Updated January 25, 2021: Restructured list
The old point-and-click adventure genre fell into disuse and neglect following its early ’90s golden period. Fans of the classic LucasArts adventures like Monkey Island were left to pine for a bygone age. But the advent of smartphones and tablets, as well as a thriving indie game scene and online crowdfunding models, has seen the genre resurrected. Not only resurrected, but often developed and spliced with other genres. There are some deeply interesting point-and-click adventure games out there that play with time and narrative conventions in bold new ways. That’s why we’ve brought together this list of the 25 best point-and-click adventure games out there.
Of course, it’s hard to make a list like this without looking back to the classics. Luckily for us some of them, as you’ll see over the following pages, have been updated and rekindled over the years, with games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango getting glorious remasters from teams tied to the original developments. But, it’s impossible to deny some of the high quality, recent games which have appeared in the recently resurrected genre, companies like Daedalic Entertainment and Wadjet Eye are part of a new generation of dedicated creators, taking the best from the past and adding new, cool ideas to the genre.
The following list contains the 25 best point-and-click adventure games which are available, it was tough to whittle them down, but here they are.