Video games and combat are intrinsically linked, it seems. I suppose I understand why. Video games can provide special narrative experiences. But the thing that sets video games apart from other mediums is the fact that you can interact with them. And it’s much easier to sell someone on gameplay where you fight with someone over gameplay where you talk to people, explore, or just relax. If you look at all of The Game of the Year nominees at The Game Awards in the 2020s, only 3 out of 30 games have been games that did not feature combat. Odds are, if most of us look at our favorite games of all time, we are going to see a lot of combat in there.
But not everyone follows that path. In fact, I think it can be a smart move to make a game without combat. It’s often a more difficult path from a marketing perspective in particular, but it can make your game stand out from the crowd. There are also many people who really want video games that don’t have the stress of combat. Video games without combat can open themselves up to people who normally do not want to play them. While I don’t personally seek out games like this, they are often a refreshing change of pace for me. And once in a while, they break through and provide me with an experience unlike any other.
Today, I am listing my top 10 games with no combat in an effort to highlight some of these unique gems. I tried to be really strict with this. I didn’t include Portal 2 on the list because you do actually fight a boss at one point in that game, for example (that game probably would have been #1 for me). With that, let’s get to the ranks!
10. Chants of Sennarr
Chants of Sennarr is an adventure game, where you progress through the game by learning several different in-game languages so that you can move forward. It’s an incredibly clever and well executed game that succeeds in just about every way possible. This game is reminiscent of games like Return of the Obra Dinn and Case of the Golden Idol, which are other sorts of puzzle-mystery games. I like Chants of Sennarr best of those, as doing the mystery solving with language over just deciding how a murder happened was a bit more interesting to me. The difficulty balancing is also perfect, as while it’s certainly not easy, I eventually was able to solve everything in the game with no help. The game also has a very cool art style and one of the better video game endings that I can recall in recent years. There’s not much like Chants of Sennarr out there, and I really hope we get another one down the road.
9. Gone Home
Gone Home is one of the most acclaimed and popular narrative games of all time, and with good reason. This is a simple game where you explore through a house to find out what happened to the family that lived there. The story unfolds in a perfectly paced way, and with the way the game is laid out, you can find out a lot of optional things that add more depth to the story if you explore more. The voice acting is surprisingly strong, and I really enjoyed the art style, too.
I just loved how this game built to its ending. I remember holding my breath and feeling legitimate anxiety towards the end of the game, as I went to pick up the last letter and finally figure out what happened. Despite the simple way that this story is told, it had me absolutely hooked and invested. This was a special experience that opened me up to playing more games like this down the road.
8. Balatro
I love roguelike deckbuilders, but all of those games are generally built around combat. Balatro is unique, as it is built around something closer to a mix of Poker and Solitaire.
This leads Balatro to being almost assuredly the most accessible deckbuilder of all time. If you have even a basic understanding of how Poker works, you can jump in and start playing the game immediately and probably do OK. This doesn’t mean there isn’t some depth, though. There is tons of decision-making going on during each “ante” and in between rounds. It says something that it took me something like 8 hours to win my first run of Balatro, but then, when I got the game on my phone, I managed to snag my first win on only my fourth run. That mixture of both pick up and play value and depth is so rare and makes Balatro a very special game.
7. Littlewood
Littlewood is my #3 favorite “cozy” game like this of all time. This game is like a Harvest Moon game mixed with Animal Crossing. You can do tasks around town and nearby areas, and you can use these to build houses and decorate for everyone in town. This never really appeals to me all that much in Animal Crossing because I’m not a great decorator and just not motivated by that. The beauty of Littlewood is that the real motivation is the RPG elements. You can level up almost everything in this game, so every action feels very meaningful. This is also one of the very few cozy games out there where I actually cared about the story a little bit. You play as the hero who saved the world (and then lost your memories), and now your job is to rebuild. Nothing crazy happens, but there was just enough to keep me at least a little bit invested, which means something to me in this genre. There is just an absolutely perfect gameplay loop here, and I was addicted until I finished, which is rare in a genre where I tend to jump off after 5-10 hours.
