I've been thinking about this for a good long while and I decided to make a thread about it. I feel like people tend not to think about the merits of the individual adventure and action aspects in video games. And who can blame them? There's a reason why the two genres are best known when combined. It is because they work together extraordinarily well and benefit off of each other's best aspects in order to create a game that feels whole. Each and everyone of us, however, can find that one of those influences us to keep playing greater than the other.

 In action/adventure games, what do you think is the key thing that drives you while playing the game, considering the two aspects of the aforementioned genre? Is it the action packed excitement that pushes you to your limits? Or is it the sense of adventure gained from exploring game areas, obtaining new information, and finding goodies?

I would say adventure, all the way. There's no way I could ever invest more than an average amounts of hours into a game unless I knew that in the long run I would walk away from the end credits having experienced something substantial. For me, that's the adventure aspect of video games in a nutshell. I love to explore and take my time to smell the roses. I take a good bit longer to beat games than other people, and really it's just my inherent love of getting to know the environment in which the game has placed me. I love to collect things too. I'll experiment for a long while trying to see what I can do to find or access a collectible.

Sorry for being relatively long-winded. I really would love to hear what you all have to say.

adventure

Its a really hard question to answer because as you said, both complement each other.When you are in an adventure, you want to explore, and have that sensation that you are going through uncharted areas, finding secrets long forgotten.But at the same time, you need action sprinkled through so that you feel its the real thing, that you ar trully going into something dangerous, to give your adventure a meaning and that it is not something futile.

Having said that, if it is a game about being immersed and having the story as an important part, I would say that the adventure part is more important, because it keeps me pushing foward to know everything, be it the enviroment and the story, especially in longer games.

With me, I think it varies games by game because it depends on what the developer chooses to make the forefront of the game and ensuring that's great. Like, with Zelda, adventure is more important than action, and the adventure is obviously fantastic. With something like Uncharted or the Arkham games, I'd say the action is more important, and I love the action in them. That's why I think games like AC: Unity failed for me. I'd say the action was made to be more important, and I thought it was garbage.

I like both action and adventure equally, but whatever the developer deemed more important, that better be great.

An adventure (in gaming) implies some form of action at some point of it... so, adventure is my answer.

Adventure.

Well said.

@OP: There's a reason action-adventure is my favorite sub-genre. It combines the immediate thrill of combat and movement with the slower burn of exploration and puzzle-solving.

I guess I'd give a slight edge to adventure, although, as Nautilus writes, the excitement comes from the merger of these two elements.

Adventure is much much more important than action, atleast to me it is.

I'd like some action when on adventure.

It depends on the game, but typically I prefer adventure over action.