10 Best Games Like The Drifter

Watching The Drifter’s trailer, its unique art style instantly clicks with you. It’s an evolution of classic 2D point-and-click adventures, using pixel art in its raw and pulp fiction form. To glue this all together is brilliant writing, nabbing your attention throughout the rollercoaster story of a drifter brought back from the dead. 

By concocting Molokov cocktails, interrogating a crooked neurosurgeon, and making your getaway through a broken glass window, you’ll draw closer and closer to solving your murder, alongside figuring out your past and other nifty puzzles, mysteries, and twists developers Powerhoof and Dave Llyod have been cooking up. 

Sounds like your cup of tea? Feel free to check it out, and when you’re done, you’ll be craving more, satiated by the best games like The Drifter below.

10. Old Skies

Always loved time-traveling-themed games because more often than not, they give you a do-over. You can travel back in time or to the future and manipulate how current events unfold. So, even though you can die inOld Skies, you can always time travel again and change things. 

But Old Skies is far more than mere time traveling. It follows the emotional and complex stories of seven travelers who time-travel to different times in history, from the speakeasies of Prohibition to the gangs of the Gilded Age. And as you solve puzzles and unravel the stories, they interconnect in surprising ways. 

9. Unforeseen Incidents

As far as exploring unique art styles, you’ll want to check out the striking hand-painted art style of Unforeseen Incidents. It sets a high bar for the point-and-click gaming genre, with its well-written detective story and intricate puzzles.

You follow the small-town handyman Harper Pendrell as he solves the mystery of a dying woman he meets in the street. Soon, the mystery grows deeper, involving a diabolical conspiracy that, upon solving, could save humankind. 

8. Mysteries of Perception

Detective games are growing more creative. Take Mysteries of Perception, for instance. It charges you with analyzing the same crime scene through the eyes of different characters. You can freely switch perspectives between the characters, discovering new clues.

Even more interesting is the ability to jump from the past to the future. The art style uses unique desaturated colors, cementing a truly unforgettable experience. 

7. Thimbleweed Park

Thimbleweed Park’s unique art style is closest to The Drifter. Five people are drawn to the park, encountering the strangest of things. A dead body under the bridge is hardly the most surprising, with a haunted hotel, an abandoned circus, and a burnt-out pillow factory also among the areas you stumble onto.

You’ll gradually discover a surprising connection between all five characters. What’s more? It appears they are being watched. In this world, ghosts are normal, among other unsettling things.

6. Sanitarium

Fun fact: Sanitarium first hit game store shelves in 1998, earning the Adventure Game of the Year award. However, it remains one of the best horror point-and-click adventures, and one of the best games like The Drifter worth playing. 

After a car accident, you find yourself trapped in a gloomy asylum; your head wrapped in bandages. So, now, it’s up to you to figure out what you’re doing here by solving some pretty dark and twisted riddles. 

5. Unavowed

You’ve been possessed by a vicious demon that forced you to wreak havoc throughout New York City. Now that the ancient society, Unavowed, has saved you, you swear your allegiance to the organization, helping them stop evil at all costs.

This is merely the foundation to a brilliant story and playthrough that carries more complexity than meets the eye. It’s a title that has greatly defined the point-and-click genre and makes for one of the best games like The Drifter.  

4. Rusty Lake Hotel

The Rusty Lake Hotel uses a unique art style that you’ll feel engrossed in from the get-go. It’s an actual hotel, where you serve five dinners to your guests. However, the dinners turn out to be anything but normal, thanks to the unexpected stories you discover from your guests.

You’ll explore the hotel’s rooms to unearth brain teasers, and gradually unearth a most eerie and dark atmosphere looming over the establishment.

3. Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer

When considering the best games like The Drifter, Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer will be at the top of many gamers’ lists. Returning sharp-witted detective, Kathy Rain, returns to solve the Soothsayer case, which involves a string of serial murders. It’s a case so dangerous that your own life might be at stake. 

However, with the bills racking up, and your career on the line, you’re faced with no other choice but to face your hunter head-on. You can always try out the first game. However, the second turns the heat up a notch, with a darker, grittier world most similar to The Drifter. 

2. Phasmophobia

Want to go ghost hunting? Ten haunted places await you and your team to spot as many ghost types as you can, and call for support when needed. Phasmophobia has become quite the sensation, with its deceptively horrifying run-through. 

With a maximum of four online players, you’ll enjoy getting terrified together. Even the slightest creak of wood will send you running for your life. However, you can, of course, gather up the courage to run toward the danger, taking advantage of the hidden hiding spots and creative layouts of the haunted houses you visit. 

1. The Blackwell series

The Blackwell series contains five graphic adventure games, which follow a spiritual medium and ghost guide, Joey Mallone, as they help tormented spirits transition to the afterlife. You can get the Blackwell Bundle via Steam, which provides you with a complete storyline of the medium meeting with her ghost guide, unraveling their backstories and destinies.

You’ll investigate lots of gripping mysteries, from unearthing dark pasts to solving mysterious murder cases. The bundle contains five self-contained adventures: Blackwell Legacy, Blackwell Unbound, Blackwell Convergence, Blackwell Deception, and Blackwell Epiphany, all at the meager price of $26.20.