The Best Action / Adventure Game of 2024
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The Best Action / Adventure Game of 2024

Video video games as a medium is a house for every kind of experiences and challenges, and the previous decade has solely seen that selection develop. However whereas we’re enthusiastic about video games that break new boundaries, we’ll all the time have time for the classics, and there are few genres that really feel fairly as foundational because the motion/journey. Its roots go all the best way again to the Nineteen Eighties, and plenty of of its formative video games stay on as we speak, resembling The Legend of Zelda and Prince of Persia – each of which noticed new releases in 2024.

However whereas the motion/journey style is a long-standing core pillar of gaming, it has modified, morphed, and advanced over time. Whereas we nonetheless have the 2D side-scrollers of yesteryear, we even have new subgenres that take advantage of of new concepts. For instance, this 12 months’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 isn’t just a technical showstopper, however a major rethink on the connection between story, exploration, and fight. In the meantime, we will’t ignore the massive affect FromSoftware’s video games have had on the style, and this 12 months’s Stellar Blade and Black Delusion: Wukong each take concepts from the Souls sequence and rewrite them to suit their very own objectives.

However what action-packed journey via digital worlds stole our hearts this 12 months? Just one can take the title of Best Action/Adventure Game of 2024, and so right here’s what the IGN editorial crew determined…

Honorable Mentions

The IGN Awards are voted on by your entire IGN editorial crew, and as you possibly can think about meaning the ultimate outcomes reveal simply how broad and various our particular person tastes in video video games are (that can hardly come as a shock, have you ever ever learn the remark part of a overview?) Naturally, some employees members vote for video games that in the end don’t show widespread sufficient to make it right into a class’s finals, and we don’t wish to go away these votes unacknowledged. On this case, we’d wish to make honorable mentions for 2 sword-slashing epics: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Rise of the Ronin.

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Whereas to not everybody’s tastes, it’s straightforward to see why some folks have come to adore Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. It’s a graphical powerhouse, for certain, but it surely’s the environment these visuals generate that’s the actual factor to be impressed by. It helps floor you in Senua’s difficult, hostile world – a land additional delivered to life by unimaginable audio design. Hellblade 2 is a slim, centered journey that just about comes throughout as an interactive film greater than it does an motion recreation. But it surely’s that focus that permits developer Ninja Concept to actually ship on its ambition of exploring the psychological well being points that kind the bedrock of this darkly personal-yet-cinematic sequence.

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In distinction to Senua’s small, contained journey is Workforce Ninja’s Rise of the Ronin, a large open-world journey set throughout the ultimate years of Japan’s Edo interval. It attracts on many of the refined, Soulsian concepts established within the studio’s Nioh video games, however retools them to create a way more expansive, considerably easier-going expertise. Make no mistake, that is nonetheless an motion recreation through which sword stances, parries, and cautious positioning are nonetheless very important, however the sprawling map permits for a really completely different strategy to related challenges whereas additionally providing up many new concepts and Murderer’s Creed-flavoured exploration.

Runner-Up: Black Delusion: Wukong

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After years of spectacular trailers and a powerful displaying at Gamescom 2023, Black Delusion: Wukong arrived this 12 months to a heat reception. It’s secure to say it has been one of, if not probably the most talked-about new recreation of the 12 months, and for good cause: its boss-rush design permits it to place its finest foot ahead and showcase some distinctive fight. Whereas actually displaying some of the hallmarks of FromSoft-style battle, together with restricted well being potions and cautious statement of an enemy’s moveset, Black Delusion: Wukong has its personal authentic concepts to contribute to the motion scene. Among the many most fascinating is the flexibility to momentarily rework into an enemy you’ve defeated in your travels, permitting you to change into an enormous frog that may slap your goal with its elastic tongue; a shield-bearing warrior who can tank injury; or perhaps a fiery wolf guardian with a singular moveset. These, together with different mystical skills, assist outline Black Delusion’s thrilling strategy to fight.

Past the boss battles, although, developer Game Science’s newest is an thrilling journey via a tradition that hardly ever enjoys the AAA limelight. Black Delusion: Wukong is unapologetically Chinese language. It adapts and continues Journey to the West, and so is dense with traditional Chinese language mythology that is probably not acquainted to Western audiences introduced up on American, European, and Japanese video games. It’s this that permits Black Delusion: Wukong to really feel like one thing of a brand new, thrilling frontier: whereas its gameplay could also be Souls-ish and its gear system parallels God of Conflict’s, its universe and storytelling are totally its personal. A minimum of till the following Chinese language AAA that hits huge on the worldwide stage, that’s.

