Video game genres, explained

Every entertainment medium uses genres to help people understand what a game or movie or song will be like before experiencing it. In a sea of nearly limitless content, this is essential for allowing people to more easily find the things they are interested in — and to avoid the ones they aren’t. However, genres also need to be broad enough to still be useful, meaning most things don’t fit perfectly into any one box. Games are in an even trickier situation since genres can not only describe the tone and target audience, but also how the game is played. This has created a whole new set of genres and subgenres exclusive to games that can be quite confusing. We’ll go over the most recognized video game genres, as well as some subgenres within them, to explain what they are and give some examples.

While we will do our best to organize games and genres in a logical way, it is still a subjective practice.

Action

Action is about the broadest genre there is in games, and it tends to be an element in most other genres as well. Action games encompass any game that focuses primarily on the player-controlled character engaging in some form of combat with opponents. This could be with swords, fists, magic, or anything else. There can be a story, but it tends to be secondary to the moment-to-moment gameplay. A few notable examples would be Devil May Cry, Dead Cells, Bloodborne, Spider-Man, Street Fighter, and Ninja Gaiden.

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You can basically stick the word “action” onto any other genre and have a valid subgenre, but some examples are action-adventure, fighting, character action, arcade action, and action RPGs.

Adventure

Technically, the adventure game might be the oldest video game genre there is. It was originally used to define a very specific type of game, but has now become just as broad as action as the