Curated playlist

Action-adventure games

Action-adventure gameAction-adventure games are defined mostly by what they are not.
Assassin's CreedAssassin's Creed began as a Prince of Persia sequel with the prince cut out.
Metal Gear Solid (video game)1998 video game
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark KnightLego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, a 2026 game from Traveller's Tales, lets players control only seven characters. Earlier Lego games let them swap between hundreds. The studio shrank the roster while building the biggest Gotham City…
Metal Gear Solid: Master CollectionKonami pulled two Metal Gear Solid games from digital stores in November 2021. Expired licenses were the reason given.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake EaterMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater sends a soldier into the Soviet jungle in 1964, using a game that first appeared in 2004. It is a 2025 stealth action-adventure from Konami, rebuilt from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the first…
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin SnakesThe Twin Snakes began with a chance meeting in a Nintendo cafeteria.
Assassin's Creed IIIAssassin's Creed III went on sale in North America on the 30th of October 2012 with a secret that its own advertising kept from players. Every promotion showed Connor, a half-Mohawk Assassin. The game itself, however, opened with Haytham…
Red Dead RedemptionRed Dead Redemption is a 2010 Western from Rockstar San Diego, and it opens with a man who has run out of choices. In 1911, federal agents take the wife and son of a former outlaw named John Marston. The price of their freedom is his skill…
Assassin's Creed RogueAssassin's Creed Rogue ends its credits with an ultimatum aimed straight at the person holding the controller. A senior Templar named Juhani Otso Berg thanks the player for their help, then offers a choice: join the Templars, or die. The…
God of War IIIEarly in God of War III, the sea god Poseidon dies at the hands of the Spartan Kratos, and the oceans pour across Greece. He is only the first of many gods to fall. This 2010 action-adventure game, made by Santa Monica Studio for the…
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomIn The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, fusing a rocket to a shield is enough to send Link soaring through the air. That one trick says a great deal about this 2023 action-adventure game for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo EPD built it…
God of War (franchise)When the credits of the first God of War finished rolling, a closing line promised, "Kratos Will Return." He did, again and again. The God of War franchise now spans ten installments, beginning on the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and reaching…
Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a 2004 action-adventure game from Rockstar North, gave players one of the most repeated lines in gaming. Early in the story, a mission called "Wrong Side of the Tracks" goes badly, and Big Smoke shouts, "All…
God of War (2005 video game)In God of War, a 2005 game from Santa Monica Studio, a Spartan named Kratos kills a Hydra for the sea god Poseidon. The victory brings him no relief. For ten years he has served the Olympian gods. Now he is tired of the work and the…
The Last of Us (video game)The Last of Us, a 2013 action-adventure game from Naughty Dog, ends with a man swearing to a girl that his story is true. It is not. Joel gives the oath because Ellie insists on it. Everything before that moment is a long walk toward it.…
Tomb Raider (2013 video game)In November 2010, Square Enix filed a trademark for a slogan, "A Survivor is Born," to promote a new Tomb Raider game. That game arrived in 2013 from the developer Crystal Dynamics, and it did not simply continue Lara Croft's story. It…
Metal Gear (video game)In the 1987 game Metal Gear, Snake's own commander tells the player to switch off the console.
Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto was voted one of Britain's top 10 designs in 2006. It sat beside Concorde and the Spitfire.
Grand Theft Auto VThree days after Grand Theft Auto V reached stores in September 2013, it had passed one billion dollars in sales. No entertainment product in history had reached that mark faster. The game came from Rockstar North and was published by…
Red Dead Redemption 2Red Dead Redemption 2 is a 2018 action-adventure game from Rockstar Games that puts the player in the boots of Arthur Morgan, an outlaw living in the year 1899. The frontier he knows is closing. Government forces, rival gangs and the march…
Grand Theft Auto: Vice CityGrand Theft Auto: Vice City, a 2002 action-adventure game from Rockstar North, sold more than 500,000 copies within 24 hours of its release. Within two days it had reached 1.4 million, which made it the fastest-selling game in history at…
Assassin's Creed IV: Black FlagAssassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, the sixth major installment in its series, hands the player a stolen ship and a Welsh pirate named Edward Kenway. Early in the story, Edward captures a brig called the Jackdaw from a Spanish fleet and makes…
Resident Evil – Code: VeronicaIn December 1998, three months after she escaped Raccoon City, Claire Redfield raids an Umbrella Corporation facility in Paris. She is searching for her brother Chris, and she is caught. That capture opens Resident Evil Code: Veronica, a…
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the PatriotsMetal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots reached shops on the 12th of June 2008. According to Konami, more than three million units shipped worldwide that day. Kojima Productions built the game for the PlayStation 3, and it was the sixth…
Horizon (video game series)Horizon is a science fiction game series from the Amsterdam studio Guerrilla Games, and by November 2025 it had sold over 40 million units worldwide. That figure places it among Sony's best-selling first-party properties. Its setting is…
