Best adventure games

The adventure genre is wide. Classic point-and-click adventures, such as The Secret of Monkey Island, focus on dialogue, humour and item puzzles, and they can be played slowly without any need for fast reactions. Open-world action adventures, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, give players a huge landscape and the freedom to approach it in almost any order. Sandbox games, such as Minecraft, turn adventure into creation: you explore, gather materials and build whatever you imagine, alone or with friends.

For each game we list the developer, the year of first release and the main platforms when we are certain of them. We explain what you actually do in the game, who it suits, and what might frustrate some players. Ratings are our own editorial view. We do not sell or host these commercial video games; this guide only introduces them so that you can choose. If you want a short adventure without installing anything, our free in-house browser games run on phones and computers.