Action-adventure Game - Subgenres

Subgenres

Although action-adventure games are diverse and difficult to classify, there are some distinct sub-genres. Popular sub-genres include:

• First-person action-adventure, which make use of first-person shooter gameplay, forgoing constant action in favor of important adventure game elements such as environmental problem-solving and a complex plot. These are sometimes called Real-Time Adventure games or RTAs for short. A notable example of this is Metroid Prime and System Shock.
• Third-person action-adventure, in which gameplay is in the third-person. Notable examples include games like Rune, Severance: Blade of Darkness, Grand Theft Auto series, and Hitman series.
• Isometric platform games, which feature freely explorable environments with three-dimensional gameplay and two-dimensional graphics using an isometric projection.
• Sandbox, which focus on nonlinear gameplay in an open world. Notable examples include The Legend of Zelda, Assassin's Creed and the Grand Theft Auto series.
• Platform-adventure games, which emphasize both exploration and puzzle solving, but also feature traditional platform game conventions. The most famous games of this type are the Metroidvania games.
• Stealth games, which emphasize avoiding detection by enemies rather than engaging them in direct combat, leading to a greater emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving than other types of action games. A prime example of this is the Metal Gear franchise which helped establish this sub-genre.
• Survival horror games, which emphasize "inventory management" and making sure the player has enough ammunition and recovery items to "survive" the horror setting. Survival-horror is a thematic genre with diverse gameplay, however, so not all survival horror games share these features. The Resident Evil franchise popularized this sub-genre and stands to date as the most popular franchise of its kind.