8 Adventure Games That Are Amazing From Start to Finish
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Adventure games do something no other medium can. A movie can show you a new world. A book can describe one. But an adventure game drops you straight into it and hands you the wheel.
You're the one exploring the world, piecing together the clues, solving puzzles, and taking down enemies. And that is why the thrill of the action is much higher. The discoveries are so much more rewarding. The emotions of the story hit so much harder. Because you're in control the entire time. So, if you're on the lookout for games that deliver that experience, here are 8 adventure games that are absolutely amazing from start to finish.
8 'Mixtape' (2026)
Mixtape is basically an ode to childhood in game form. The game follows three high school friends, Stacy, Cass, and Slater, on their final night together in a suburban town before Stacy moves away to New York. You get to reminisce with them and slowly get to know the trio through a series of playable vignettes that bring their teenage escapades to life. One minute, you're escaping the cops in a shopping cart, and the next, you're toilet-papering a teacher's house.
And all of it is coupled with hyper-stylized, colorful, dreamlike musical sequences (hence the title) that build toward a genuinely bittersweet goodbye to being a kid. The gameplay itself is pretty barebones, and Mixtape feels more like an interactive movie than a traditional video game. But honestly, that's part of the charm. It’s a game anyone can play, and if you've ever found yourself aching for your teenage years, Mixtape scratches that itch in a way a movie or TV show simply can't because you're right there with the characters, vicariously reliving childhood all over again.
7 'Uncharted 4: A Thief's End' (2016)
Uncharted is arguably the definitive adventure game series, following treasure hunter Nathan Drake across the globe as he uncovers lost cities and mythical artifacts while dodging bullets from rival mercenaries. And so far, the fourth entry is the biggest and best the series has ever put out. This time around, a retired Nate gets pulled back into a life of crime and danger by his long-lost brother Sam to track down Captain Henry Avery's legendary pirate treasure.
The game takes you from Madagascar to Italy and then straight into mythical territory like Shambhala and the island paradise of Libertalia. Along the way, you get high-stakes heist missions, semi-open-world drives across the lush plains of Madagascar, cinematic high-speed chases, and puzzle-solving that has you using your own wits to decipher zodiac symbols and Roman numerals etched into prison walls. It has everything you could possibly want in an adventure game.
6 'God of War' (2018)
God of War brought the Ghost of Sparta to modern consoles as a much older, wearier Kratos, now trying to bury his bloody past and teach his son to become a better man than he ever was. That peaceful life doesn't last long, though, because Kratos is suddenly attacked in his home by Baldur, a Norse god. And this kicks off an epic saga where Kratos once again finds himself at war with gods, except this time his son is fighting right beside him.
After three mainline games built around Greek mythology, 2018’s God of War shifted to Norse mythology, which had become very popular with the MCU. The game brought in iconic characters like Thor and Odin, along with the rest of the Norse gods, but with the much darker, bloodier God of War treatment. The combat got a huge overhaul as well, with the Leviathan Axe replacing Kratos' iconic Blades of Chaos as the main weapon. And damn, that axe is addictive. Throwing it at enemies and calling it straight back into your hand never gets old, and it very much feels like a AAA Thor game we never got.
5 'The Last of Us' (2013)
Set 20 years after a mutated Cordyceps fungus turned most of humanity into zombies, The Last of Us drops players into a post-apocalyptic world reclaimed by nature, where civilization has mostly collapsed, and the surviving humans are often more dangerous than the flesh-eating monsters roaming the streets. Ellie is a 14-year-old who’s infected but somehow immune, which makes her humanity's only real shot at finding a cure. And Joel is a hardened survivor tasked with smuggling her out of a military quarantine zone and across the country, setting the two off on an odyssey that will change both of their lives.
This game is an emotional rollercoaster. It'll make you laugh out loud. It'll scare the absolute shit out of you. But more than anything, it'll make you cry. Over and over and over again. The heart of the entire game is the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Joel starts the game seeing Ellie as mere cargo, but by the end, she's his daughter in everything but name, and he'd burn the world down to keep her safe. If you're a parent, some of it might hit especially close to home. But even if you're not, The Last of Us somehow makes you feel that blinding, almost irrational kind of love that exists between a parent and their child, and it’s a very different kind of feeling than you’ve ever felt before.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.
⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)
💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)
⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)
🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)
01
What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.
