10 Great Adventure Video Games You Haven't Played
Video games have dozens of genres for fans to enjoy, but one of the most popular is adventure. After all, there are few things players love more than setting out on grand journeys to conquer a great foe or simply explore a fascinating world. Titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 highlight this genre, but plenty of other masterpieces are among the first games fans think about when imagining an adventure.
Adventures are supposed to be memorable, which is why these popular games are so well known, but a world lies in wait that gamers haven't touched. That is why this list will highlight ten great adventure video games that you likely haven’t played. Based on aspects such as obscurity compared to quality, originality, sense of adventure, design, gameplay, entertainment value, and overall quality, all of these games should now be on your wishlist.
‘Shadow of Memories’ (2001)
A good adventure takes a lot of aspects, including mystery, which is why a game like Shadow of Memories is so good. Set in a fictitious German town, Eike is given a strange device after being stabbed to death, which allows him to travel through time to prevent his murder. However, it isn’t so simple, with him needing to go between different historical eras to alter events involving the townspeople and his ancestors.
Time loops are a popular genre in games now, but when Shadow of Memories came out, it was a novel idea that was handled perfectly. Despite being on the best-selling video game console of all time, it was overshadowed by other games. Still, Shadow of Memories is a fascinating adventure game that follows a time-sprawling journey where each choice is interconnected and forces the player to alter history.
‘Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’ (2014)
Nintendo releases more games than most companies, and the majority of them are popular, but some fall through the cracks, such as Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Playing as Toad, gamers must navigate through miniature 3D puzzles to recover the stolen artifacts in them. Equipped with a backpack, Toad can’t jump and needs to maneuver through the obstacles by only walking.
Compared to the rest of the games on this list, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is rather popular, but as a Nintendo game, it is underplayed. This title may seem simple, but it offers a variety of creative and stimulating puzzles that create a joyous adventure. The spatial mechanics and rotating puzzle worlds build one of the most creative adventure experiences that also happens to be an underrated Nintendo video game.
‘Gemini Rue’ (2011)
Adventures can come in many shapes and sizes, including point-and-click adventures, a popular sub-genre of the 1990s that still exists today, albeit less popular. Gemini Rue follows a former assassin known as Azriel, who searches a rain-slicked sci-fi world in order to find his missing brother. At the same time, an amnesiac escapes a high-tech facility before his mind is fully erased, with these two stories bound to collide at some point.
The indie point-and-click genre is one of the most underrated and underplayed nowadays, which is why this list will feature a handful of them. Gemini Rue is a gorgeous dark sci-fi adventure that sadly flew under the radar. The moody pixel art complements the fantastic narrative, which intertwines the two storylines to create an intriguing sci-fi noir that fans won’t want to miss out on.
‘Primordia’ (2012)
Following Gemini Rue is another point-and-click adventure, this time set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland devoid of humans. Primordia is about a lonely robot named Horatio and his floating sidekick as they hunt down their stolen power core. This adventure takes them into a crashed ship in the desert, a mechanical city, and everywhere else across this captivating world.
For fans wary of point-and-click adventures, Primordia is an absolute must-play. It boasts impressive worldbuilding and unique lore, such as the robots worshipping the extinct human race as ancient deities. Besides that, it also boasts magnificent art that works perfectly with its dialogue, which allows for complex moral choices and multiple endings based on your philosophical alignment. All these strengths work together to cement Primardia as a classic 2010s video game that deserves more recognition.
‘Off-Peak’ (2015)
Some of the greatest adventure games that fans have never heard of offer experiences that are decidedly out of the ordinary, and one of the most bizarre is Off-Peak. Taking place in an otherworldly, cathedral-like train station in the near future, gamers must locate the pieces of their ticket, but along the way, they encounter surreal inhabitants of the station.
Off-Peak isn’t a conventional video game; instead, it subverts traditional tropes in favor of an avant-garde style that makes for one hell of an adventure. The whole thing feels like a fever dream, with striking, mesmerizing visuals but an overall atmosphere that can be abstract ot a fault. But hey, at least it is atmospheric, blending jazz music with unique environments and an unforgettable style.
‘Rain’ (2013)
Adventures are full of ups, downs, drama, comedy, mystery, and everything in between, including horror. Rain is about a ghost boy who chases a mysterious girl around the night, only to learn he is invisible to everything. Hunted down by spectral creatures, the only way they or the players can see them is if the rain hits the character.
The PlayStation 3 was home to some masterpieces, and Rain was sadly buried under them due to being a digital-only title. The horror elements don’t get in the way of the dazzling adventure and tension, which creates an atmospheric, melancholic, stealthy, and puzzle-like quest that shows why it is a video game that needs a remake. Today, Rain is that much more of an outlier, a singular experience that is effortlessly creative and memorable.
‘Ctrl Alt Ego’ (2022)
This list has featured a mix of modern and classic games, and one of the newest titles that fans should play is Ctrl Alt Ego. Gamers awaken as a disembodied ego on an abandoned space station, which is able to transit your consciousness into parts of the station and its robots. Players must use this to explore the area and learn what happened to the crew.
Ctrl Alt Ego is an adventure game, but its brilliance lies in its ability to act as a system-driven immersive sim. In retrospect, it may have been too niche for mainstream audiences, but the emergent possibilities and problem-solving through an intriguing system establish it as a complex and misunderstood masterpiece. Ctrl Alt Ego is fun to toy with, allowing gamers to dictate where the adventure goes.
‘The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’ (2014)
Players may or may not have played these games listed, but the point is that they need more recognition, including The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Paul is a detective, and his current case is investigating the disappearance of a young boy. Using his supernatural powers, players need to recreate the timeline to understand the dark truth behind the murder.
It may not be an open-world video game, but The Vanishing of Ethan Carter shines through its environmental narrative. As a walking simulator, some may lose the sense of adventure, but the game will draw players back through its respect for their abilities. It doesn’t hold hands, simply letting you put together the melancholic mystery by intuition and deduction. The result is a masterfully mysterious and satisfying adventure.
‘Chants of Sennaar’ (2023)
It may not be a true point-and-click game, but Chants of Sennaar is still a remarkable adventure video game. As a traveller, gamers need to ascend a massive tower where factions of people reside. On each layer, fans must translate the glyphs to learn the language and reunite the fractured factions into one society.
Chants of Sennaar is a critically acclaimed masterpiece, but despite that, it isn’t as popular as it should rightfully be. It isn’t a typical adventure; it doesn't settle for a straightforward narrative. Instead, the linguistic logic and puzzles are more stimulating, engaging, and demanding than most average games. Fascinating, unique, and compelling, Chants of Sennaar is all about exploration and deduction through language.
‘The Neverhood’ (1996)
Back to the point-and-click adventure games, The Neverhood is arguably the most unique adventure on this list. Klaymen wakes up in a surreal world where he needs to solve puzzles to uncover his origins and defeat the evil entity ruling this place. By collecting the shattered disks, he reveals the history of the world and the overall universe.
Graphics are an important part of games, but hyper-realism can get boring after a while, and The Neverhood is the perfect breath of fresh air, with it being entirely stop-motion claymation that was painstakingly crafted. Not only is it stunning to look at, but the puzzles match its whimsical vibe. The Neverhood is an overlooked masterpiece and a one-of-a-kind video game that fans will never forget if they play it.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.