Top 10 Games: Action-Adventure

The highest-graded action-adventure games we have reviewed, best first.

  1. Red Dead Redemption 22018The most detailed world ever built for a game, in service of the medium's best character study.Read the review
  2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice2019FromSoftware deletes the build screen and asks one question: can you learn the rhythm?
  3. Elden Ring2022The open-world formula rebuilt around curiosity instead of checklists, at a scale no one else has matched.
  4. Cyberpunk 20772020The disaster that finished becoming a masterpiece: Night City is the densest place ever rendered.
  5. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt2015The open-world RPG every open-world RPG since has been measured against, and most of them lose.
  6. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom2023Ultrahand turns a physics engine into a design language, and Hyrule bends to whatever nonsense you build.
  7. Red Dead Redemption2010The western the genre had been waiting a century for, with an ending games still chase.
  8. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots2008A maximalist send-off that spends the PS3's entire budget closing every loop Solid Snake ever opened.
  9. Grand Theft Auto V2013Three protagonists, one satirical state, and a heist structure so good it carried three console generations.
  10. Batman: Arkham City2011Rocksteady takes a perfect corridor game outdoors and somehow keeps every corridor's precision intact.

More lists

Every Top 10
  1. The critic's Top 10No. 1: Red Dead Redemption 2
  2. MultiplayerNo. 1: Grand Theft Auto V
  3. RPGsNo. 1: Elden Ring
  4. Open WorldNo. 1: Red Dead Redemption 2
  5. FPSNo. 1: Half-Life 2
  6. PlatformersNo. 1: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  7. ActionNo. 1: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3
  8. HorrorNo. 1: Resident Evil 4 (2023 Remake)
  9. StrategyNo. 1: Baldur's Gate 3
  10. FantasyNo. 1: The Legend of Zelda