Video games offer an escape that movies and books just can't replicate. By putting the experience, the sense of agency in the hands of the player, the experience on screen becomes much more real and affecting. There's no better example of this🍌 than in action-adventure games, an entire genre of video games that has tried to perfect making people feel awesome and badass.

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Whether people are roleplaying a stealthy thief, an armored supersoldier, or just wanting to smash and shoot things, action-adventure games offer the versatile, gratifying experience that even few other games can accomplis🍌h. And while p💝eople can have their favorite games, it's the studios behind them that deserve the praise.

10 🐓 Valve Software (85)

Half-Life 2 promotional image

The mecca for any gamer, Valve Software has developed some of the most genre-redefining games of the past couple of generations. They let people fight interdimensional aliens and soldiers in Half-Life, fend off hordes of zombies in Left for Dead, jump through sci-fi hoops on Portal, aꦐnd make a bunch of memes about its president, Gabe Newell🅺.

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Valve is a studio whose inventive mechanics have managed to keep each of their games fresh and whose wit and sense of heart gave real narrative behind the fantastical nonsense. Though the studio has been quite as a game developer for quite some time, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Half-Life: Alyx has proven that they're not done, yet.

9 ꧟ Yacht Club Games (85) ꦡ

Shovel Knight artwork featuring all the characters and enemies bunched together to a purple background

Yacht Club Games doesn't have quite the same catalog as most other action-adventure developers, but the one, original title that they've produced has offered players plenty of hours of fun as well as a sincere dip into the past. Proving that not all 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ki⛎ckstarter campaigns are di🐈sappointing, this humble studio developed one of this generation's greatest indie games, Shovel Knight.

Lovingly combining inventive platforming mechanics with RPG elements, Shovel Knight has let people take on all manner of beast and warrior, all with a shovel. While there's been plenty of support for the one gaꦍme, many people are already looking forward to whatever Yacht Club Gam⛦es has coming next.

8 ๊ Blizza💞rd Entertainment (85)

Warcraft-III-Reforged

Blizzard Entertainment is practically sharing the same space as the words "action-adventure" in the gaming dictionary. This giant studio has developed some of the best opportunities to fight, shoot, and rage in a variety of fan🔥tasy and science fiction settings.

They let people go on massive, immersive quests with their Warcraft franchise, get into the fray between angels and demons in the Diablo series, and most, recently, live out the superhero dream in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Overwatch. With plenty of lore behind each of their installments, Blizzard just⛦ knows how to keep their players asking for more.

7 Bungie Software (85) 🍨

Destiny 2

The gaming community has been very divided within the last few years about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Halo franchise. While 343 and Microsoft Studios has certainly been doing their best with the property, something has certainly been miss♒ing since Bungie Software left.

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Bungie's sense of action, depth, and character was something that helped elevate the original Halo games from just shooters to memorable adventures that people talk about today. That same spirit is being seen by fans today with their eclectic looter-shooter-dance game, Destiny.

6 ✱ Supergiant Games (88)

A gameplay screenshot from Hades

Supergiant Games has been the pinnacle of action-adventure games within indie studios for the past generation. Even just now, the community is reveling in the level of detail, polish, and character in the isometric gauntlet that is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hades.

This is nothing new for people who played the magical ball game that is Pyre or the grand, fantastical adventures in Bastion and Transistor. Each game matches th🔴eir adventure setting with distinctive, colorful art styles that can get people excited with just a sight. With consistency and character that rivals even big-name studios, Supergiant Games💛 is living up to its name.

5 Mossmouth (88) ꦚ

Spelunky - The Protagonist Hunting For Treasure In A Dark Tunnel

Mossmouth is another studio with few titles under its name. To be exact, there's only one franchise. However, that one game would be none other than 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spelunky, a 2🌄D platformer, rogue-lite that ♕lets the player play as a "spelunker."

This little guy has the unenviable task of exploring cavernous dwellings full of treasure and friends but also plenty of enemies and traps. With the game only getting more complex the deeper one gets and the more that they want to accomplish, Spelunky is a game that's ofꦏfered hundreds upon thousands of unique adventures.

4 🍎 🤪 Team Cherry (88)

Hollow Knight - Cover Art Of The Protagonist

The metroidvania has seen a rise within the last few years, with the Ori series, Axiom Verge, and Blasphemous being generation standouts. However, if there was a game that both rivals the scope of its genre inspirations as well as the difficulty of even the Souls franchise, it would be Team Cherry's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hollow Knight.

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Though this game is the studio's only installment, it's filled to th❀e brim with great combat mechanics, unique characters, and a deep worlܫd that any player can get lost in. Given Hollow Knight's success with difficulty, art, and worldbuilding, fans can't get more excited for Team Cherry's next game.

3 Playdead (89) 𒀰

Inside

No gamer forgets their first time playing a Playdead game. A studio famous for its thoro𝓡ugh development, dark atmospheres,🅰 and subtle storytelling, Playdead has made a couple of adventures that really stick to people's minds (and their nightmares).

In Limbo, players got a control of a small child exploring a monochromatic landscape filled with dangerous creatures and traps. In Inside, they get to explore an ominous, lab facility that would hau▨nt George Orwell. With Playdead lookin𒆙g to bring those experiences to a 3D landscape in their next game, there's still plenty for fans to look into within the abyss.

2 ꧙ Looking Glass Studios (89) 🦂

Looking Glass Studios may no longer be in operation, but it's hard to look around the games industry today, particularly with immersive sims, and not see the studio's longstanding influence. Opting to pit well-equipped adventurers against twisty, dangerous worlds, Looking Glass has developed some of the most iconꦜic action-adventure games around.

These include the studio's take on the classic Ultima franchise, Ultima Underworld, the stealthy, human chess game that was Thief, and science fiction bender that influenced the BioShock franchise, System Shock.

1 💟 CD Projekt (89) 𒈔

cyberpunk 2077

There are few other studios that are talked about as positively as CD Projekt. While CD Projekt Red is the particular department in charge of making the roleꦜ-playing classics that people rave over today, the company as a whole has done a great job of bringing adventures to the public.

Within CD Projekt Red, the studio has developed the immersive, content-congested experiences of the The Witcher franchise and frequented headlines recently with their development of Cyberpunk 2077. With CD Projekt as a whole, the studio helped bring Gwent into an official, mainstream experience and launched one of the leading, digital stores, GOG.com. With even bigger and better g⛦ames to come (within their own tim💝e), CD Projekt has become an action-adventure studio to define the genre.

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