In an era of hyper-specific genre blends and mashups – take the roguelike city-building bullet heaven of Monsters Are Coming!, for example – it’s always felt daft just how many games can end up lumped in with the Action Adventure label. Don’t pretty much all games feature action? Are you not always going off on an adventure?
Well, yes, but let’s peel that back a little further to just Action for the time being, where you can arguably focus more on the core gameplay, the responsiveness of the world that makes these games satisfying to play in the first place.
Sucker Punch’s sequel to its celebrated samurai sim evolves the open world action game formula that made Ghost of Tsushima such a hit. This is mainly thanks to the beefed up arsenal of vengeful protagonist, Atsu, allowing players to employ Ghost of Yotei’s five melee weapons, pick off enemies from afar using ranged attacks, or quietly eliminate them without leaving a trace. Being able to seamlessly switch between these playstyles turns every encounter into its own unique encounter, supercharged by intuitive traversal mechanics and a core combat system that is easy to pick up though constantly rewards experimentation.
What really sells Ghost of Yotei is its approach to open world design. Where other game maps feel overwhelming, bloated, and artificially padded out with repetitive tasks, Ezo feels like more of a curated space where side mission, bounty, and activity has meaning. In other words, five years after the original game, Ghost of Yotei has been well worth the wait.
– Jim
Ninja Gaiden 4 – Runner Up
You know that bit from the movie Ratatouille where the mean food critic takes a bite of food so nostalgic and decadent that it makes him flash back to eating a beautiful meal at home as a kid? That’s the kind of experience Ninja Gaiden 4 is. It’s a fully confident return to the fast, frenetic, flashy action gameplay that ruled the early 2000s gaming landscape. While so many modern games default to the slower and more methodical Souls-style combat, Ninja Gaiden 4 dares to ask “what if your parry button was also your attack button and you fought a twelve foot tall robot samurai within the first hour of the game?”
It’s an incredible experience that manages to feel like a perfect blend of the methodology of the original Ninja Gaiden games and the style of Platinum Games’ finest releases. You’ve got an overwhelming amount of weapons, tools, combos, specific inputs, and special abilities to chain together at your leisure. At the same time, you’ve got face-melting rock music, hordes of enemies, and jaw-dropping set pieces that keep the experience moving at a million miles a minute. It’s a beautiful achievement in action gaming that I’m desperate to see more of in the future.
– Miguel
Donkey Kong Bananza – Runner Up
The crash ’em, bash ’em, smash ’em action of Donkey Kong Bananza was a real surprise to find coming from the team that last made the much more technical and clinical 3D platforming of Super Mario Odyssey, but it’s just another showcase for the creativity and inventiveness that remains a hallmark of Nintendo’s platformers. Bringing DK back to be the star of a 3D platformer once more, Nintendo EPD Tokyo mined for new ways to use his raw power and strength. Literally.
Smashing up the world is a huge part of Donkey Kong Bananza, slapping his way through rocks and scenery to carve new paths through the environment, discover more secrets, and generally reshaping the environment. It’s easy to let yourself descend into a fugue state of just bashing everything in sight, and it can get pretty messy and feel uncontrolled because of it, but there’s still that 3D platforming mastery waiting for you to return to as DK and Pauline descend deeper and deeper to the world’s core and the mythical promise that awaits.
– Stefan
Honourable Mentions (in alphabetical order)
This is easily the broadest category we have going, but let us know what you think of our picks in the comments below
Catch up on our Game of the Year 2025 awards so far:
