Despite whatever accolades it might receive for story or visuals, a game’s core mechanics will often decide how players remember it after the credits roll. A lot goes into making a game fun to play, but the movement is something not all games get right.
The basic function of moving is to get from point A to B, and a lot of games are content to leave it at that. However, some games invest enough into how the player moves around the world, that the simple act of moving becomes a key part of the fun. This can either be through basic movement or through special abilities that help elevate the experience.
8 Marvel's Spiderman
Superhero games have the unique challenge of fulfilling the power fantasy that players expect from their favorite heroes. When someone comes to Insomniac’s Spiderman, they want to feel as much like Spiderman as they can, and the game lets them do just that.
Many games have tried to capture Spiderman’s web-swinging, but this one does it by far the best. Through a combination of swinging, wall running, and base jumping, Spiderman flies through New York gracefully, and it’s very easy to forget the game has a fast travel system when swinging is so fun.
7 Xenoblade Chronicles X
The Xenoblade games are mostly known for their stellar stories and expansive open worlds. In terms of movement, they tend to be quite stilted, only allowing a brisk jog and a short jump. In Xenoblade Chronicles X, however, the setting gives a perfect excuse to change this up.
From the beginning, players can dash at much higher speeds than other Xenoblade games, and jump even higher. As the game continues, they even gain access to ‘skells’, which can be driven around at high speeds and soar through the sky, making this easily the most fun Xenoblade game to traverse.
6 Monster Hunter Rise
Monster Hunter has been historically known to be a very immobile series. The games use slow, deliberate strikes to make every decision count, increasing the stakes and difficulty of combat. In Rise, however, the series receives a massive boost in speed.
Rise introduces the ‘wirebug’ system, which allows players to dash, hang, and swing through the air. They can even run up walls and have several highly mobile ‘silkbind’ attacks to use. The wirebugs make it so that even traversing the map in Rise feels exhilarating.
5 Kingdom Hearts 3
Kingdom Hearts 2 was already known to have some fluid movement after Sora obtained his full list of movement abilities. Almost a decade later, Kingdom Hearts 3 was finally released and took the series’ movement to even greater heights.
Not only do abilities like glide return, but KH3 also increases Sora’s running speed immensely, as well as adding wall-running to his list of skills. Combined with the ability to dive from great heights, use flowmotion to dash around, and even slide on icy rails created by his own spells, Sora in KH3 is extremely mobile and controls like a dream.
4 Metroid Dread
The ‘Metroidvania’ genre is one that usually features late-game upgrades that make new areas accessible. As the pioneer for this genre, Metroid games often end with Samus having a range of powerful movement abilities. Metroid Dread continues this trend in a great way.
Once she receives abilities like the ‘speed boost’ and ‘flash shift’, Samus becomes capable of snappy, fast movement that encourages speed running and is necessary to unlock certain secrets. This movement is further emphasized by the EMMI enemies, whose fluid movements make them the perfect chasers to test Samus’ mobility.
3 Super Mario Odyssey
As the undisputed king of the platformer genre, it’s not surprising that Mario games have some amazing movement in them. The 3D games in the series started with Mario 64, and they have continued to be refined up until the latest release, Mario Odyssey.
Combining Mario’s already fluid running, jumping, sliding, and rolling with Cappy’s abilities, Odyssey creates some of the most satisfying platforming in the genre. Skilled players have the freedom to fly across a stage, while newer players have more than enough options to experiment with.
2 Sonic Mania
In the old conflict between Sonic and Mario in the 90s and early 2000s, one of the main reasons Sonic was able to compete with the king of platforming was due to its movement; specifically its speed. While this has remained a core part of the franchise ever since, Sonic Mania is arguably the best representation of the original game’s movement.
At its best, Mania turns Sonic into a pinball, sending him flying around the map with great momentum. Taking the skills of the other playable characters into account, the game provides several movement options that always feel smooth and accurate to the character and the series as a whole.
1 DOOM Eternal
As an FPS, DOOM Eternal mainly has to worry about the feeling of its gunplay, which it nails expertly. However, it pairs this with a bevy of movement options that elevate the experience far past what is necessary for a shooter.
Regular running and jumping already feel smooth, but by the end of the game, the Doomslayer is capable of dashing, double jumping, and grappling around the map. This mobility is necessary to deal with the bigger hordes of demons, and also helps make Eternal one of the most fun shooters of recent years.