Alongside Flash Games, Io Games were a staple of school computer gaming. I used to grind plenty of these games in school and also at home. The glory days of most of these games have long passed, so i wanna look back and rate these games based off of how i remember them and how they are in their current state. Im not giving a numerical rating i'm just putting them in a tier list.

Now without further ado, lets start with the game that started the category, Agar.Io

Agar.io, while not being the first .io game (Cursors.io was first), it was the game that popularized the genre. It was created by the same dev of diep.io and florr.io (M28) and it includes all the core io characteristics. It's easy to understand, has online multiplayer and you can start a game instantly. Everyone has played this game, and because this game started it all it must mean that i also like it.. right?

Sorry but man this game is boring as hell. The gameplay just never feels right. When you get big you're slow as molasses and it just becomes realllly boring. I'd rather play most other io games that came after it. Also this game really got shittier by the day. The main menu is cluttered and i'm pretty sure almost everyone i encountered today were bots. Oh well

Final Ranking: D tier

Slither.io

Slither.io is the most popular .io game, and for good reason. It has a similar premise as Agar, eat blobs and grow bigger. The difference is that in Slither the pace is way faster and small snakes can actually kill big snakes if they position right which gives for plenty of hype moments and aura. Killing a massive snake by quickly jolting to its head was like a drug to 8 year old me.Trapping a small snake was also lots of fun. I remember lots of youtubers playing this one and i always used ytber skins in this game. Also was i the only one who never understood wtf the map in the corner meant?

Final Ranking: B Tier

Diep.io

Now... M28's next game was the shit. Diep.io is wayy more complex than either. It has 4 tiers of tank upgrades, plenty of tanks, plenty of gamemodes (with bosses and other mechanics). Trying out different tanks and different combinations of upgrades in this game is fun and makes this game very replayable. Even today it is still quality fun, I haven't even seen any bots in this game and the community is still active. There's also a fanmade version of this game called Arras.io with alot more tanks and upgrades.

(I was a destroyer/annhilator guy, but i sometimes went the factory tanks. If you chose booster DNI and get out now) (/j)

Final Ranking: S tier!

Mope.io

Mope.io was also a fairly popular .io game. It was based on Agar but its pretty hard to find the inspiration now. You're an animal who needs to climb up the ranks to apex by eating food and other animals who rank below you. When i started playing there were 3 biomes: Land, Arctic and Ocean. My main biome was Ocean because it was full of food and pretty easy to rank up to apex. When you get apex you can 1v1 people by trying to bite their tale. I was playing on mobile and i was trash at 1v1's so i always liked the game more pre-apex tier.

The problem with this game was the amount of dumb drama. It's been like 6 years so i've forgotten most of the drama but the development of this game really sucked. After adding desert i dont think they've done a good update. They completely changed the art style and also added in-game currency which are both unnecessary. Playing the game now, it's decent but just filled with bloat (btw i just noticed they added a new tier in land, which is ok i guess)

Final Ranking: C tier

MooMoo.io

This game is a base builder/PVP game. I'm pretty sure this game is supposed to be a base builder... but the PVP aspect just looms over the game. Holy fucking shit this game is toxic. The anti-cheat basically didnt work and i just got fed up with this game. When i was grinding it i always got killed by some script kiddy doing 25 inputs a second. The sad thing is that this game could actually be good if the community wasnt so fucking toxic and if every other player wasnt a script kiddie/hacker. There is a video by Corrupt X which talks about the problems of this game. Although viewing it now he seems way too angry about this game he still brings up good points of how this game declined.

Final Ranking: Doodoo F tier

Bonk.io

Going from one extreme to the next, Bonk.io is in my opinion THE most underrated io game and also the best. I never see people talk about this game when they talk about io games which i feel is a crime. The game is pretty simple. You use your momentum to bounce people off to the death zone. Press X to harden and be sturdier, in other modes you can press Z to shoot an arrow or use your grapple. The thing that makes this game so fun is the level editor, it's the perfect amount of complex/simple, which meant that even i could understand it. It also has in game lobbies and a friend system which i dont see any other io game do. I have a ton of nostalgia of just playing death arrows while chatting about nonsensical stuff with a bunch of preteen strangers. Also funfact this game was the first time I used the name 'palep' online, palep isn't the i use the most online i just use it for this site so that this site could remain slightly anonymous. Second fun fact this name came from the name of my rowlet in pokemon sun.

The playercount of this game did decline a bit but you can still find quickplay lobbies so i dont consider it dead. Also the dev of this game recently launched a new game: Hitbox.io . It seems fun but doesnt have too many players right now.

Final Ranking: S tier!

Florr.io

Last but uh.. not least but not like the best? It's florr.io! Also created by M28, It's one of the games of all time. But seriously this game was hard to rate. Mostly because it changed into 3 different games in its lifetime. I started playing this game close to launch after seeing promo of it on diep.io. Its first state was a pvp game where you could unlock different petals from mobs and players. The goal of the game was to get the rarest petals/rack up the most kills. I found this version of the game the most fun, i even joined the discord server at a way too young of an age. But a few years later florr.io get remade. Now you had to defend agaisnt waves in a team. This mode was still fun, but i liked pvp florr more. After that it was quickly changed again into this dungeon mode where you craft petals and have to go deeper. Sorry but they just made it way too complex now, also why tf would i craft petals when i could just get them by playing before? I feel like the dev couldnt chose what game they wanted, they shouldve just kept pvp florr and made dungeon florr a seperate game.

Final Ranking: C Tier

This is the full tierlist, obviously i havent talked about every game on there. I made a Tiermaker template for you to use because i couldnt find a good one online

I find the decline of io games sad because there hasnt really been a successor. Io games were the successor of Flash games but i dont really know what school kids play today. Just random games off of poki or crazygames? I've found good games on there but most of the games are just corporate/ai slop. Hopefully a new trend comes along thats actually good