With much of the world still on edge or locked away during the second year of the pandemic, visual novels and narrative-driven games played a big part once again in entertaining the gaming world and telling memorable stories. As part of Twinfinite’s Game of the Year awards, here are the best adventure narrative & visual novel games of 2021
Voted on by our editors and staff, these were the adventure and visual novel games that stood out the most in the past year.
Best Adventure & Visual Novel Games of 2021
Honorable Mention: Road 96
Guides Editor Chris Jecks: Road 96 is the kind of visual novel that only comes up every once in a while. It’s a game with a truly unique premise, placing players into the heavily-worn shoes of different hitchhikers as they make their way to their country’s border in the hopes of escaping the evil dictator governing the country.
At each stage of your trip, you’ll bump into one of a number of the ensemble cast, often helping drive the story forward, or simply seeing you get embroiled in some outlandish excursion that could prove incredibly helpful or harmful to your chances of escape.
Just bumping into your favorite criminals Stan and Mitch, or learning more about the creepy cab driver is reason enough to start another run to the border, but the overarching story will keep you coming back until you’ve reached the very end.
There are skills to learn to open up new options, different ways of navigating the many obstacles that lie in your path, and that sense of adventure you only get with a road trip. If you haven’t already, you absolutely owe it to yourself to check out Road 96.
