As gaming worlds continue to get bigger, the methods of exploring them get more diverse. The usual approach is giving players access to a variety of vehicles from cars to starships to get around quickly. However, one of the largest pools of creativity is how developers design character navigation and movement.
In the early 2000s, games started to appear with protagonists who had far more dynamic and fluid movement than previously seen. By taking inspiration from the French activity of parkour, designers were able to create characters that could scale buildings, dive through crowds and run across rooftops. This led to many great games where parkour is the definitive way to move.
Updated November 7, 2021 by William Quick: Movement is still a vital aspect of most video games, and titles that take inspiration from the fluid motion of parkour are still prevalent across the gaming landscape. We've added a few more games for fans of being able to jump, dive, and dash across physical spaces. The controls of these games clearly cater to them.
15 Thief 2014
The thief series began in 1998 with its first game, Thief: The Dark Project. It was noted for being a first-person game that focused on stealth and avoiding enemies rather than combat. After a couple of more games, the series went quiet until 2014 when a sequel simply titled Thief was released by Eidos Interactive.
This entry had a different feel from its predecessors and received a mixed response from fans and newcomers alike. However, it did tailor gameplay to be faster and smoother to enhance the experience of breaking in and escaping pursuit.
14 Hot Lava
There is a lot of incredible parkour content out there with so much of it giving the impression of tight and precise movements. However, the parkour in Hot Lava by Klei Entertainment is a bit more crude if still effective. As one of multiple characters afflicted with ragdoll physics, you're caught in a dangerous world where the floor is lava or something equally dangerous.
In hopes of escaping to safe ground, you'll have to maintain balance as you jump and run as tightly as you can to stay in the game. While it may not have all the fancy flips of advanced parkour, it takes the basics and creates scnerios where they can be both enjoyable and challneging to use.
13 Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Uncharted is one of the most successful and prolific third-person game series available today. It follows Nathan Drake, a snarky and confident globe-trotting thief attempting to steal whatever priceless artifacts he can get his hands on. Since the first game, the series has continued to evolve making Drake’s movement more natural and realistic. In 2016, the fourth entry A Thief’s end was released by Naughty Dog.
It was the biggest Uncharted game at the time and offered much more freedom of movement. Though it wasn’t entirely open-world, you had more world to explore and better ways to explore it.
12 Watch Dogs
The art of hacking has garnered more and more attention over the years so it’s only natural that there should be games about it. In 2014, the developers at Ubisoft released Watch Dogs, a game about an athletic hacking vigilante. You play as Aiden Pierce, a hacker who can hack a wide range of electronic devices from his phone.
Of course, this draws the attention of the authorities and competitors who will try to hunt him down. This forces you to run, jump, climb and roll through the streets and over the rooftops of Chicago.
11 Hover
Since the days of Jet Set Radio, the desire for fast-paced parkour with neon lights and solid beats has remained. A game that attempts to fulfil it is Hover created by Fusty Game and Midgar Studio. It's an online experience that gives you a huge futuristic city that may as well be a free-running playground.
You'll get the option to choose one of several different characters to explore the city by running, jumping, flipping, climbing and speeding as smoothly as you can. The layout of the city gives you plenty of options to navigate over rooftops or through the streets with a bunch of goals and activities to test your skills and be the best.
10 Infamous 2
With the expansive universes of both Marvel and DC, it’s becoming quite a challenge to come up with new superhero ideas. The creators at Sucker Punch Productions made a strong effort with their Infamous series. The first two games follow Cole McGrath, a courier who inherits electric-based powers from an orb-like device and must use them either for good or evil.
Though the series has always had parkour, it was expanded upon in Infamous 2 released in 2011. Cole was able to combine his natural athleticism with a greater range of powers that could better help him navigate the tricky city of New Marais.
9 Titanfall
There’s very little content that can’t be improved by adding giant robots to it. In the case of Titanfall, released by Respawn Entertainment in 2014, they were added to a parkour playground. The story follows two warring factions, the IMC and Militia, as they fight for control of the outer space colonies.
You play as a pilot for one of these factions who can periodically drive large robot suits called Titans to join the fight. When not piloting Titans, pilots can rely on their speed and agility to race across the battlefield. Their jump packs allow for boosted jumps, wall running, and titan grappling.
8 Ghostrunner
When picturing cyborg warriors, they're not usually seen as agile or graceful. This view is challenged by Ghostrunner which was brought onto the cyberpunk stage by multiple developers. It follows that journey of a cybernetic assassin known as a Ghostrunner, who is tasked by a mysterious AI counsciouness to ascend to the highest room of the tallest in order to eliminate a malevolent tyrant.
