15 Best Linear Games of 2024
Open-world games were a dime a dozen throughout the 2010s, with studios chasing that Skyrim success with almost reckless abandon. Advances in tech have since streamlined the process of making huge game worlds, giving studios a better reason to invest their efforts in them. While gamers still clamor for a satisfying open world to explore and immerse themselves in, interest has shifted to more focused and curated experiences. Linear games are on an upward trend, with platformers like Astro Bot and action games like Black Myth Wukong winning over gamers’ hearts and wallets this year. Here are the 15 best linear games of 2024.
Arizona Sunshine Remake
The original Arizona Sunshine from 2016 caused a bit of a stir regarding some of its content being locked behind Intel Core i7 CPUs. Now in 2024, you can play all of that content, including two large DLCs and numerous updates with a ground-up remake to match Arizona Sunshine 2’s visuals. You’re mostly shooting zombies with your two VR hands throughout the linear narrated campaign, but there’s also a lot of quirky environmental interactions that make this a classic VR experience; and best of all, it has three-player co-op to triple the shenanigans. If you own a VR set, Arizona Sunshine Remake is a clear no-brainer.
Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2
Space Marine 2’s multiplayer offerings are tremendous fun, but it’s the solo campaign where the core meat and potatoes of the game are found. The story kicks off where Space Marine 1 left off, with Captain Titus returning to command his squad against the Tyranid swarms after a mortal wound. With a runtime around 10 hours long, Space Marine 2’s campaign is a riotous time filled with spectacular vistas and visceral combat. This is a hack and slash in a lot of ways, but Space Marine 2 emphasizes precise countering more than its predecessor, adding a bit of extra skill to the mix. Grabbing a partner to run through the separate co-op missions is a treat as well, but the AI companions aren’t bad either with their consistent healing and tanky defense. Space Marine 2 feels like a blast from the past with its fast-paced campaign density.
Silent Hill 2 Remake
Remaking a horror masterpiece like Silent Hill 2 is no easy feat, yet Bloober somehow pulled it off with great success. A key ingredient in that success is the expanded environments. The atmospheric hallways and foggy outdoor areas greatly encourage exploration, leading the player to a host of new items and collectables that can be viewed from any angle. Helping you navigate the expanded areas is the new over-the-shoulder camera perspective, which gives further context to environments. The original Silent Hill 2 clocked in at around 12 or so hours, but the remake can easily take double that time from all the added exploration. Still, the remake maintains the dense pacing of the original in spite of this, making it one of the more impressive and scary linear games on this list.
Black Myth Wukong
Black Myth Wukong takes a rather unorthodox approach to level design, seesawing back and forth between corridor-like linearity to wide open environments. Most puzzling of all, there’s no map or navigation tools to assist your exploration in the game. Despite this, we couldn’t help but marvel at the variety of biomes and beauty of environments within the Journey To the West-inspired tale. But it isn’t just some of the environments that proceed linearly, your weapons and armor automatically upgrade as you progress too. Black Myth Wukong is a masterclass in focus; it doesn’t meander and bloat the player’s time with frivolous stuff, instead honing in on what makes it great.
Stellar Blade
If you’re familiar with the way Nier Automata handles level design, you’ll feel at home within Stellar Blade. One area that Stellar Blade expands upon its level design is the engaging collectibles scattered across its environments. You have everything from soda cans to posters and boxes of loot to collect, rewarding you with new costumes for Eve and her companions to wear. The wide-linear nature of the environments hits a sweat spot that always manages to make you feel like you’re progressing forward while giving satisfying room for exploration as you do so. Parts of the story have you strictly going from A to B with collectibles nestled within secret routes off the beaten path, while others are open zones meant for questing and exploration. Stellar Blade excels in the way it mixes urgency and exploration with its wide-linear level design.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
Hellblade 2 takes quite a different approach to linear level design. Due to the zoomed-in focus on very specific locations, Ninja Theory managed to go all-out decorating each hand-crafted environment and presenting it all with an unmatched cinematic flair. It’s no exaggeration to say that Hellblade 2 is among the most graphically impressive games to date. This combination of chiseled graphical fidelity with cinematic flair help cement Hellblade 2’s Norse-inspired locations into the player’s memory. It may be a straightforward game in all aspects of its gameplay, but Hellblade 2’s psychologically rich narrative and impressive visual presentation punctuate its linear design with a bold exclamation point.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership
Despite introducing a sailing ship into the Mario & Luigi series, Brothership still follows a more or less traditional critical path. The brothers’ overarching goal this time around is lighting the four Great Lighthouses throughout Concordia’s oceans. The developers made sure each of the four Great Lighthouse dungeons were top-tier, earning the top spot on my list of Mario RPG dungeons. When they’re not puzzling their way through the Great Lighthouse dungeons, Mario & Luigi are busy linking together the distinctly themed islands with the ship. Brothership threads its themes of connections brilliantly through the narrative and humorous writing, forming a cohesive story that impresses despite its basic appearance.
The Plucky Squire
The Plucky Squire mashes together a bunch of different genres onto the framework of a top-down adventure game. A majority of your time is spent swinging around a sword defeating enemies, but the sheer amount of odd little minigames ranging from Punch-Out sequences, to Duck Hunt shootouts, and even some turn-based RPG fun, is chaotically enduring. And then there’s the puzzles that ask you to rearrange sentences for new props to appear inside the picture book you inhabit. And yes, you even get to pop out of the book and into ‘the real world’ several times. The pop-up book aesthetic puts a bow on the whole package, making The Plucky Squire one of the most enduring linear games of the year.
Neva
Like the studio’s previous game Gris, Neva does more than just offer up a compelling platforming game; it’s an emotional audio/visual art piece. The bond between Alba and her wolf pup Neva grows as the seasons change throughout the adventure, manifested in turn by more advanced platforming challenges. Neva differentiates itself from Gris with its emphasis on combo-based combat and precision platforming sequences, providing a punchy and satisfying linear adventure full of heart.
Akimbot
If you’re looking for an old-school action/adventure game that’s as straightforward as it is fun, look no further than Akimbot. Like its Ratchet and Clank inspiration, you have a range of gun types to unload on enemies with through a linear story. The pacing of the action is non-stop, supplying a constant stream of action-platforming fun. And the best thing is its gameplay doesn’t overstay its welcome thanks to a variety of activities and sequences breaking up the usual run-and-gunning (such as the bullet hell sections). Akimbot is one of the those games that’s effortless to just drop in and play without too much thought or prep-work, and I still often get the urge to start up another playthrough many months after completing it.
Lego Horizon Adventures
Despite its open world source material, the Lego-fied version of Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most linear and straightforward Lego games to date. You play through the basic storyline of Horizon Zero Dawn through linear mission-based levels, returning to the Mother’s Heart hub area in between your excursions. There’s not a ton of exploration in this game except for some smaller open areas and branching paths in the levels, but the hub does allow for some satisfying customization and personalization. Whether you’re a Horizon fan or a Lego connoisseur, you owe it to yourself to play this unique take on the PlayStation IP solo or with two other friends.
Princess Peach Showtime
If you’re looking for a fun mish-mash of different gameplay ideas and themes presented in true Nintendo fashion, Princess Peach Showtime will satisfy. Each stage has a unique theme that completely alters the gameplay and aesthetics, as well as, of course, Peach’s outfit. From lassoing up bandits on a horse to swordfighting through hack and slash dungeons, the creative levels give you reasons to come back and replay them. Like previous Good Feel games, stages are absolutely filled with collectables and secrets, providing solid replay value.
Astro Bot
Unlike Princess Peach or Akimbot, Astro Bot takes a more open approach to some of its levels, taking a cue from something like Super Mario Galaxy. Still, Astro Bot’s levels comprise mostly linear challenges, and oh how fun they are. 3D platforming never felt better than with Astro Bot’s high tech Dual Sense functionality – it goes beyond a mere gimmick, being a primary function of gameplay. Every action in the game is accompanied by a signature rumble from the controller. Each stage is tailored specifically to the PS5 and its controller, providing a unique kind of console experience. Likewise, stages take full advantage of Astro’s abilities in creative and imaginative ways, proving that linearity can be an enormous strength in platforming games.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak
I know, I know, an ongoing JPRG series with a dozen connected games is a hard sell for most folks. But you owe it to yourself to give Trails Through Daybreak the light of day. For one, it forms the beginning of a new arc with a fresh cast of characters set in a different province from previous games. It’s also just a phenomenal turn-based RPG through and through. If you enjoy dialogue-heavy RPG stories with a linear structure that lets you explore its towns at your own pace, Trails Through Daybreak may be the surprise hit that gets you invested into the wider series.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Not only is this the first Indy game in 15 years, it’s also a return for MachineGames after their run of successful Wolfenstein reboot titles. As previews have observed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features a lot of stealth. Its core gameplay revolves less around – well, revolvers – than you’d come to expect, supplying an experience more in line with the Thief series. You’re often hiding behind baddies to knock them out before finding that ever elusive key to the locked door down the hallway. What we’ve seen of the trailers has us reassured that MachineGames knows what makes Indiana Jones stories so fun charming. Hopefully, the stealth mechanics and story manage to reach the highs that the IP has been lacking in recent years when Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches December 9th.
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