6. Harvest Moon 64
There are probably a lot of farming sims out there a lot better than Harvest Moon 64. But like many things, experiencing a certain type of gameplay for the first time is very powerful. Harvest Moon 64 was my first time playing any sort of game like this, and it had me in a chokehold for at least a year when I was a kid. I think the most satisfying parts of games like this are that they are essentially RPG, but all of your progress is very tangible. It feels great going from a farm full of debris all over the fields to having a greenhouse, horses, chickens, tons of plants, etc. The game also had some solid romance options, and the festivals were all mostly well done. I also think Harvest Moon 64 weirdly benefits from not having quite as many features as the modern-day cozy farming games often have. This was a much more focused experience that wasn’t particularly overwhelming but was consistently fun.
I can still remember my excitement at the Christmas where I got this game and Ogre Battle 64. When I play a really special video game, I will often say that it is a game that I will remember for the rest of my life. With Harvest Moon 64, I can safely say that this is a game I still vividly remember 20+ years later, so I’m not lying when I say that I will remember this one for the rest of my life.
5. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
The main series that got me into narrative games was the original Phoenix Wright trilogy. I loved those games, but I also got kind of tired of them by the end. So the thought of the creator of Phoenix Wright doing something a little different really appealed to me. To me, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is easily the best work of Shu Takumi’s career. There is such a fun and satisfying story here that manages to be impactful without being quite as bombastic as the Phoenix Wright games. While they aren’t anything crazy, I also enjoyed the puzzle gameplay a fair bit as well. It all builds up to one of my favorite endings ever. I would really love to see a sequel one day down the road. The game recently got a re-release, so I will continue to hold out hope, but either way, this was a very special experience.
4. Guitar Hero 2
It’s weird to remember sometimes that I spent several years of my life absolutely obsessed with Guitar Hero. I still vividly remember one night during my Freshman year of college where all of my buddies were going to some party, but I felt like I was just getting the hang of “All The Small Things”, and using the 4th guitar button, so I stayed in all night and worked on it. By the time my friends came back, I had it all down. I can’t tell you how many parties I went to in the mid 2000s where Guitar Hero was set up and I got to dominate everyone else.
The original Guitar Hero was awesome, but with the much lower budget at the time, the soundtrack wasn’t on the level of almost any future version of the game. It also featured several covers instead of original songs. With the new bigger budget in Guitar Hero 2, the soundtrack took a big step forward, and there were much better cover versions of songs, in my opinion. I’m not sure if I’d ever play another video game like this again, but damn there were some good memories from those few years between these games and the eventual release of Rock Band.
3. To The Moon
Note: I am not counting the one fake battle in the game that was put in as a joke.
To the Moon is one of the most amazing gaming stories of all time. It’s still wild to think that someone with RPG Maker made one of the greatest narrative games of all time. You play as doctors who can implant memories into dying people’s minds. They go on a journey through one such man’s mind to implant a memory of him going to the moon. During the journey, they eventually discover why he has this dream. It’s an unbelievably well told story with great writing and even surprising bits of humor sprinkled in. This is also one of the saddest and most beautiful stories ever told in video games. I have never cried playing a video game (which I’m not proud of, to be clear), but god damn just thinking about this story gets me close. It just goes to show how good this story is. Just writing about this game made me want to experience it again, as it has been probably close to 15+ years since I last played it. What an experience.
2. Celeste
Celeste is such a cool freaking game. It nails every single thing that it tries to do. I am a huge fan of 2D platforming, and Celeste is as good as it gets, with excellent mechanics and strong level design. It has a really cool story about mental health, and the music and visual style are great, too. It’s almost impossible to put many other 2D platformers on here because combat is inherently built into these games and usually much weaker than the actual platforming. I love Celeste’s laser focus on platforming. The fact that it accomplished everything else it set out to do was just a great bonus. There are very few video games that I have a hard time finding ways to critique, and Celeste is one of them.
1. Journey
When I did my “top 10 games as art” list last year, Journey was also at #1. So it’s probably no surprise that it is also #1 here. This is such a special video game. All these years later, I’ve still never played anything like it. The mix of fantastic art direction, abstract storytelling, wonderful music, and co-op with strangers really made this a transcendent experience. I still think about that final stretch of the game all the time. I experienced one of the best video game moments of all time with someone I couldn’t even talk to. I wonder if it meant as much to them as it did to me. I’ll never forget this video game.
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