Best Of
10 Best Adventure Games on Nintendo Switch (2026)
Adventure games focus primarily on quality storytelling. They feature exciting characters and NPCs who help reveal more about their background and the worlds they live in. You’ll often go on a rollercoaster journey, discovering layers of secrets and mysteries, and making tough choices that impact the story’s outcome. Today, there are a whopping ton of adventure games, even on Nintendo Switch. But which are the best adventure games on Nintendo Switch this year?
What is an Adventure Game?
An adventure game has a protagonist who guides the player on an exciting journey, unraveling a compelling narrative, solving puzzles, interacting with other characters, and collecting valuable items in an interactive world.
Best Adventure Games on Nintendo Switch
The next time you whip out your Switch, make sure to check out the best adventure games on Nintendo Switch below.
10. Persona 5 Royale
Stealing from the rich to give to the poor is the theme upon which Persona 5 Royal builds its premise, where a group of students lead seemingly normal lives during the day, but turn into the Phantom Thieves of Hearts at night.
And all for a good cause, executing grand heists against the corrupt, and forcing them to change their ways. It’s a truly absorbing story where you unlock multiple Persona characters and fight for justice.
9. Dredge
Dredge’s unique art style is probably what will first grab your attention. But so will its story, riddled with so many intertwining secrets. You’re a fisherman exploring remote isles to uncover the dark secrets hidden below the sea.
While uncovering each region’s dark past, you’ll also be kept busy by the usual RPG gameplay elements: completing quests, selling fish to the locals, unlocking better equipment, and so on.
8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing: New Horizons may start its journey on a deserted island. But with effort and dedication, you’ll transform it into a thriving home for a budding community of diverse personalities leading all kinds of lives.
It’s practically a blank canvas on which to write your own story and breed an island paradise, where you explore natural resources and use them to decorate the island and craft fulfilling lives for your constituents.
7. Okami HD
Okami HD’s ink art style is also very endearing, bursting with color and life. As a Japanese sun goddess, you’ll transform into a white wolf and use magic to revive and restore Nippon to its rightful glory.
The story is pretty surprising with strange and humorous themes. And it’s also pretty lengthy, emulating a Zelda-like gameplay. And hence, ranking among the best adventure games on Nintendo Switch.
6. Metroid Prime Remastered
Metroid Prime Remastered looks so good, ushering the ‘90s series into the modern age. Graphics are sharp and clean, showcasing the intricate details of the planet Tallon IV.
You still follow Samus Aran as she responds to a distress signal that sends her on a more dangerous mission, stopping terrifying genetic experiments. You’ll explore the depths of space, uncovering dark secrets and stopping an intergalactic threat to the universe.
5. Super Mario Odyssey
Mario’s next foray in the gaming world had to be a full-blown adventure; an odyssey for the books. Traversing all across the globe, Super Mario Odyssey doesn’t hold fans from fully exploiting adventure gaming tropes.
You enjoy unlocking new moves like capturing and controlling objects and enemies, and riding your Odyssey airship to save Princess Peach from wedding Bowser.
4. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Ori and the Will of the Wisps continues in the series’ unique lore and art style. The shades of bright and deep purple, blue, and green evoke a moody atmosphere and environment. Meanwhile, the world is much bigger than the first game, adding more towering enemies and challenging puzzles to beat.
Ori is once again on a daring mission to discover their true destiny, which you help unravel via immersive exploration, emotional storytelling, and an exceptional soundtrack. And the striking worlds you traverse certainly help cement a satisfying adventure.
While the adventure ahead is definitely demanding for small Ori, your new abilities and allies you meet along the way will help ease things along. And you can further spice up your playthrough with Spirit Trials, ranking online players’ high scores on a global leaderboard.
3. Astral Chain
Some of the best adventure games on Nintendo Switch have unique systems you must try out, like Astral Chain’s Legions. Taking place in a futuristic, dystopian megapolis, you control a police officer with special connections to sentient armaments called Legions. These are free to summon mid-combat and even swap different types against otherworldly invaders.
Together with your selected Legions, you can experiment with and combine different combos, switching up your fighting style and discovering new abilities the more you level up.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Given a massive open world filled with a myriad of things to do, where do you start exploring? Which quests do you prioritize? This is the freedom The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gives you, to chart a unique path and story you can look back on with pride.
It’s a constant stream of adventures you gradually bend to your will. But also, with the structural option of the main quest, uncovering the truth behind a cataclysmic event gradually destroying the Kingdom of Hyrule.
1. L.A. Noire
Winding back time to the 1940s, Los Angeles, you embody the LAPD detective lens of Cole Phelps, unraveling a dark and violent crime thriller adventure. Corruption, drug trade, murder, and all sorts of crime run rampant, and it falls on you to restore the wheels of justice. L.A. Noire is a pretty engaging adventure, where your thought process and decision-making are tested.
Through exploring conspiracies, solving brutal murders, and strings of arson attacks, you rise up the ranks enough to have an influence on the fate of your home. At the heart of the city is a dark secret you must untangle if there’s any hope for the future.
