Summary
- Sonic Frontiers offers a fresh take on 3D platforming in open-world settings.
- Sackboy: A Big Adventure features music-themed stages and charming movement mechanics.
- A Hat In Time impresses with tight controls, diverse level designs, and unique abilities.
There’s something timeless about a well-crafted 3D platformer. It’s the thrill of nailing a perfect jump across a bottomless pit, the joy of uncovering a hidden collectible tucked behind a suspiciously placed bush, or the satisfaction of mastering movement mechanics that initially felt like trying to ice skate uphill. While the genre had its golden age in the late '90s and early 2000s, its spirit is alive and well on Steam.
From gravity-defying brain worlds to high-speed hedgehog stunts, these are the best 3D platformers available on Steam right now. They’re the kind that stick with players long after the credits roll, making them worth a look.
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7 Sonic Frontiers
Blue Blur Meets Breath Of The Wild, Somehow
Sonic Frontiers
- Released
- November 8, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
- Sonic Team
Sonic Frontiers is one of those games that had no right to work — but it somehow does. On paper, the idea of dropping Sonic into an open world where he’s free to sprint across vast fields, scale giant towers, and unlock bite-sized platforming challenges sounds like fan fiction. But Sega leaned into it, and what came out was one of the most interesting takes on 3D platforming the series has ever seen.
The Starfall Islands are a strange mix of serenity and chaos. One moment, Sonic’s collecting memory tokens for a lost friend under a softly raining sky. The next, he’s hurtling through a floating obstacle course suspended above the sea. These Cyber Space levels feel like traditional Sonic stages ripped from Generations or Unleashed, built for speedrunners and high-score chasers alike.
Platforming isn’t just about reaching a goalpost — it’s integrated into exploration. Climbing a ruined structure might involve wall-running, spring jumps, homing attacks, and even midair boosts. It’s a fusion of movement styles that only Sonic could pull off, even if sometimes the camera has other ideas.
6 Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Stitching Together Fun One Jump At A Time
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
- Released
- November 12, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E For Everyone due to Mild Cartoon Violence, Mild Lyrics
- Developer(s)
- Sumo Digital
When Sackboy: A Big Adventure launched on PC, it brought a level of polish that’s hard to ignore. This isn’t just a spinoff from LittleBigPlanet — it’s a tightly tuned 3D platformer that can stand next to the greats without leaning on nostalgia. Every level is built with a sense of rhythm, sometimes literally. Music-themed stages sync up jumps and hazards to songs like “Let’s Dance” or “Uptown Funk” in ways that turn the platforming into a choreographed performance.
There’s a tactile charm to Sackboy’s movement. He’s deliberately slower than most platforming protagonists, but that’s part of the appeal. The controls emphasize timing and precision rather than twitchy reflexes. When things do get chaotic, like in the co-op chaos of multiplayer, it never feels unfair. While it lacks the level creation tools that defined the franchise, A Big Adventure makes up for it with creativity in its own right. The handcrafted aesthetic affects gameplay, with spongey platforms, zipper bridges, and yarn-ball obstacles creating texture in more ways than one.
5 Alice: Madness Returns
Victorian Wonderland, But Make It Unhinged
Alice: Madness Returns
- Released
- June 14, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Spicy Horse
- Genre(s)
- Hack and Slash
If Alice: Madness Returns had released in the golden era of platformers, it would have broken brains. It’s a game where platforming sequences are as twisted as the world they’re set in. Floating teapots, disintegrating dice bridges, and invisible platforms triggered by peppering a floating snout — nothing in Alice’s Wonderland plays by the rules, which makes the platforming feel genuinely unpredictable.
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Combat fills in the gaps, with a clever mix of melee and ranged weapons like the Vorpal Blade and Tea Cannon. But what really holds this cracked teacup of a game together is the platforming design. Multi-tiered levels hide secrets in vertical mazes, and each new environment shifts tone. One moment it’s a candy-colored Japanese scroll painting, and the next it’s a grim industrial orphanage. And it’s all underscored by one of the most underrated soundtracks in gaming.