You have access to a range of movements from wallrunning to teleporting which you'll need to master in order to clear out the waves of soldiers standing in your way. Though your cybernetics are quite advaced, they're also fairly fragile so you'll be relying on parkour and quick reactions just to survive.
7 Spider-Man 2018
If DC has Batman and Superman as their headliners, then Marvel has Spider-Man. First appearing in 1962, the web-slinger has gone on to dominate all forms of media from comics to videogames. The sheer number of Spider-Man games is becoming harder to keep track of as studios struggle to capture the feeling of BEING Spider-Man.
This was achieved to a high degree in the 2018 Spider-Man game released by Insomniac Games. You have a free range of movement from swinging and launching to wall-running and diving. Coupled with the fact that you New York City to play in, the parkour feels limitless.
6 Mirror’s Edge
When it comes to platforming, a first-person perspective isn’t favorable. It’s difficult to judge distance when you can’t even see your feet. Despite this, several developers including DICE tried to put a twist on this by releasing Mirror’s Edge in 2009. It was set in a seemingly ideal futuristic city that was both white and extremely clean, a very bright combination. You play as a Runner (AKA courier) named Faith Connors who must deliver sensitive information to an underground resistance.
She does this by traversing the numerous rooftops and climbing whatever structures she can grasp. Though many are still split on this game, its perspective and use of parkour helped redefine first-person platforming.
5 Super Cloudbuilt
Even the most well-versed and experienced parkour experts would find themselves at a loss among floating platforms in the sky. Thankfully, the developers at Coilworks and Double Eleven have provided a solution in their title Super Cloudbuilt. The game follows an injured soldier caught in a shattered world who must use their atheletic prowess as well as rockets in order to navigate the various pieces of floating debris.
As things fall apart, you'll need to make the most of the movements and technology to get to safety and hopefully find solid ground. It's a game that provides a dynamic world to test your limits and try to beat yourself with every attempt.
4 Dying Light
Nothing motivates someone to push their limits like fear. It’s because of this that so many survivors in zombie stories are average people who just weren’t ready to give up yet. While these people exist in the 2015 game Dying Light by Techland, it doesn’t fit the protagonist’s description. You play as Kyle Crane, an undercover agent sent into a middle-eastern city named Harran currently under zombie-related quarantine.
You’re soon at the mercy of the horde and must use your military training and survivor instinct to safely explore the city. Most of the buildings are short and the hit detection is generous enough so that most leaps guarantee that you’ll land or grab onto something.
3 Assassin’s Creed
When reading stories about hunters, a concept that continuously comes up is finding a perfect plan of attack. In 2007, Ubisoft Montreal aimed to make a whole franchise on that with Assassin’s Creed. The first starred Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a member of a secret brotherhood of assassins living during the Third Crusade. After he kills an innocent person, Altaïr is stripped of his rank and must go on a quest to assassinate various high-ranking targets to regain his honor.
The game introduced running through crowds, diving through stalls, climbing the sides of buildings, leaps of faith, and rolls upon landing. The games have continued to refine this movement, but the first set the groundwork and still holds up.
2 Spider-Man: Miles Morales
The arachnid-based hero has taken on many incarnations with one of the most recent and popular being Miles Morales. Following the success of Into The Spiderverse, people couldn't wait to play Spider-Man: Miles Morales by Insomniac Games. As the name suggests, you play as a matured Miles Morales who has become a very competent Spider-Man under the guidance of his mentor, Peter Parker.
Even so, Miles' powers have developed differently and given him access to abilities that Peter never even thought possible. Still having a huge city to explore and spider mutations to experiment with, you'll have plenty of space and opportunity to show off your parkour powers.
1 Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Not many series have as colorful a history as the Prince Of Persia. Originally a 2-D pixelated platformer, the game has fully embraced a 3-D. Despite the heavily criticized Prince Of Persia 3-D of 1999, the series was revived in 2003 by Ubisoft Montreal. This led to the highly popular title Prince Of Persia: The Sand Of Time which combined 3-D platforming with dynamic movement.
The nameless Prince is tricked into releasing a plague upon the city and must quest to undo these horrors. He’s able to run, jump, roll, flip, wall-run, swing, and slide to navigate the vast temple he finds himself in. The movement is sharp and fluid while still feeling natural and offering the bonus to rewind any falls.