15 Best PS3 Adventure Games

Machinarium was made over three years by seven Czech developers, who paid for it with their own savings. The marketing budget for the game was $1,000. It contains no dialogue, spoken or written, and apart from a few tutorial prompts on the first screen it has no readable language anywhere. Its strangest rule is that only objects within the hero's reach can be clicked on, so a big part of each puzzle is walking him to the right spot.

The developers first spent six months making it for the Xbox 360, but Microsoft decided not to publish it on Xbox Live Arcade. Little backstory scenes are hidden in the game too, and you only see them by standing idle in certain areas. It is the most old-fashioned game on this list, in the best way.

Beyond Good & Evil came from Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman, who planned it as the first part of a trilogy. You play Jade, a young photojournalist who lives in an island lighthouse with Uncle Pey'j, a boar-like creature, and the orphans they look after. Her first target is a ration factory run by the Alpha Sections. The IRIS Network, an underground resistance, believes the Alpha Sections are in league with the DomZ.

You buy upgrades with pearls, earned by finishing missions, exploring and filling in the animal directory. The original was a commercial failure at launch and has since built a cult following. A full HD version came to the PlayStation Network in 2011, and a sequel was announced in 2008. Fans are still waiting.

Brothers was made by Starbreeze Studios, the first game from its publishing partnership with 505 Games, and it was written and directed by a decorated Swedish filmmaker. Two brothers set out to help their ill father, because the village doctor says the only way to save him is water from the Tree of Life. All of the dialogue is spoken in a made-up language based on Lebanese Arabic.

That means the story is told through actions, gestures and expressions, and it works better than you would expect. The game got positive reviews, and one critic called it "spellbinding". It sold over 800,000 units by January 2015. Players rank it just above Beyond Good & Evil HD.

Telltale Games made this graphic adventure under a licensing deal with Universal Pictures. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd let the developers use their likenesses for Marty McFly and Doc Brown, which makes it feel like the films. Episodes two to five came out between February and June 2011, and Telltale put the series out as a retail PS3 game in North America. "Back in Time" by Huey Lewis and the News, written for the first film, appears in the game.

The first episode, "It's About Time", was praised as a strong start, and IGN called it "a movie-inspired game that doesn't suck." When players list the story games worth playing on the PS3, Telltale's Back to the Future keeps coming up.

In Rain you play a young boy who is invisible and can only be seen when standing in the pouring rain. Under bridges and awnings, or indoors, nobody can see him, not even you, and the only sign of him is his watery footprints. The strange invisible beasts that roam the deserted town follow the same rule, which turns every shelter into a hiding place.

Director Yuki Ikeda asked Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill and Siren, for advice, and the team cut the unpolished ideas that were not working. Yugo Kanno wrote the score. The team chose classical music because they thought it would sit well with the sound of rain, and they were right.

The Wolf Among Us is Telltale's prequel to Bill Willingham's Fables comics. You play Bigby, and the case starts when Snow White finds a woman's head on the Woodlands' doorstep. The trail leads to the Crooked Man, whose henchmen have even forced Johann the butcher out of his own shop. Along the way you meet the Woodsman and the Jersey Devil. It came out in five episodes from October 2013 to July 2014.

Critics liked its writing and atmosphere, and the first episode scored 85 out of 100 on Metacritic for the PS3 version. The fourth episode dropped to 69 on PS3, which still did not stop people finishing the season. If you finished The Walking Dead and want another Telltale story, this is the one to play next.

The Unfinished Swan begins in a completely white space. You throw paint to splatter your surroundings, and the world shows up one splash at a time. You play Monroe, an orphan who is only allowed to keep one of his mother's paintings, so he chooses her favorite: a swan missing its neck. When the swan escapes the painting, he follows it, and on the way a lonely king, voiced by Terry Gilliam, tells his story.

The score by Joel Corelitz mixes electronic music with a string orchestra and quartet, and it changes style as you make progress, which makes the music a hint system. The game was nominated for Downloadable Game of the Year and Outstanding Innovation in Gaming. It starts as the gentlest game here and ends as one of the most surprising.

Deadly Premonition puts you in the shoes of special agent Francis York Morgan (call him York, everyone else does), sent to the town of Greenvale to investigate the murder of a young local woman. The people in town follow their own 24-hour schedules, and Greenvale is built to the scale of a real rural American town. Between side quests and mini-games, a raincoat-clad killer with an axe is hunting York too.

