Best Adventure Games on the Switch

Adventure Games are one of the things the Nintendo Switch is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Death's Door, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

The Switch and Adventure Games

A home console you can take with you, which turns out to matter more than raw power. The strongest first-party library of any modern machine, plus an indie catalogue that fits portable play perfectly.

This is one of its strengths. First-party everything — platformers, adventure, strategy RPGs, party games — and indies, which suit handheld sessions better than they suit a television.

Filtering to adventure means the place and the story are what you want back, not the challenge. It is the right filter when the thing you remember is where you were rather than what you did.

The Adventure Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Death's Door

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Super Mario Odyssey

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. Metroid Dread

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Xenoblade Chronicles 3

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. Bayonetta 3

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  8. 8. Pikmin 4

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  9. 9. Luigi's Mansion 3

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  10. 10. Pokemon Legends Arceus

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  11. 11. Astral Chain

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  12. 12. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  13. 13. Undertale

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Adventure Game

A world with a reason to wander it, and writing that survives being read rather than skipped.

Mechanical depth. Several of the best adventure games have combat that is deliberately unsatisfying, because they want your attention somewhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best adventure game on the Switch?

Death's Door is the usual first answer, and there are 13 in the library we cover.

Was the Switch good at adventure games?

Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 13 in the library we cover.

What counts as an adventure game?

Anywhere the story and the place matter more than the skill ceiling — point-and-click, walking sims, narrative thrillers and most open worlds. The label alone tells you very little, which is why each pick here says what it actually is.

Are adventure games long?

They split hard. Open-world adventures run to a hundred hours; the narrative ones are often finishable in an evening, and the short ones are usually the better written.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Switch, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Adventure Games on Other Consoles

More From the Switch

Or browse the whole Nintendo Switch library.