Although traditional adventure games are rare today in the US market, action-adventure games that combine elements of adventure games with action games are quite common. There are also similarities between adventure and role-playing games, particularly those in a more modern, story- and character-based mold. Console role-playing games have generally been quite focused on plot and story, thanks in part to the success of the Final Fantasy series (1987–present), while computer role-playing games in this vein have also been published more frequently since the success of Baldur's Gate in 1998.
Sega's ambitious Shenmue (1999) attempted to redefine the genre with its realistic 3D graphics, third-person perspective, direct character control interface, sandbox open-world gameplay, quick time events, and fighting game elements. Its creator Yu Suzuki originally touted it as a new kind of adventure game, "FREE" ("Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment"), offering an unparalleled level of player freedom, giving them full reign to explore expansive interactive city environments with its own day-night cycles and changing weather, and interact with fully-voiced non-player characters going about their daily routines. Despite being a commercial failure, the game was critically acclaimed and has remained influential.[72][73][74][75]
There is something of a revival of the adventure game online, in both a fairly traditional style, such as the mouse-controlled text games on Rinkworks and Mystery Of Time And Space, and in 3-dimensional games, such as Crimson Room. This had led to the creation of a genre called escape the room or room-escape. Games are usually created with Adobe Flash. A parallel can be drawn with "Behind Closed Doors" by John Wilson of Zenobi Software, a popular 1980s text adventure series for the ZX Spectrum, where the object was only to escape one single location, such as a bathroom. Most of the current room-escape games consist of several locations which together make up one room.
In October 2006, online game company Telltale Games, made up primarily of ex-employees from LucasArts, released their first installment of Sam & Max: Season One. This episodic game series utilized 3D graphics, but was played in the 'point and click' style of older LucasArts titles. It was designed to be exclusively distributed online, and featured characters from the classic game Sam & Max Hit the Road. The series was successful, leading to a retail release of the full season for PC and Wii, and the development of a second series, Sam & Max: Season Two. Telltale was also responsible for a two-game series based on Jeff Smith's Bone comics and a series of five games based on the Homestar Runner flash cartoons.
A further resurgence in adventure games was seen due to recent changes at Lucasarts. On the first day of the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Lucasarts announced that they would be releasing both a special edition of The Secret of Monkey Island as well as working with Telltale Games to create an episodic series Tales of Monkey Island. In early July 2009, Lucasarts announced that it would supporting digital distribution of its back catalog of titles, including its classic adventure games, through services such as Steam, and has announced it will further consider porting these titles to mobile devices such as iPhones. These efforts were backed by Lucasarts' new president, Darrell Rodriguez, who has been said to be "very big on adventure games".[76] Lucasarts has stated that digital distribution helps to remove the barrier to reproducing these titles, and hopes that they will attract a new audience to these games.[77] The move was shortly followed by Activision who offered the King's Quest and Space Quest collections from Sierra also for digital distribution.[78]
The Nintendo DS, with its unique touch screen and dual-screen features, has sparked a renewed interest in pure adventure game content and a resurgence in the genre's popularity,[62][79][80] following the 2005 releases of Capcom's courtroom game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (originally a 2001 GameBoy Advance game) and Cing's Another Code: Two Memories as well as the 2006 release of Cing's Hotel Dusk: Room 215.[62][80][81] GameSpot has credited Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney in particular for revitalizing the adventure game genre.[82] The success of the Ace Attorney series was followed soon after by the even greater success of Level-5's Professor Layton in 2007. Both have since become some of the best selling adventure game franchises, with Ace Attorney selling over 3.9 million units worldwide and Professor Layton selling over 9.5 million units worldwide.[68] Their success has led to an increase in Japanese adventure games, primarily visual novels, being localized for Western release, including KID's Ever 17: The Out of Infinity (2002), Marvelous Entertainment's Lux-Pain (2008), Cing's Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (2009), Chunsoft's 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2010), and Capcom's Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (2010).
Nintendo's Wii Remote is also regarded as being well-suited for the genre, and could see some ground-breaking releases in that vein for the Wii,[79] such as Capcom's Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (2007),[83] Eidos Interactive's So Blonde (2008), and Cing's Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories (2009). The Ace Attorney series was also ported to the Wii in 2009 and 2010. Adventure games are also seen as ideal games for mobile platforms such as the iPhone, where the use of a touch screen to interact with the game provides new directions for such games, much like the Nintendo DS.[79] The introduction of larger and more powerful touch screen devices like the iPad are also seen as a boon to adventure games, allowing for more detailed graphics and better controls and precision over smaller touchscreen units, and a better sense of immersion and interactivity compared to personal computer or console versions.[84][85]
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