Runner-Up: Stellar Blade

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Stellar Blade is one more motion recreation victory for an East Asian developer. Created by South Korean studio Shift Up, Stellar Blade’s fight design is as razor sharp as its visuals – quick, responsive, and immensely rewarding. It too attracts on FromSoftware for inspiration (on this case the fierce parry motion of Sekiro) however blends that problem with a classy, ability-driven strategy that mixes sword strikes with grenades and weapons. The result’s an absolute blast, particularly in relation to the cinematic showdowns with grotesque Alpha Naytiba bosses.

Whereas each followers and Yoko Taro himself have recognised Stellar Blade’s relationship to Nier Automata, it’s additionally value mentioning the sport’s fascination with The Matrix – an affect that not solely informs ship designs and place names, but additionally the story’s philosophical strategy to AI, machines, and the survival of the human race. Stellar Blade doesn’t fairly stay as much as the lofty bar of its inspirations in relation to story, however its biome-hopping journey actually asks questions in lots of of the correct locations.

Runner-Up: Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle

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There are, of course, two sides to the motion/journey style. The place Stellar Blade and Black Delusion: Wukong clearly go all-in on the motion half, Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle dedicates itself virtually wholly to journey. That’s to not say the oldsters at developer MachineGames haven’t put their well-known Wolfenstein-honed anti-fascist expertise to good use – you possibly can’t have an Indiana Jones recreation with out punching a Nazi each once in a while, in any case. However the Nice Circle surprisingly has extra in widespread with the likes of Damaged Sword and Dishonored than it does Uncharted or Tomb Raider. It’s this surprisingly contemporary strategy to Dr. Jones’ digital adventures that makes the Nice Circle really feel so trustworthy to the movies that impressed it.

Moving into the footwear of Indy (in addition to placing your head in his hat), you discover the corridors of the Vatican, tombs of the Historic Egyptians, and rivers of Siam. Every intricately designed hub stage is the canvass for natural exploration – the extra you dig into an space’s historical past and secrets and techniques, the extra it reveals its hidden pathways and undiscovered relics. Whereas there’s all the time a most important story mission that pushes in direction of the inevitable puzzle-filled tomb, every zone additionally affords up glorious “fieldwork” aspect missions that not solely present much more journey and archaeology work, however neatly tie into the core story to offer a denser, extra fulfilling expertise.

Video games typically declare they’ll make you actually “really feel” like their protagonists, however MachineGames completely scored the golden idol on this one: sensible puzzles, a real sense of discovery, and a stable quantity of stealth encounters-turned-whip-cracking battles ensures the Nice Circle is one of the most effective motion/journey video games of the 12 months. Not solely that, it’s additionally Indiana Jones’ finest journey since 1989. Now that’s one thing worthy of a spot in a museum.

Winner: Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown

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In 1989 designer Jordan Mechner created a revolutionary leap with Prince of Persia. A tough journey that mixed 2D side-scrolling platforming with swashbuckling fight, it stays a cornerstone of video gaming’s foundations to today. 35 years later, Ubisoft Montpellier created Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown; a superb return to the sequence’ 2D roots and – within the IGN crew’s opinion – the most effective motion/journey recreation of 2024.

Like many profitable video games with a protracted and storied legacy, The Misplaced Crown is a brilliant mix of the outdated and new. It pulls on the dastardly trap-filled stage design of Mechner’s authentic recreation, however these deadly pathways have been prolonged and looped to create a contemporary, interconnected metroidvania map. This world gives a wonderfully judged exploration problem, permitting you the area to research each layer and nook whereas additionally steadily asking you to show your ability so as to navigate via swinging pendulums and over lethal spike pits.

Glorious enemy design and parry-filled engagements ensures The Misplaced Crown looks like a pointy and satisfying fight problem, particularly in relation to its centrepiece boss battles. Once more, it is that mix of outdated and new – the swashbuckling blades of traditional Prince of Persia, augmented with the supernatural smarts of The Sands of Time and the responsiveness of Hole Knight – that makes The Misplaced Crown such a winner.

However the recreation’s actual secret weapon is maybe its most straightforward addition to the method: a digicam. The marketing campaign’s design leans on the locked gate traditions of traditional metroidvanias, asking you to discover additional and deeper in search of keys to these boundaries. However that gameplay loop typically ends in doorways being forgotten, the treasures behind them left unfound. However The Misplaced Crown means that you can snap a photograph of a progress blocker and pin it to the map – a continuing reminder of that place you couldn’t get into hours earlier. And so the second you discover the important thing, you’ll know precisely the place you must return. It’s a game-changer for the style, and this function alone would have been sufficient to safe The Misplaced Crown an area on this record. Mixed with its many different achievements, although, this 12 months’s Prince of Persia turns into a more-than-worthy winner of our award for the most effective motion/journey recreation of 2024.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Options Editor.

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