5 video games with best climbing mechanics

In video games, players constantly need to climb, circumvent, or vault over certain areas. This becomes a crucial part of open-world or semi-open-world games, where they are used to exploring the map at their own leisure and as per their wont.

However, exploration becomes a little tedious when a waist-high wall blocks their progress.

This sort of immersion breaking can be seen in many titles, such as Skyrim, which did not include any climbing mechanic whatsoever. This led to users resorting to a combination of sprint jumping to scale mountains. Climbing high and steep slopes in this video game has since become quite a meme amongst the community.

Thus, it is vital for video games to include a proper mechanic for climbing that sees gamers effortlessly scale surfaces and areas without causing too much of a headache.

Note: This article reflects the writer’s opinions.

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Five video games that got climbing right

1) Star War Jedi: Fallen Order

When Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was released, players were not expecting to do lots of climbing in a video game about a Jedi with force powers. However, as it turned out, the protagonist, Cal Kestis, was only a quarter of the way to being a fully-fledged Jedi, with him being only a Padawan and having severed his connection to the force.

Thus, Cal had to do much climbing and moving along vertical surfaces. This was made all the easier due to the game design allowing a good distinction between climbable and non-climbable surfaces. Climbing itself is easy enough, with a button to grab hold of the surface and move the analog stick.

Climbing was just one part of the world traversal, one which never felt cumbersome. Users would soon be expected to wall run, swing from a rope, and finish by hanging onto a wall, all in one sequence.

It was made even smoother as Cal obtained a pair of climbing gloves, which allowed him to scale previously unscalable surfaces.

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2) God of War

2018’s God of War, by developer Santa Monica Studio was a semi-open-world video game set in the northern lands of Midgard. Kratos and his son Atreus head out on their journey to reach the highest peaks in all the realms to scatter the ashes of the latter’s mother, as was her wish.

From the above sentence, readers might guess that this task would involve a lot of climbing, and they would be correct. Yet, in a semi-open-world, telling players which walls were climbable and which were not might have been problematic.

However, this issue was not just resolved but done using an element that turned into a plot point.

Runic markings guided the duo on their journey and, more specifically, told users as to which walls were climbable and which ones were not. When they often didn’t know which direction to proceed halfway up a wall, it was just a matter of spotting the next set of runes.

This was further explained as the act of Faye, mother of Atreus and wife of Kratos, who it seemed had foreseen their journey and had marked their way for them.

In fact, if gamers are keen-eyed, they can spot these markings along the critical path throughout the title and not just while climbing.

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3) Horizon Forbidden West

Like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn also had certain marked areas that allowed Aloy to climb them. However, these were marked in white, becoming a problem in the DLC, which took Aloy to the snow-covered northern lands.

Guerilla Games went on to fix this in their next video game.

In the sequel, titled Horizon Forbidden West, the developers did away with white markers, which might sound like a wrong move at first, but hold on. Instead, they added a more accessible form of climbing, where Aloy could easily climb or reach low-hanging ledges seen around the video game world.

However, the most innovative move came from how players could now use the focus to highlight climbable and scalable areas. With a click of a button, it would show every little nook and cranny Aloy could use to climb in a yellow neon light, making climbing much more straightforward and letting users know which areas were inaccessible, at least until they tamed a Sunwing.

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4) Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

The Assassin’s Creed games have always had the best free movement in any video game, allowing gamers to scale massive monuments effortlessly, using direction keys and a single button.

However, for climbing to be effective, there should be structures present to climb, and so Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate makes this list with the most modern setting.

Set in 1886, towards the end of the Industrial Revolution, this title takes place in Victorian London, where the twins, Jacob and Evie Frye, are amongst the last of the Assassins Brotherhood left alive. They aim to reclaim control of the city from the templars, as they make alliances with numerous historical figures such as Charles Dicken, Alexander Graham Bell, and Queen Victoria herself.

This video game’s setting meant that players had to constantly rely on escaping through the rooftops and climbing famous structures such as the clock tower at Westminster Palace.

Like all Assassin’s Creed offerings, parkour is simple and marvelous to look at. Users could easily maneuver the characters across and around structures with a few directional inputs and the free motion button.

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5) Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

While lots of fantasy open-world video games struggle with giving gamers the ability of free motion, such was not the case for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Developed and published by Nintendo in 2017, it was released for the Nintendo Switch as a launch title and as one of the last games on the Wii U.

It is set in the vast open fields of Hyrule and sees Link strive to rescue Princess Zelda from the beastly form of Calamity Ganon. The title allowed players an almost unrestricted free motion through a stamina bar, which was expended when sprinting, gliding, or climbing.

Climbing mainly was quite simple, with Link quickly grabbing hold of any vertical surface users move towards, after which they must move the analog stick to scale it. However, keeping an eye on the stamina bar is crucial as if it is expended before Link can reach a stable surface to stand on, gamers will fall off, possibly to their deaths.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author’s opinion.