The Best Action / Adventure Game of 2024

ign.com:

Video games as a medium is a home for all kinds of experiences and challenges, and the past decade has only seen that variety grow. But while we’re excited about games that break new boundaries, we’ll always have time for the classics, and there are few genres that feel quite as foundational as the action/adventure. Its roots go all the way back to the 1980s, and many of its formative games live on today, such as The Legend of Zelda and Prince of Persia – both of which saw new releases in 2024.

But while the action/adventure genre is a long-standing core pillar of gaming, it has changed, morphed, and evolved over the years. While we still have the 2D side-scrollers of yesteryear, we also have new subgenres that make the most of new ideas. For example, this year’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is not just a technical showstopper, but a significant rethink on the relationship between story, exploration, and combat. Meanwhile, we can’t ignore the huge impact FromSoftware’s games have had on the genre, and this year’s Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong both take ideas from the Souls series and rewrite them to fit their own goals.

But what action-packed adventure through digital worlds stole our hearts this year? Only one can take the title of Best Action/Adventure Game of 2024, and so here’s what the IGN editorial team decided…

The IGN Awards are voted on by the entire IGN editorial team, and as you can imagine that means the final results reveal just how broad and varied our individual tastes in video games are (that will hardly come as a surprise, have you ever read the comment section of a review?) Naturally, some staff members vote for games that ultimately don’t prove popular enough to make it into a category’s finals, and we don’t want to leave those votes unacknowledged. In this case, we’d like to make honorable mentions for two sword-slashing epics: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Rise of the Ronin.

While not to everyone’s tastes, it’s easy to see why some people