Best Adventure Games From The 2000s

The 2000s are usually remembered as the dark ages of adventure games, before Telltale’s best years, but after Sierra On-Line and LucasArts were already dying. Yet, looking carefully at this decade, it’s hard to ignore the plethora of fun, meaningful, or innovative adventure games that were released on almost every platform. If anything, the 2000s is when adventure games became popular, though this certainly came with some growing pains.

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By  Ritwik Mitra

One major change between adventure games of the 1990s and the 2000s is the increased variety. A variety of genres, with puzzle-light story games and even visual novels becoming increasingly popular. A variety of platforms, with mobile and mainline consoles challenging what used to be the domain of PC gaming. Finally, a variety of voices, replacing what was a near-monopoly controlled by just two game studios and flooding the market with new IPs.

10 realMyst

Reimagining An Icon

• Platform(s): PC, Classic Mac OS, iOS, Android
• Released: 2000-10-15
• Developer(s): Cyan Worlds Inc, Sunsoft
• Genre(s): Puzzle, Graphic Adventure Game

realMyst is one of many remakes of Myst. Unlike the previous attempt at remastering and re-releasing the game, however, this edition added significant changes to the formula. The most important change is the jump to real-time 3D, which allowed players to freely explore the island in first-person instead of the traditional “slideshow” mode.

Nowadays, the easiest way to play realMyst is through 2014’s realMyst: Masterpiece Edition. This version preserves what made realMyst a hit while upgrading graphics and fixing some bugs. It also gives players the ability to switch between original and updated graphics, a feature many adventure game remakes now have, but which was quite new for the time.

9 Tales From Monkey Island

Telltale’s Take On The Classic Series

• Platform(s): PC, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, iOS
• Released: 2009-07-07
• Developer(s): Telltale Games
• Genre(s): Adventure Game

Tales From Monkey Island is one of the most well-known titles from Telltale’s past. At the time, the company used to make multiple titles a year, working with IPs that recently went from being extremely popular to slightly nostalgic — properties like Sam & Max, Back to the Future, and, of course, Monkey Island.

Tales From Monkey Island is a surprisingly standard point-and-click adventure. The classic Telltale quick-time event scenes are nowhere to be found, and most puzzles rely on finding and combining objects. Rest assured, this is a competent adventure game, and at times, even a great one. That said, it’s also very derivative of 1990s titles, which some players might not like.

8 Fahrenheit

David Cage’s First Triumph

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in North America) is the first real success of Quantic Dream and David Cage, now known for Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human. But Fahrenheit might be a fair bit harder to go back to than those newer titles. For one, developers hadn’t really figured out QTEs yet.

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By  Amy Cowley

Fahrenheit’s version of quicktime events looks more like the Simon electronic game than anything we’re used to seeing now. Another problem is that some of those “action” scenes seem to go on forever. Fahrenheit is still worth playing, even just to see where so many modern titles come from, and even if it is occasionally a frustrating experience.

7 Syberia

Modern Classic Point-And-Click Adventure

• Platform(s): PC, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Windows Mobile, Android, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Nintendo Switch
• Released: 2002-01-09
• Developer(s): Microids
• Genre(s): Adventure Game

Syberia is a now-classic point-and-click adventure series with a slightly far-fetched premise: finding the mythical island of Syberia, where the last of the mammoths roam free. That only really happens in the latter part of the series, though, and the road there is surprisingly grounded.

Syberia plays like pretty much any point-and-click adventure game from the 1990s and early 2000s. Players use the mouse to interact with the environment, collecting and combining items, talking to people, and solving puzzles. Some things have changed, though. Puzzles are a little easier than average, and interactable items become highlighted when hovering the cursor over them.

6 Machinarium

A Treat For The Eyes

Amanita Design is a popular name among modern point-and-click adventure fans. Beyond Machinarium, the studio is responsible for modern classics like Botanicula and the Samorost series. All those games are very traditional, gameplay-wise. Instead, what makes them special is their presentation.

Machinarium is the studio’s most successful game, and for good reason. This little game about scrappy robot people boasts an incredibly strong presentation. The hand-drawn backgrounds and characters have a timeless look that never gets old. The soundtrack, too, while not quite as flawless, is interesting and fun all the way through, with some absolute bangers in there for good measure.

5 Hotel Dusk: Room 215

A Unique Take On The Genre

• Platform(s): Nintendo DS
• Released: 2007-01-22
• Developer(s): Cing
• Genre(s): Adventure Game

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a unique game with an incredible atmosphere. Released exclusively for the Nintendo DS, any possible remake or remaster would have to remove one of its best features. While playing Hotel Dusk, players hold the console as if it were a notebook, mirroring the actions of the protagonist detective as he takes notes about the investigation.

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By  David Heath

This unique mode of play would be enough to recommend the game, but Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is also an excellent adventure game. Everything, from story to the characters, and even the music, does its best to sell this investigation into a nostalgic past. Meanwhile, the art style, designed entirely out of pencil doodles, reinforces the notebook theme.

4 Another Code: Two Memories

Classic Adventuring That Isn’t Point-And-Click

• Platform(s): Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch
• Released: 2005-02-24
• Developer(s): Cing
• Genre(s): Adventure Game

Another Code: Two Memories is a great little Nintendo DS adventure game, highlighted by the unique setting and a myriad of endings. Players take the role of Ahsley, a 14 year-old who just received a message from her father, a man previously presumed dead.

But Another Code: Two Memories is also the story of D, the ghost of a child only visible to Ashley, and their attempts to rebuild his memories before the end of the game. The theme of the entire game is memory, with recurrent dreams becoming reality and surprising twists about false memories.

3 The Submachine Series

The Room-Escape Classic

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2005 (Episode 1)
• Developer(s): Mateusz Skutnik
• Genre(s): Adventure Game

The Submachine is a classic of early-2000s flash games and one of the most popular series in the room escape genre. As the name implies, these games task players with escaping a room or a building by solving puzzles and opening doors, receiving new clues and new puzzles in the process.

This is the genre that inspired modern escape rooms. While the honor is formally given to The Crimson Room, which is the true inspiration behind the first real-life escape room, the entire Submachine s eries was, at some point, even more popular than that game. Unlike The Crimson Room, this series used its video game form to its advantage, creating impossible buildings and irreplicable situations.

2 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Mixing Puzzles And Visual Novels

• Platform(s): Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One
• Released: 2009-12-10
• Developer(s): Chunsoft
• Genre(s): Adventure Game, Visual Novel

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is an adventure game about escaping from a ship before it blows up by solving escape room-like puzzles. It’s also about multiple timelines, impossible pseudoscience, and the power of love. Its influences range from room escape flash games of the early 2000s to visual novels of the same period. In short, it’s an incredibly unique adventure game.

999 received a remake for modern hardware in the form of Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. This package includes a version of 999 with added voice acting, new graphics, and a flowchart that makes the game's time travel much less confusing. It also comes with a port of the second game in the series, Virtue’s Last Reward.

1 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Innovative Mystery-Solving Action

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is the first game in the popular series of mystery adventure games, but the entire original trilogy deserves a spot on this list as some of the best adventure games of the decade. In this series, players take the role of an attorney in a world where trials can only last up to three days, and lawyers are supposed to lead investigations.

The Ace Attorney series has received many sequels and imitations. Pretty much any investigation game, especially if they are about trials, owes something to this series. That said, most fans agree that no clone or sequel can compete with the original trilogy, at least not while trying to do what it does best.

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