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The Best Adventure Games for 2026

 & Jordan Minor Principal Writer, Software

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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Editors' Note, December 11, 2025: With this update, our lineup of recommended adventure games remains unchanged. The existing picks have been vetted for currency and availability.

Most video games offer over-the-top action rather than contemplative storytelling, but the adventure genre is a major exception. After all, the first adventure games only used text to convey their world and mechanics, so the stories had to be good. Today’s adventure titles look a lot more modern, like prestige TV shows. Still, interactive storytelling is a huge priority. The "action-adventure" genre typically combines narrative, exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat elements. But a pure adventure game typically ditches the action-focused combat in favor of puzzles and stories. We’re talking about old-school, point-and-click adventure games and their descendants. From their heyday in the 1990s to Telltale Games' renaissance, the adventure genre has a rich history, and the titles we highlight here do that legacy proud. Ready to play? Check out the best adventure PC games you should download right now.

Batman: The Telltale Series

Batman: The Telltale Series (for PC)

4.0 Excellent

The point-and-click adventure game genre has seen a resurgence in popularity since Telltale Games began combining its excellent storytelling chops with popular comic book properties. For example, Batman: The Telltale Series shows what the developer can do when it merges an action-focused license with its successful story-driven formula. The game delivers the fisticuffs, gadgetry, and detective work you'd expect from Bruce Wayne's masked persona, while giving you the option to shape the narrative in both large and subtle ways.

Batman: The Telltale Series (for PC) review

Bugsnax

Bugsnax (for PC)

4.0 Excellent

Bugsnax is an adventure-puzzle game with a premise simple enough to fit inside its catchy theme song. The titular creatures are kind of bugs, kind of snacks, and you find and catch them in your trap. They are also Snaktooth Island's native lifeforms. Think Jurassic Park or Kong: Skull Island, only the monsters are made out of fruits, burritos, and rotisserie chicken. The 100 different species sport adorably goofy designs reminiscent of past pet monsters from games like Pokemon and Viva Piñata.

Bugsnax (for PC) review

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (for PC)

4.5 Outstanding

Film student turned video game designer Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro wears his influences on his sleeve. The video game auteur was the driving force behind the bizarre, Twin Peaks-inspired Deadly Premonition; now his special brand of storytelling insanity graces the PC in the form of another oddball, David Lynch-like murder mystery called D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die. It tells the story of a widower, Detective David Young, who is obsessed with unearthing the events that led to the death of his wife, Little Peggy. The game—with its supernatural elements, quirky characters, and compelling investigative gameplay—should not be missed. 

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (for PC) review

Firmament

Firmament (for PC)

3.5 Good

Love Myst? Then Firmament—a puzzle-adventure game from the creators of Myst and Obduction—should be on your radar. This stylish adventure game tasks you with traversing three worlds using steampunk contraptions. Although not as meaty as Myst and its ilk, and targeted at VR fans, Firmament is an engaging enigma that teases your brain without overstaying its welcome.

Firmament (for PC) review

Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain (for PC)

3.5 Good

David Cage's Heavy Rain unravels the dark, fictional story of a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer. The interactive story succeeds in building a gritty aura fitting of the subject matter and in developing a set of believable characters within its world. However, the mechanics often feel tacked on and the game's presentation is underwhelming in some aspects, such as the voice acting and graphical fidelity. Despite those flaws, Heavy Rain is worth the time and price for its engrossing narrative.

Heavy Rain (for PC) review

Myst

Myst (for PC)

4.5 Outstanding

For nearly three decades, atmospheric puzzle game Myst has stood as one of the best, most successful, and most influential PC games of all time. This latest update of the masterpiece enhances the beautiful visuals, adds virtual reality support, and randomizes puzzles to make each playthrough unique.

Myst (for PC) review

Pentiment

4.5 Outstanding

Obsidian Entertainment is one of the most versatile teams under Microsoft’s umbrella, and Pentiment is further proof of the team’s creative chops. Taking place in a gorgeous world rendered in Renaissance-style art, this adventure game challenges you to solve a mystery by making impactful choices.

Pentiment review

Stray

Stray (for PC)

4.0 Excellent

Naturally, the internet loves Stray because it’s a game where you play as a cat. But beneath the viral premise is a genuinely moving adventure game with puzzles to solve and action to undertake, a game full of humanity despite the robotic cyberpunk setting. Plus, you can meow whenever you want.

Stray (for PC) review

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead (for PC)

The Walking Dead is back! After disappearing from digital marketplaces when developer Telltale Games went under, the touching and harrowing title returns to life courtesy of publisher Skybound Games. The choice-based adventure game puts you in the role of Lee, a former professor and convicted criminal who tries to survive a zombie invasion while safeguarding a young girl named Clementine. Keep some tissues close for the ending. Note that we didn't review the five-part series collection; we reviewed chapter one and chapter two when they were available for individual purchase.

The Wolf Among Us

The Wolf Among Us (for PC)

4.0 Excellent

The Wolf Among Us, a game that's a canonical prequel to Bill Willingham's popular Fables comic book series, features a well-written story, light puzzle-solving challenges, and reflex-testing Quick Time Event (QTE) sequences. The visually striking title draws inspiration from film noir cinema while keeping the heavy black outlines and bright colors associated with its source material. The murder mystery isn't particularly challenging, but if you want to spend a few hours in an immersive world filled with interesting characters and top-notch voice acting, The Wolf Among Us should find a home in your gaming library.

The Wolf Among Us (for PC) review

About Our Expert

Jordan Minor

Jordan Minor

Principal Writer, Software

My PCMag career began in 2013 as an intern. Now, I'm a senior writer, using the skills I acquired at Northwestern University to write about dating apps, meal kits, programming software, website builders, video streaming services, and video games. I was previously a senior editor at Geek.com and have written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I'm the author of the gaming history book Video Game of the Year: A Year-by-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, and the reason everything you know about Street Sharks is a lie.

The Technology I Use

I use the newest Android and iOS smartphones for testing, but I currently use an iPhone 14 as my personal phone. I just hate that we gave up headphone jacks.

I've always favored gaming laptops over desktops. On that note, I have a 16-inch HP Envy with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. No matter what machine I’m working on, an alarming amount of my personal and professional life revolves around cloud-synced Google Drive files.

For food subscriptions, my household sticks with CookUnity and HelloFresh for meals. Video streaming is a bit more complicated. While there are too many services to list, we're subscribed to most of the major ones. These days, I find myself drawn to HBO Max's movies and shows, as well as Peacock's reality trash.

I've been a lifelong Nintendo fan, and I sincerely believe the Nintendo Switch will go down as one of the best gaming consoles of all time. It has an unbelievable library of new and old games from Nintendo and third-party companies. The handheld/console hybrid approach makes playing games so much more flexible, a legacy that continues with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck.

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