4 Mirror’s Edge
Sometimes Falling Is the Point
Mirror's Edge
- Released
- November 11, 2008
WHERE TO PLAY
Precision in Mirror’s Edge doesn’t come from rigid control; it comes from flow. There’s a rhythm to Faith’s movement that, once locked into, feels more like dancing through a city than platforming across it. The rooftops of this sterile dystopia become a playground of pipes, ledges, and glass panels. And there’s almost always more than one route. Skilled players learn to read the environment like a language, spotting momentum-friendly lines that others might overlook.
Combat, which many brushed off as clunky, was never the point. Speed is. Faith moves faster without a weapon. Players aren’t meant to fight the system, but outrun it. When timed perfectly, vaulting over fences, wall-running around corners, and tucking into a roll after a big drop becomes almost meditative. Even now, years after release, Mirror’s Edge remains one of the most unique entries in the platforming genre. It’s not about whimsical mascots or floating platforms — it’s about reclaiming freedom, one rooftop at a time.
3 Spyro: Reignited Trilogy
A Purple Comeback That Actually Worked
Spyro Reignited Trilogy
- Released
- November 13, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ due to Cartoon Violence, Comic Mischief
- Developer(s)
- Toys for Bob
- Genre(s)
- Platformer
The original Spyro games were easy to love, but in the late 2010s, they were showing their age. Spyro Reignited Trilogy didn’t just clean things up. It rebuilt them with new animations, re-recorded lines (even Tom Kenny came back to voice the little dragon), and lighting effects that somehow made gems even more satisfying to collect.
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Platforming in Spyro has always been a bit different. There’s no wall-jumping or backflipping acrobatics. Instead, it’s all about mastering momentum. Charging into enemies, timing jumps over lava pits, and using glides to stretch across massive gaps gives it a unique pace. Each game in the trilogy offers subtle tweaks to the formula. Ripto’s Rage introduces more hub-based exploration, while Year of the Dragon adds new playable characters. But all three stick the landing on what makes a good 3D platformer: tight level design, snappy controls, and secrets that reward players who aren't afraid to butt their horns against every suspicious-looking wall.
2 A Hat In Time
You Don’t Need A Cape When You’ve Got A Hat
A Hat in Time
- Released
- October 5, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
There’s a reason A Hat In Time gets talked about like a lost relic from the GameCube era. It feels like something Nintendo might have made if they were feeling especially chaotic. The movement is tight and expressive, with jumps that snap to surfaces just right and a dive move that opens up loads of midair possibilities. Hat Kid isn’t just responsive — she’s athletic in a way that makes parkour across airships and haunted forests feel like second nature.
But what really makes A Hat In Time special is its structure. Each level, or "chapter," plays like its own genre experiment. Mafia Town is classic collectathon territory, full of goofy enemies and open-ended exploration. Subcon Forest, on the other hand, drops players into a dark, contract-based sequence of spooky missions that feel more like a psychological platformer than a Saturday morning cartoon.
There’s an attention to detail here that’s easy to miss. Hat Kid’s different hats grant abilities like time-slowing or explosive brewing, which add layers of interaction to each environment. And the mod support on Steam? That’s a whole other rabbit hole, with fan-made levels that rival the base game’s creativity.
1 Psychonauts
Who Needs Gravity When You’ve Got Brains
Psychonauts
- Released
- April 19, 2005
WHERE TO PLAY
There are platformers that challenge players’ reflexes, and then there’s Psychonauts, which challenges their imagination. Everything about Raz’s adventure through the minds of twisted, traumatized, and often hilarious characters is built around thematic platforming. Levels aren’t just levels — they’re mental states, given physical form. One mind might be a conspiracy-laden neighborhood of G-Men spouting nonsense, where players have to sneak around as if the world itself is watching. Another is a theater, split between different stage plays, each with its own set of hazards and emotional baggage. The platforming shifts with the tone, from tight precision to surreal dream logic.
What’s even more impressive is how fluid the abilities are. Levitation turns into an impromptu bounce pad. Telekinesis can move platforms. Pyrokinesis...well, sometimes it just starts fires. And all of this blends into a game where no two minds feel the same, yet every one of them is unmistakably part of the same broken, brilliant world. Even now, long after Psychonauts became a cult classic, few games have managed to marry level design with narrative this effectively, except probably Psychonauts 2. It’s platforming as character development, and that’s something not even the most acrobatic plumber can claim.