to complex game mechanisms, and share them with the online community. Levels play out across several layers of depth that Sackboy hops between, and his movement is deliberately soft and wobbly, since everything in the world obeys physics, giving the platforming an offbeat, slightly unreliable charm. The campaign can also be played with up to four players at once, and a number of secret areas are unreachable without cooperation.

Media Molecule, a small British studio at the time, created a title that defined the idea of games as a creative platform and foreshadowed later phenomena like Minecraft or Dreams. The visual style, combining fabric, wood, and paper, felt fresh and cozy, accompanied by playful narrator Stephen Fry and a licensed soundtrack spanning everything from world music to electronica. The game won numerous awards and became one of the pillars of the early exclusive PlayStation Network lineup.

LittleBigPlanet showcased the power of community content on consoles and inspired Sony to build an entire brand around Sackboy, including merchandise and later sequels. For many players it was proof that the PS3 could host not only technically demanding exclusives but also warm, creative experiences accessible to the whole family. Community levels soon surpassed a million creations, and Sony had to invest in expanding its server infrastructure to handle the flood of shared content, showing just how powerfully user-generated content can extend a single game's lifespan for years. Media Molecule built on this experience in its later projects as well.