5 Classic Detective Games That Still Hold Up Today

Since the rise of FMV and point-and-click games in the ’80s and ’90s, the detective genre has exploded in popularity. That’s not a huge surprise, given how popular mystery stories are in film, television, and novels, but video games take it one step further, giving you direct control over the investigation. With hundreds of games over the last few decades, it can be tough to track down which games are still worth checking out once you’ve played all the modern hits. The list below serves as a great starting point for anyone looking to dip their toes deeper into the genre.

Here are five great mystery games that have stood the test of time.

5) Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

If you want to get technical, Gabriel Knight is not a detective. Our hero is a struggling horror writer who owns a New Orleans bookshop. That said, when he starts to have dreams about the weird murders around the city, Knight puts on his metaphorical deerstalker hat to channel his inner Sherlock Holmes.

The best part of this strange point-and-click game is its voice cast. Knight is voiced by the incomparable Tim Curry, but big-name talent like Leah Remini, Michael Dorn, and Mark Hamill join him in the cast. It’s also worth noting that Sins of the Fathers is downright spooky. That’s not completely unexpected for a mystery game, but sometimes Gabe’s journey veers hard into the horror genre. There was a remastered version for the 20th anniversary, but it has a new cast, so I’d recommend playing the original.

4) The Nancy Drew Series

Developer Her Interactive has been making Nancy Drew games since 1995. There are 34 adventures to dive into, and while they aren’t all bangers, they’re all pretty solid. You can pretty much pick one off the digital shelf and know you’re going to have a good time.

That said, some of the best include Secrets Can Kill, Stay Tuned for Danger, and Treasure in the Royal Tower. Some of the more recent games aren’t as beloved, but if you grab any of the Nancy Drew games from the ’90s and ’00s, you won’t be disappointed.

3) The Wolf Among Us

Who knows if we’ll ever get the promised sequel to Telltale’s best game? At this point, it feels like that game will never happen, especially with AdHoc Studio and Telltale having a relatively high-profile split in 2025. That said, the current issues with the sequel don’t detract from how excellent Bigby Wolf’s first adventure is.

Like every Telltale game, your dialogue choices help shape the narrative, but it’s the characters who really make The Wolf Among Us shine. Telltale pulled from Bill Willingham’s exceptional Fables comic series for this prequel, which helped give the team fully realized characters who immediately drew players into the action. It’ll be a shame if that second game never hits because the original is such a strong mystery.

2) Deadly Premonition

If you have any affinity for Twin Peaks or David Lynch in general, you have to play Deadly Premontion. Swery65’s 2010 survival horror masterpiece draws heavy inspiration from Lynch’s cult classic TV series. It is one of the most divisive games of all time, even earning a Guinness World Record for “most critically polarizing survival horror game.”

I would argue that’s kind of by design. Deadly Premonition is so strange that it could’ve have come from anyone but Swery. It’s so perfectly tuned to his sensibilities that nobody else could’ve pulled it off. That strong a vision is bound to turn off players who don’t vibe with Swery’s style, and it doesn’t help that DP is notorious for how badly optimized it is.

If you can get past the technical issues and meet Swery on his level, Deadly Premonition is one of the best mystery games of all time. It’s so wacky and surprising that you’ll never know where it’s going next. The sequel is equally strange and potentially even worse technically, but anyone who liked the original should give it a try.

1) Ghost Trick: The Phantom Detective

Ghost Trick isn’t just one of the best Nintendo DS games; it’s also among the best mystery games of all time. You play as an amnesiac ghost who has to gather information from NPCs and objects during the present, and then warp back to the past to save lives based on the things you’ve learned.

Not only is the story inventive, but Ghost Trick also features appealing visuals and slick animations. In some ways, it feels like Capcom was taking the success of Ace Attorney and pushing the formula further into the detective genre. Like Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick has a fun-loving cast of memorable characters to help keep players diving in.

Despite Ghost Trick‘s success on the DS and a rabid fanbase asking for a sequel, nothing has ever materialized. Fans did get a remaster in 2023, which added fuel to the fire of another game, but we’re still waiting for Capcom to finally decide to go back to Sissel and the rest of the crew.

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