It holds the Guinness World Record for the most critically polarizing survival horror game, which is a strange trophy for a box. The PS3 version first came out only in Japan, and a director's cut brought it to PS3 players worldwide in 2013. It has a cult following now and gets cited as an example of games as art.

In Flower you control the wind and carry a stream of flower petals across fields and rolling hills. Flying through each flower results in a musical chime that harmonizes with the music. The first levels are about bringing life and color back to the landscape, and it is impossible to lose a level or any progress. Even the credits are a level, with a person's name appearing over each flower you fly through.

Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark designed it, and it came out on the PlayStation Network in February 2009. It was a critical success, to the surprise of the developers, and it was named the best independent game of 2009 at the Spike Video Game Awards. It is the most relaxing game here by a long way.

Ico is a young boy born with horns, and the game is about getting a girl named Yorda out of a castle. Yorda can only jump short distances and cannot climb over tall barriers, so you take her hand and pull her along, and some doors open only for her. Shadow creatures sent by the Queen make the escape hard. Fumito Ueda wanted a minimalist game built on a "boy meets girl" idea.

It first came out on the PS2 in 2001 and sold poorly, mostly because of its minimal marketing. The PS3 got it as an HD remaster in 2011, in the same box as Shadow of the Colossus. It is now called a cult classic and one of the greatest video games ever made. Players almost always recommend it together with Shadow of the Colossus, as a pair.

Telltale's The Walking Dead is set in the same world as Robert Kirkman's comics. You play Lee Everett, a convicted criminal who is being taken to prison on day one of the outbreak when the police car crashes after hitting a walker. Your dialogue choices and actions steer the story, and the consequences carry over from one episode to the next. The five episodes came out between April and November 2012.

Critics loved the bond between Lee and Clementine, and the game won Game of the Year awards from several publications. By the end of 2012 it had sold over 8.5 million episodes. Players keep recommending it to anyone who wants a great story on the PS3. Keep tissues close for the last episode.

Beyond: Two Souls follows Jodie Holmes, played by Elliot Page, from adolescence to adulthood. She has a psychic link to Aiden and shares his powers, and much of the story is about learning to control him. Willem Dafoe co-stars, and the actors spent a year in Quantic Dream's Paris studio doing voice and motion capture on set. In action scenes the game slows down, and you push the stick in the direction Jodie is moving.

Writer and director David Cage wanted interactive stories that everyone could play, including non-gamers. Critics were split on it when it came out on 8 October 2013, and a television adaptation is now in development. Players rank it just ahead of The Walking Dead.

In Journey you play a robed figure on a pilgrimage through a desert to a mountain with a beacon of light in the distance. The figure has no visible arms, so you sing a musical chime instead, and it turns dull pieces of cloth bright red and opens the way forward. Online you can meet another traveller. The other players you meet are anonymous, and the chime is the only way to talk to them.

Austin Wintory's music responds to what you do and builds a single theme across the whole trip, and it was nominated for a Grammy. Journey won several game of the year awards and is listed among the greatest video games of all time. Players recommend it alongside Flower to anyone who wants a calm, thoughtful game.

A lone hero and his horse ride into a forbidden land where beasts as big as mountains roam free. Most colossi live in remote places, on top of cliffs or inside ancient structures, and some stay peaceful unless you provoke them. To bring one down, Wander climbs it and stabs the glowing sigil on its body. Monster movies like the original Godzilla were one of the ideas behind it.

Bluepoint Games remastered it for the PS3 alongside Ico in September 2011, with HD graphics, trophies, 3D support and content the North American release had been missing. Players point PS3 owners to that collection again and again. As one put it, "SOTC allows you to wander around and just take in the landscape."

Heavy Rain is a psychological thriller made by Quantic Dream only for the PlayStation 3. You play several characters with very different backgrounds, and each decision changes what follows. One of them is Ethan Mars, whose son Shaun has only three days to live, and the tests Ethan faces to save him include cutting off one of his own fingers. David Cage wrote the 2,000-page script and travelled to Philadelphia to research the setting.

Normand Corbeil's score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, with the piano for Ethan, a chamber orchestra for Madison Paige, a symphony orchestra for Norman Jayden and brass and flutes for Scott Shelby. It sold 5.3 million units by January 2018. Players recommend it more than any other PS3 adventure game, often as a gripping story that is easy to play.