I see it less being an issue of violence, and more of an issue of conflict being the only means of resolution. It's become so pervasive, that a game where you don't fight or compete against SOMETHING is considered very weird.
As for puzzle and adventure games, have you tried Antichamber or Gone Home? Those two are among my favorite games to have come out this year.
There are plenty of games out there that aren't fixated on combat and violence. Strategy games like the Civ series or EU IV have very abstracted combat, and are better described as conflict or competition (combat isn't core gameplay). Strategy games like Spacechem have nil violence. Then there are endless builder games like minecraft, where combat very much takes a back seat, and you can avoid it if you like. There are lots of platformers with no combat - 'running' games, where you avoid obstacles (a category the game in the article falls into). Three are more than a few horror games where you have no combat ability, like Slenderman. There's investigative or story games that have little or no combat in them, like say LA Noir, or most point-n-click adventures. There's also unusual games like Rocksmith where you plug your guitar into the PC. Just now, I've been playing Waking Mars, a game that is basically a gardening sim (oh, and there's gardening sims like Farmville). Then there are the sports and other sims - Steam just had a sale on a 'car mechanic simulator', and I'm not really sure it's reasonable to call things like NBA 2014 a 'combat-based' game. Driving and flying sims are also popular, and the queen of sims is the 'generic human sim' Sims 3, which is combatless. Then there's logic games like Tetris or 2048.
If you think that the idea of a game without violence is worth noting, then you're really not bothering to look at what games are out there.
Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley have a lot of great game mechanics and are also about discovery, trade, and building relationships.
Factorio is probably a bit more advanced, but meets your criteria (except for story, maybe). There is a rabbit hole of games like that to go down.
Assassins Creed Origins and Odyssey have “education” modes that are about exploring the world and not murder.
The Mario-plus games (Tennis, Racing, Party) tend to be not violence oriented, are collaborative, but have super hokey stories.
Old school point and click games are definitely up there (Monkey Island, Myst) as people have mentioned.
Ico and Shadow of the Colossus do have violence and battle as central elements, but not in a COD type of way.
A challenge is that most games rely on competition and conflict as core drivers of both the story and the game mechanics. I think something like Tomb Raider could easily minimize conflict while still retaining a lot of really interesting puzzles, game mechanics, and story elements… sometimes playing that game (and uncharted) you feel like a mass murderer with the body counts you rack up. But other games like Metal Gear Solid are designed to allow you to get through them without needing to kill anyone (subdue/knock out though). It’s also hella hard to do that.
Death Stranding is an interesting one to consider as well. There is some violence and extremely dark themes, but aside from the boss battles it’s really minimal on guns and violence.
Ape Escape for PS1 kind-of fits the mold as well - capturing escaped monkeys is a really fun.
Katamari Damacy (spelling?) is really fun as well- you roll up things under your magic rolling ball becomes planet sized.
The Ace Attorney series is also almost entirely narrative and puzzle.
Most point and click adventure games fit the bill, assuming you are okay with occasional slapstick or cartoon violence when solving a puzzle. Some of the more serious adventure games feature murder/detective storylines, which may or may not work for you.
Walking sims also rarely feature you, the player character, committing acts of violence, although - again - they often they take place in an environment where violence is a backdrop. I think this happens in a lot of games, because violence is an easy way of creating drama. However, I generally prefer these games that feature a violent backdrop to games where you are actually doing the violence, because they tend to address it in a way that better reflects how we deal with trauma in real life.
Some suggestions: Deponia series, Dreamfall series, Life is Strange series, Edna and Harvey series, The Inner World series, Nelly Cootalot series, Space Pilgrim series, Blackwell series, The Journey Down, Anna's Quest, Jenny LeClue, Sumatra: Fate of Yandi, Milkmaid of the Milky Way, Firewatch, Tacoma, Draugen, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture... There are tons of games like this. Some of these might have a death or two along the way that you might click into or through, but none of them felt like gratuitously violent games per se, at least nothing close to shooters and RPGs.
Disco Elysium is not exactly devoid of violence and aggression, even if they aren't central mechanics. It's great storytelling but with some mature themes.
Honestly, I thought I'd have an easier time coming up with some other suggestions to throw in but there's usually some ass-kicking in my favorite story driven games.
The Oni platformer games are a little bit fight-centric but not really violent or cruel, and the story is great. Worth looking at.
