A look at “Games That Evoke a Unique Sense of Adventure” People play games for all sorts of reasons. Some enjoy the thrill of competitive play, while others use it as a great opportunity to hang out with friends and loved ones. Others still are captivated by the sense of adventure and escapism that certain games are able to inspire.
As games have grown more sophisticated in recent years, the ability to create whole worlds has become increasingly viable for developers, giving rise to a whole genre of titles that are rooted in a single, large world map.
These so-called open-world games are among the most popular played today, and it’s easy to see why. With beautiful vistas, hidden locations, and thousands of secrets and items to unlock, such games offer near-limited exploration.
Yet it’s not just games that cleave close to this design that manages to evoke a powerful sense of adventure in gamers. In fact, many achieve more with relatively little by relying on the imagination of the player to fill in the blanks.
If you’re looking to satisfy your wanderlust while gaming, look no further than these compelling titles below. While on the surface they may appear quite distinct in form, genre, and design, they all equally give players a sense of large spaces, open vistas, and the spirit of adventure.
The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild
While open-world games were nothing new by the time Zelda: BotW was released in 2017 on the Nintendo Switch, the Japanese developers’ take on the concept was spellbinding and dazzlingly ambitious. Whereas many open worlds lace their mini-maps with hundreds of icons, quests, and items to explore, BotW focuses on discovery in the truest sense of the word. Nobody teaches you how to fight, craft weapons, cook food, or navigate its world’s wildly varying climatic conditions.
Instead, players must experiment and devise their own strategies as they go. This lack of hand-holding results in magical moments and a genuine sense of discovery the likes of which few games before or since have been able to match.
Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead
While the likes of Breath of the Wild succeed in creating a “literal” virtual world for its players to explore, other games cultivate a sense of adventure by evoking themes and images that popular culture has come to associate with it.
For example, the solid 5 reel, 3 payline slot game Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead, developed by well-known studio Play’n GO, manages to set the imagination racing with relatively few elements. This is because this title plugs into the long-running trope of the tomb-raider adventurer archaeologist, most keenly associated with Harrison Ford in the role of Indiana Jones.
Yet Indiana Jones is just one part of this story, with creator George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg basing the character on the adventure movies they grew up with from the 1940s and 50s of Hollywood’s golden age. By evoking the sense of wonder and adventure that Egyptian Tombs and khaki-clad leading men are known for, this game creates an imaginary space in which to entertain gamers with its solid slot action.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Few game franchises are as big, or as instantly recognizable as Assassin’s Creed is today, and with over 12 mainline games and heaps of spin-offs under its belt, it’s also one of the most prolific of recent years. And those who followed this stealth combat adventure series will know that it has been on a pretty solid trajectory towards ever larger and more open worlds since at least its third outing.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is by no means the newest example of Ubisoft’s venture into open worlds with their star IP, but it is in the eyes of many the crowning achievement to date. Set in ancient Greece, the game is absolutely enormous and offers players the ability to explore and progress through the game in whatever way they see fit.
