Our 2016 Best Adventure Game Nominees

Here are IGN's nominees for Best Adventure Game of 2016. We'll announce our winner in January, but our opinion isn't the only one that matters — cast your vote in the poll at the bottom of the page to help decide the IGN People's Choice winner!

From IGN's Review: "Despite some inconsequential decision-making and visual roughness, the amount of heart, character, and unflinching honesty in 1979 Revolution’s short two-hour tale is impressive. It’s incredibly refreshing to not only see this subject matter explored, but done so in a smart and sensitive way that succeeds in educating as much as entertaining."

Abzu Review

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From IGN's Review: "Abzu takes the graceful feel of movement and subtle push toward discovery that I’ve enjoyed in similar exploration games like Journey and Flower and builds a refreshing-yet-simple underwater adventure around it. The colorful settings, beautiful soundtrack, and basic controls made it a great experience that constantly piqued my interest, even if it never challenged me to master it other than deciphering its cryptic environmental clues. Instead, Abzu relishes in giving you freedom to simply enjoy exploring the fascinating deep blue sea."

From IGN's Review: "Telltale’s Batman is an unpredictable, multi-faceted adventure told through Batman the brawler, Batman the detective, and Bruce Wayne the politician. The three almost entirely separate characters and play-styles keep the familiar Telltale formula feeling fresh and inviting. While some of the dialogue does feel overly expositional, the gorgeous, high-action combat sequences and creative detective work provide the right amount of contrast."

From IGN's Review: "Firewatch is amazing for many reasons, but above all because it’s an adult game that deals with serious issues, with realistic adult dialogue to match. And it deals with those issues just like actual adults would: sometimes with humor, sometimes with anger, and sometimes with sadness. It is among the very best of the first-person narrative genre, and it reminds us what video game storytelling is capable of in the right hands. It’s a game I can see coming back to every year or two just to revisit its beautiful sights and memorable characters — just like a good book."

From IGN's Review: "Oxenfree is elegantly simple, using branching dialogue and a little something supernatural to develop three-dimensional characters and drive the coming-of-age story. There’s not much else to it in terms of gameplay, which is absolutely a good thing, but pacing issues in its story can make it feel sluggish between conversations. Mostly, though, it’s like walking through a stunning painting, listening to the idle chatter and revealing talks of (sometimes unnatural-sounding) teenagers."

EditPony Island

From IGN's Review: "I greatly enjoyed the two or so hours it took me to play through Pony Island. This is a game that delights in toying with your expectations and in breaking the fourth wall, in revealing its sinister yet playful world, and in building up a compelling antagonist and telling an ambiguous story. Pony Island is about as punk rock as they come."

Every scene has the stunning visual appeal and framing of a painting in the gorgeous and strange Samorost 3, a point-and-click adventure game that brims with Amanita Design’s iconic, woodsy charm and surreal personality.

From IGN's Review: "Virginia shows instead of tells, with a raw, understated power and a calculated nuance that make even the smallest, most mundane details brim with narrative and emotional significance. While I never found a way to impact or change significant story events, the tale of family, friendship, career, and identity that Virginia tells (without uttering a single word) was enough of a reward for my limited input. The mysteries that remain by the end especially justified a second and third visit, and even now I can feel the secrets of Kingdom, Virginia and the two women whose lives changed there luring me back for another."

Vote for what you think is the Best Adventure Game of 2016 in the poll below.

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