God of War IIGod of War II begins with a god being killed by his own king. Kratos, the Spartan warrior who became the God of War by killing Ares, joins an attack on the city of Rhodes. A giant eagle swoops in and drains a huge share of his powers. It…
Assassin's Creed UnityIn the streets of Assassin's Creed Unity, a single crowd can hold up to 1000 individual characters. Each one acts on its own and reacts to its neighbors and to the player. Ubisoft Montreal built that spectacle for its 2014 entry in the…
Grand Theft Auto IVGrand Theft Auto IV sold more than 3.6 million copies in the first twenty-four hours after its release in 2008. That worked out to roughly 310 million dollars in revenue. The game came from Rockstar North and Rockstar Games, and it centres…
Assassin's Creed IIAssassin's Creed II is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to the 2007 game Assassin's Creed. Its hero is Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young man in Renaissance Italy. His…
UnchartedBy December 2017, the Uncharted series had sold 41.7 million units worldwide. Uncharted is an action-adventure franchise developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Amy Hennig created it. Its heroes are…
Shadow of the Tomb RaiderShadow of the Tomb Raider, the 2018 adventure game from Eidos-Montréal, begins with its hero doing something she was clearly told not to do. On the island of Cozumel in Mexico, Lara Croft finds a temple whose painted walls warn of a Mayan…
Resident Evil ZeroResident Evil Zero begins on the 23rd of July 1998, aboard a train called the Ecliptic Express. The train belongs to the pharmaceutical company Umbrella, and a swarm of leeches is tearing through its passengers and crew. On a nearby…
God of War: Ghost of SpartaGod of War: Ghost of Sparta began as a puzzle hidden behind a trophy. Players who earned the platinum trophy in God of War III were pointed to a website, spartansstandtall.com. The page showed torrential rain falling into a body of water,…
007 First Light007 First Light sold 1.5 million units within the first day of release. That is a loud return for James Bond on the games shelf after an extended hiatus. The action-adventure game comes from IO Interactive, the studio behind the Hitman…
Tomb RaiderTomb Raider is a video game franchise that began in 1994 at Core Design, a British studio, and had sold more than 100 million units worldwide by 2024. Its pull was felt almost at once. In late 1996 and early 1997 the band the Prodigy…
The Last of Us Part IIThe Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It unfolds in a post-apocalyptic United States, four years after the studio's The Last of Us of 2013. Two…
God of War (2018 video game)God of War, the 2018 PlayStation 4 game from Santa Monica Studio, was formally announced at the 2016 Electronic Entertainment Expo with a short gameplay demo. In it, a fully bearded Kratos taught his young son how to hunt. Soon afterward…
The Last of Us Part IThe Last of Us Part I, released in 2022, rebuilt almost everything about a famous game and left its story completely alone. Naughty Dog developed it, and Sony Interactive Entertainment published it. It remakes a 2013 game in which the…
Mafia (series)The Mafia video game series has sold more than 34 million copies over its lifetime. Four mainline games sit at its core, joined by a remake, a remaster and two spin-offs for mobile devices. Not one of the cities in these games exists on a…
Assassin's Creed SyndicateAssassin's Creed Syndicate first reached the public under the name Assassin's Creed Victory, and not by Ubisoft's choice. On the 2nd of December 2014, the website Kotaku published details and screenshots from seven minutes of target…
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles MoralesMarvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a 2020 superhero game set in a Manhattan buried under Christmas snow. Its hero is a young Spider-Man who still doubts that he can wear the mask as well as the man who trained him. Around him, his new…
Assassin's Creed (video game)Assassin's Creed, the 2007 action-adventure game from Ubisoft Montreal, almost shipped with only its main assassination missions. About five days before the team was due to send the final version off for mass production, their CEO…
Legacy of KainLegacy of Kain is a dark fantasy video game series that landed in a legal fight in 1998, before its second game had reached shelves. Silicon Knights, the studio behind the first game, sued Crystal Dynamics for the rights to the franchise.…
Batman: Arkham AsylumBatman: Arkham Asylum, the 2009 game from Rocksteady Studios, once kept a single developer busy for two years on one garment, Batman's cape. Eidos president Ian Livingstone said the job involved more than 700 animations and sound effects,…
Grand Theft Auto IIIGrand Theft Auto III began with an art director's complaint about the games of his day. Aaron Garbut felt that most of them were "a thing you played". He wanted this one to be "a place you lived in". The core team behind that ambition was…
Yakuza (franchise)By 2024, Sega reported that the Yakuza series, known in Japan as Like a Dragon, had sold a combined 27.7 million units since its debut in 2005. Those buyers were playing games about organized crime. In the same games they could also sing…
Marvel's Spider-Man (video game)Marvel's Spider-Man, released for the PlayStation 4 on the 7th of September 2018, sold 3.3 million units in its first three days. That figure includes copies bundled with consoles. It made the game the fastest-selling first-party release…
The Legend of Zelda: Link's AwakeningThe Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening reached players in 1993 as the first Zelda adventure ever made for a handheld console. Nintendo developed and published it for the Game Boy, a machine with a monochrome screen that could go anywhere…
Metroid PrimeMetroid Prime first reached the public as a ten-second video at Space World 2000, a flicker of footage for a game that would not appear on shelves until 2002. When it did arrive on the GameCube, published by Nintendo, it carried the weight…