Another decent one I just thought of is Outer Wilds, it's kind of a myst-like puzzle game where you just explore the world and discover the story as you go.
Portal, paper mario, braid, flight sims, sim city, tropico, civilization(? you do kill people in that), kerbal space program, etc.
I'm not by any means going to deny the flood of games that are based on violence. Most of the mentioned games were off the top of my head, but when I went looking for more, I was definitely a little surprised by just how tough it was to find well known contenders.
I can see how a casual brush with games might not bring a lot of the good ones to the front, though. I like games that really change how I think about a problem (portal, braid, paper mario), let me experience things I can't pragmatically experience right now (flight sims), or complex strategic games with some satire (civ/tropico).
I'm interested in games because I think they can be a really valid art form and a powerful way to convey concepts and ideas.
I'm incredibly excited for how far the oculus rift and new motion tracking techs will let me take that.
I remember the first time I played Assassins Creed. I mean, the game is about murder. It's in the title. My brother got frustrated at me after an hour of watching and yelled "STOP CLIMBING SHIT AND EXPLORING. KILL SOMEONE." I think he left after I spent another fifteen minutes exploring the ancient middle east.
The "Horror Adventure" or "Survival Horror" genre has spawned off this style of game. They have similar aspects like puzzle solving, no focus on killing enemies.
They are actually quite scary though and that is the focus, so there's less puzzle solving.
This list is incomplete if you don't include Minecraft, the canonical sandbox game. Play in creative or in peaceful mode, and you don't have to do any fighting at all (though some resources are still best collected from mobs).
Other categories of nonviolent or non-FPS games would be puzzle games like Tetris or Candy Crush. Also, video games can reproduce or make single-player versions of the classic board, card, and dice games like chess or yahtzee.
I so desperately want to like adventure games. I love the visual styles, I love the storytelling opportunities, but the idea of being defeated by an opaque puzzle infuriates me.
Non-shooting games I’ve played over the last couple of years that are mainstream:
- Death Stranding (ok, it has some shooting in, but not that much)
- Resident Evil 2 (has guns but the idea of survival horror is to run, not kill everything in sight)
- Metro: Exodus (combat is mostly optional)
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Until Dawn
- Life is Strange 2
- Senior: Shadows Die Twice
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
- Outlast
- Persona 5
- God of War
- Darkwood
- Minecraft
...
You can argue that most of them have some degree of violence in their gameplay, but there’s so much out there that isn’t your standard military circle-jerk. Most of the games I’ve played there have little in common except a really solid and immersive story.
Of course, indie games are more diverse and can be much more experimental, but I would say that the games medium has matured quite a lot in terms of gameplay and story telling; far beyond your annual CoD and Battlefield games.
To this end, I really enjoyed "Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive"[1] which was included in the recent Itch bundle for Ukraine.
It mixes adventure game with escape room, and whilst there is still a puzzle element to the game, it is much more pragmatic in its combinations. You find a nail, a boarded up building or something that needs building and it's a hammer that will solve all of them. You know that you will die of heat at the end of the day, so you need to find things that will cool your house down.
I think this means that the whimsy and jovial aspect of 90s adventure games is lost, but it feels much more satisfying to solve a puzzle when the solution makes sense. If we wanted an adventure games renaissance, I would look to this game as a case study in addition to the points outlined in Ron's article.
I hear you, it's not that I don't like combat games, it's just that they're overdone and the medium has so much potential. The story and atmosphere are usually what draw me into a game, and the gameplay mechanics are usually just a means to an end of progressing through the story.
I'm going to focus entirely on first person non-combat games because I prefer first person and it's more rare for them to be non-combat. First up are FP games with interesting game premises or mechanics:
The Occupation, absolutely zero other games like this. You are a journalist during a politically charged period in history, and you wander about beautifully crafted old institutional buildings in order to find documents and clues that you can use during your interviews with various people. The story you are putting together centres around a murder, but it's really a story about political manipulation, immigration and corruption in policymaking. Sounds a bit dry, but it is both relaxing and thrilling.
Hardspace: you're a ship-breaker in an orbital space ship breaking yard, and you float around using tools to slowly pull apart ships for scrapping. It's got a comical dystopian sense of humour and a decent story line.
