Adventure Games that Shaped Modern Gaming More than You Realized

The call to adventure is one that both English majors and gamers are familiar with. It’s the moment in a story where the hero says “Yes” to the journey in front of them, when they leave the comfort of familiarity behind for a new life and way of being. There’s really not much of a difference between the moments in either medium. But, I would say that adventure games can give you more of a chance to tell your tale your way rather than guide you on rails.

These games aren’t doing much adventuring these days.

Other times, though, the narrative is set, and it’s more about figuring out how you’re going to get from Point A to Point B. Regardless of what style of narrative format you’re a fan of though, there are a number of games that have helped lay out the path that many of your favorite adventure titles have followed.

Whether you’re a fan of action-driven adventure games or prefer something more akin to an interactive novel, there are so many games that have helped influence the design choices and structure of our modern smorgasbord of adventure titles.

10

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Objection!

First introduced to US audiences in the early 2000s, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney put players in the shiny loafers of the titular defense lawyer and sent you about the business of finding clues and evidence to exonerate your clients. It requires attention to detail and the ability to ask the right kind of questions.

It was also one of the first times that a visual novel-style adventure game had a mainstream impact on an American audience. The Phoenix Wright series has gone on to spawn a number of direct sequels and spin-off series since its first game and is still a beloved franchise with a number of devout fans to this day.

9

Far Cry 3

Tropic Thunder

While I was a huge fan of the first two games in the series, I feel like Far Cry 3 was where what I call the “Ubisoft style” formula of open-world adventure games really hit its perfect form. FC3 had so much to do and so many ways to do it. For instance, you could sneak into an enemy camp, let a tiger out of its cage, and just watch chaos unfold. You could also get into a fist fight with a shark if you felt so inclined.

Far Cry 3 is also where the series started putting more of a focus on its narratives and creating extreme, bombastic lead villains that have become its mainstay. While the Ubisoft style of adventure games may feel a bit stale at this point, its influence on open-world adventure games remains consistent.

8

Red Dead Redemption 2

True Grit

Sure, it’s RockStar, people sort of expect large-scale epics from their games. However, Red Dead Redemption 2’s massive scale both in terms of story and the huge world map gave folks the ultimate wild west fantasy. Whether you just want to ride your horse around hunting wild animals in the wilderness or become a train-robbing bandit, adventure awaits in RDR2.

And just like with other modern games from the company, the online world allows players to carve out their own adventures beyond those that were scripted for them. The game helped set the bar for the last gen of open-world adventure games.

7

Assassin’s Creed

Sneaky Sneaking

There’s a unique blend of historical fiction and stealth gameplay that makes the original Assassin’s Creed such a game-changer for adventure games. In particular, all the climbing and parkour abilities that players used to scale buildings and leap out of nowhere to take out their targets were revolutionary at the game’s launch.

Assassin’s Creed has gone on to tweak and expand its gameplay as the series progresses. And while I personally think it’s gotten away from the type of gameplay that made it successful in the first place, many of its sequels have been amazing. Now if they’d just bring back Desmond…

6

Myst

First-Person Puzzling

While rudimentary by today’s standards, when it launched, Myst was a visual revolution as well as one of the most popular puzzle adventure games ever made. The game is a prime example of environmental, point-and-click style puzzle solving that captivated players by drawing them into the island’s surreal world.

It was a game with no enemies and no real threat of danger that gave way to a new casual adventure revolution. In particular, it helped modernize PC gaming among folks that would not classify themselves as gamers. It also spawned a number of would-be clones that were trying to catch lightning in a bottle a second time.

5

The Secret of Monkey Island

A Pirate’s Life

In the early ’90s, Lucasfilm Games was home to a number of amazing point-and-click adventure titles. It was a bit of a renaissance for the genre, and The Secret of Monkey Island was at the forefront of that. Helping Guybrush Threepwood on his quest to become a pirate was one part puzzle solving and one part humorous interactive novel.

Games with Layered Storytelling Baldur's Gate 3 Devotion What Remains of Edith Finch Bloodborne

Linear storytelling is overrated.

The first game is particularly important because of two particular people who worked on it: Dave Grossman, who would go on to be key to TellTale Game’s success, and Tim Schafer, who went on to create games like Grim Fandango and founded Double Fine Productions.

4

Metroid

A Genre Defining Classic

An early example of open-world adventure games came in the 8-bit form of Nintendo’s Metroid. Players had to explore and discover power-ups like the iconic morphball in order to navigate Samus Aran around planet Zebes. It was a game that let players tell their own adventure through gameplay while it slowly guided them by locking certain areas behind special abilities you’d need to find first.

Metroid would go on to help spawn an entire genre of adventure games known as Metroidvanias. There are so many incredible games that wouldn’t exist today without the specific influence of the Metroid series, making it one heck of an influential title.

3

Grand Theft Auto 3

Breaking Car Windows and Boundaries

I can’t lie to you, as a fan of the first two games, the first time I played Grand Theft Auto 3, I was disappointed that it had gone third-person. Of course, that spite quickly turned to admiration as I learned about everything the game had to offer. There just weren’t games that let you run around stealing cars and getting into shootouts with the cops for fun in between missions.

Today, GTA 3’s influence is apparent in just about every open-world action-adventure game to come out since the PS2 era of gaming. It really is one of the most influential games to ever come out on any platform and is still insanely popular. Just ask anybody trying to launch a game around the same time as GTA 6.

2

The Walking Dead

Better than the TV Show

TellTale’s adventure games have always had a focus on narrative experiences, but The Walking Dead: Season 1 gave their games something that they’d never really had before: Emotional gravitas. The relationship between Lee and his surrogate daughter Clemetine as they tried to survive a world of zombies hungry for their brains had many gamers reaching for the tissue box to dry their tears by the end of it all.

While TellTale had made a number of compelling titles before The Walking Dead, this one skyrocketed their signature style to a whole new level. It helped usher in a new golden era of point-and-click adventure games, and fans were eating well for quite some time afterward.

1

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Where the Wind Takes You

Much like the original Zelda, the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild lets you loose in a massive open-world and wishes you luck on your journey. As you travel and grow, you also discover more about the game, its rules, and how you can break and bend them to your will. Whether it’s learning to cook, getting a horse, or increasing your stamina, BotW makes you earn it all through trial, error, and patience.

There’s so much to do and see in BotW that it’s kind of ridiculous. And it’s caused a massive shift in modern open-world fantasy adventure game design as many devs try to create experiences with as much depth and attention to detail. Unfortunately for them, the only game that’s done it just as well since is Tears of the Kingdom.