Action-adventure game
A video game genre combining real-time action, such as combat or traversal, with exploration, puzzle-solving, and narrative progression.
Action game: A video game genre centered on real-time challenges requiring quick reactions and control. Real-time combat and traversal supply the action half of the genre.
The Legend of Zelda: A Nintendo video game series featuring exploration, puzzles, combat, and quests, often in the land of Hyrule. The series established a lasting template of dungeon exploration, puzzle-solving, and real-time combat.
Level design: The planning and construction of spaces, routes, obstacles, and encounters in a game. Spaces guide exploration while arranging combat, puzzles, and narrative discoveries.
Survival horror: A horror game genre built around vulnerability, scarce resources, threats, and suspense. Survival horror shares exploration and puzzles but makes fear and resource scarcity central.
Adventure game: A video game genre centered on exploration, story, and problem-solving rather than rapid reflexes. Exploration and narrative progression connect the genre to adventure games.
Metroid: A Nintendo science-fiction game series following bounty hunter Samus Aran through hostile, interconnected worlds. Its exploration and ability-gated world design helped shape the Metroidvania branch.
Progression system: A game's structure for granting abilities, items, access, or other forms of advancement. New abilities and access provide reasons to revisit places and continue the story.
First-person shooter: A shooter genre in which players aim and fire weapons from a first-person viewpoint. Shooters prioritize weapon combat, while action-adventure games usually balance it with exploration and puzzles.
Environmental puzzle: A puzzle integrated into a game's world, often solved by interpreting or manipulating surroundings. World-based puzzles make exploration itself part of progression.
Tomb Raider: A video game series starring archaeologist Lara Croft in adventures involving exploration, traversal, and combat. The series foregrounds traversal and environmental puzzles alongside action.