02
How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.
03
What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.
04
How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.
05
Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.
06
What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.
07
What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.
08
What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.
Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you would be having within a week.
Harry Potter
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within about five minutes and has never stopped.
- This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every single person in your life would be.
- The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you do with things you love.
- The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the arguments are about to start all over again.
Lord of the Rings
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
- This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
- Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all, which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
- Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make that argument.
Star Wars
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
- Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly 1980 with no sign of resolution.
- The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
- You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good time.
Star Trek
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
- The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
- Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
- You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you will always find somebody willing to have it.
4 'Life is Strange' (2015)
Life is Strange follows 18-year-old photography student Max Caulfield, who has recently returned to her hometown to attend Blackwell Academy. However, her life takes a surreal turn when she discovers that she can rewind time, a power she first uses to save her childhood best friend, Chloe, from being shot. The two reconnect after years apart and start using Max’s powers to look into the disappearance of a fellow student, but they soon uncover a mystery that seems to stretch far beyond one missing girl.
It feels a lot like the early seasons of Riverdale, with all the small-town secrets, missing-person mystery, and high-school drama. And it also shares a lot of that same nostalgic, coming-of-age energy that Mixtape has. But Life is Strange did it first, and it did it with an incredible indie soundtrack and a genre-bending story that basically perfected the episodic format for games going forward.
3 'Marvel’s Spider-Man' (2018)
If the Arkham games are the definitive superhero games for DC, Spider-Man is that game for Marvel. It became the gold standard for modern open-world superhero games, and even its own sequels have struggled to reach the same heights. The story follows Peter Parker in his eighth year as Spider-Man, struggling to balance his superhero duties with classic Peter Parker problems like overdue rent, his day job as a research assistant for Dr. Otto Octavius, and girl troubles. Meanwhile, he's also got to take down a new gang called the Inner Demons that's popped up in NYC, led by the mysterious Mr. Negative.
The web-swinging is incredible, and it genuinely feels like you're slinging through the skyline of New York. The combat takes inspiration from the Arkham games but adds its own Spider-Man twist, featuring a mix of martial arts, web-shooters, iconic Spidey gadgets, and cinematic takedowns. You can throw objects at enemies, stick them to walls, launch them into the air, use gadgets to take them down stealthily, or use the environment to create your own ridiculous combos. It begins as a fun superhero joyride, letting you enjoy every second of being Spider-Man. But by the end, it makes you feel the weight of the mask and understand that great power really does come with great responsibility.
2 'Detroit: Become Human' (2018)
Set in 2038, Detroit: Become Human imagines a world where human-like androids have become a normal part of everyday life. They work as housekeepers, caregivers, factory workers, and just about everything else, and out-of-work humans resent them for it. But then something strange starts happening. Some androids begin breaking through their programming and developing free will. You play as three different protagonists caught on opposite sides of this conflict. Kara is a household android who becomes sentient while trying to protect a young girl from her abusive father. Markus is a caretaker android who becomes the leader of the android revolution and fights for android rights. And Connor is an advanced police prototype sent to investigate and hunt down the very androids who are beginning to rebel.
There isn't really a single protagonist or a fixed path through the story. You can play as Markus while he leads the revolution, then immediately switch to Connor as he tries to hunt those same androids down. That makes for a very brutal gaming experience, especially when you realize that the choices you make with one character can directly affect another. The game reportedly has up to 85 different endings, and every main character can die at various points depending on your decisions.
1 'Red Dead Redemption 2' (2018)
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a tragic epic set in 1899, following outlaw Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang as they try to survive the death of the Wild West. The game begins as an outlaw adventure, but a major turning point changes Arthur's perspective on everything, and it becomes a much more introspective story of redemption as Arthur tries to make amends for the life he's lived. It's widely considered the best story Rockstar has ever told.
With this game, Rockstar built an open world so detailed that you can do almost anything you can think of. You can hunt animals and craft goods out of them, solve cryptic clues hidden in monuments and hollow trees to dig up gold bars, or just spend your time playing poker, blackjack, dominoes, and fishing. You can wander into the swamps at night and run into the creepy Night Folk, search the mountains for UFOs, have ghost encounters, plan high-stakes train heists, or sneak into isolated homesteads to loot valuables. It remains the most detailed open-world game to date, and you can follow the main story or put the missions aside and see where your own adventure takes you.
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