INFRA: Absolute hidden gem. You are a structural engineer, sent out on an inspection job. As you follow the path of infrastructure degredation, a series of mishaps pull you deeper and deeper into the cities hidden infrastructure, through dams, power stations, water processing plants, steel mills or underground water infrastructure. The game has a good, dry sense of humor, and the story is good. Each location has some system or facility you can take the time to fix, or you can just keep moving through the story.
Jazzpunk: A spy game, but as if it were written by a 17 year old on mushrooms.
Outer Wilds, others have mentioned it, but you can't miss this one!
Portal 1, 2, though I suspect you would know of these already.
The Witness, a fantastic atmospheric exploration and world-puzzle game, I think watching a bit of it on YouTube probably shows it off well but it's just a great world to spend time in.
Event[0], your only friend is a well scripted space station AI, it uses a natural language typing interface and you have to talk to him while you wander around the station trying to figure out what happened and how to get back home.
The Stanley Parable, a very funny exploration of choice in videogames. I'm really underselling it.
Teardown, voxel based demolition game where you have puzzles and objectives to achieve with the tools and vehicles of construction and destruction at your fingertips.
Superliminal, a game where each object you grab changes in size to match the perspective of where you are looking. Great sense of humor as well.
That list above is what I was mainly thinking of. Here's a few more with great storytelling, done in various ways (sometimes non obvious but they all have a story to tell that kept me hooked)
I don't recall any physical violence in the following games, although psychological violence can be very personal and some may run you in a mood or facing events that can be unsettling at times. Some of these have neither.
Gone Home
The Swapper
Fez
Day Of The Tentacle
VVVVVV
You Have To Win The Game
Braid
Shelter 1 & 2
Her Story
Portal 1 & 2
Thomas Was Alone
One Night Stand
The Stanley Parable
Antichamber
Carto
RiME
Oxenfree
Never Alone
Life Is Strange
Soma and the Amnesia series could be of interest as well. I seem to recall it's all about fear, but not violence.
Mirror's Edge has punching but you don't kill anyone and you can avoid most encounters, with parkour style. Definitely not COD.
Limbo and Inside have gore but clearly not the COD one.
While enemies have guns and the setting may subscribe to "war-like", I seem to recall you can also complete Deus Ex Human Revolution Director's Cut without lethal action (in the original non DC bosses have to be killed) which is rewarded with an achievement at the end of the game.
Heavy Rain is also a great game with original mechanics. Don't attempt to play with PS Move, use a controller.
Some of these are good for kids, some aren't, depends on kid age and how you want to raise them!
I love everything by Nintendo for this reason. I would also look at genres like racing and sports where you have a lot of non-violent options.
Then there are platformers like Ori and fun games like Overcooked.
If you're looking for games with a creative spark there's always Minecraft and if you want to throw in some problem solving into the mix, checkout Cities Skylines or any of the games in the Tycoon series. These games might be single player but it can be played by a committee if you know what I mean
After a little more than a decade away from video games, I'm finding myself really enjoying 1st person horror games with no combat element: Soma, Amnesia: Dark Descent, and Outlast. This didn't really exist before, at least not games that were so immersive and terrifying.
Soma is especially great. It's utterly scary, it's beautiful to explore (per my taste), and the way the story unfolds really pulled me in.
SubNautica somewhat qualifies if you have a hint of thalassophobia. There is a very small combat element that you can entirely ignore.
Most other games bore my adult self as well, but the above are so compelling that I only play them in the right conditions so that I really enjoy them: alone at night with headphones.
Broken into a second comment so my other wasn't impenetrable: more notable walking sim, puzzle and first person story games:
The Amnesia games and SOMA games don't technically have combat, but they are very spooky. Perhaps for playing on your own, SOMA especially is a once in a lifetime gaming experience story and world wise.
The Solus Project
The Talos Principle
ADR1FT
Aporia
The Assembly
Alien: isolation (minor combat, very spooky)
Close to the Sun
Dear Esther
What Remains of Edith Finch
Deliver Us The Moon
Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald (short and funny, would be great half hour journey with the kids)
Eastshade (admittedly never finished it, but it's about wandering a unique world and painting commissions for people)
Escape Simulator is a decent escape room game
Ether One Redux, pretty sad actually
Firewatch, a must play in the genre
Call of the Sea, unique story adventure
The Myst games, some recent remakes are really well done and modern adaptions.
Quern - Undying Thoughts, probably the best myst-like I've played.
As for puzzle and adventure games, have you tried Antichamber or Gone Home? Those two are among my favorite games to have come out this year.
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