10 Video Games That Use The Classical Four Elements

Highlights

• The four classical elements still inspire fictional settings, influencing game mechanics like elemental spells and specialized characters.
• Games like Hyrule Warriors, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Octopath Traveler use elemental types to affect combat mechanics and character abilities.
• From Pokemon to Golden Sun, the classical elements remain integral to storytelling, world-building, and gameplay mechanics in a variety of video game genres.

Before chemists discovered the Periodic Table of Elements, it was generally believed that there were four building blocks of life: fire, water, earth, and air. These four classical elements still play a role in parts of the real world and are also sources of inspiration for unique fictional settings.

Many video games use these four elements as classifications for magic. Others have characters or groups of characters that specialize in just one of the elements. When done well, implementing the four elements often makes the game more immersive and fun.

1 Hyrule Warriors

Every Warrior And Weapon Has An Element

• Fire, Water, Thunder, Light, Shadow
• Keeps can have elemental barriers that make battles harder

Hyrule Warriors and its sequels are hack-and-slash fighting games where players fight hordes of enemies as characters from different games in the Zelda franchise. Every playable character is assigned one of the five elements, which affects how much damage they deal and take from attacks. Weapons likewise have elements that affect their stats and can give some additional effects.

In addition to the stats, elements can come into play during Adventure Mode. Keeps can have elemental barriers that cause damage of that particular type until the keep is taken or the barrier is taken down. The series’ use of the four elements is unique and relatively indirect, but it does play a part in how battles unfold.

2 Baldur’s Gate 3

A Monk Subclass Specializes In The Elements

• Way of the Open Hand monks specialize in the four elements
• Many Spells utilize the elements

Each of the spellcasting classes in Baldur’s Gate 3 — Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, and Bard —has access to elemental spells like Chromatic Orb and Faerie Fire. Magic damage is divided by its elemental type, and many enemies are either weak or strong against specific types.

One class in particular specializes in the four elements. The Way of The Open Hand is a Monk sub-class, and it is the closest D&D equivalent to playing as the Avatar. These Monks have access to unique versions of elemental spells and can deal damage using all four of the elements.

3 Octopath Traveler

Multiple Classes Have Access To Elemental Spells

• Fire, Wind, Ice, Lightning, Light, Dark
• Characters have elemental abilities based on their Job

Octopath Traveler is an RPG series that intentionally hearkens back to Super NES JRPGs. Players choose one of eight fully-fleshed-out characters as their protagonist and then add more members to their party as they explore. Each character has one of eight classes, called Jobs in the game. Each Job has access to one or more specific elemental types.

Since characters can eventually multi-class into other Jobs, each of them can eventually wield multiple elements at once. With over twenty different spells in the game, commanding the elements is a great way to win the game’s turn-based RPG battles.

4 The Legend Of Korra

Brawler Set In The Avatar Universe

• Korra can bend all four elements
• Combat and pro-bending involve using the elements

The Legend of Korra is a third-person brawler set in the Avatar universe between the second and third seasons of the TV show of the same name. At the game’s start, Korra is attacked by a chi-blocker who temporarily takes away her bending, and players gradually unlock abilities from the different elements again as the game progresses.

After completing the game, players can play a pro-bending mode that follows the same rules as the unique sport in the show. The four elements are central to the game’s setting, combat mechanics, and the pro-bending mode.

5 Palworld

Pals Fight And Work Based On Their Element

• Nine elemental types including the four classical ones
• Each Pal’s element influences how it behaves in the game

Palworld is a survival-crafting game with a twist in which players do not need to do all the work themselves. Wild creatures called Pals can be captured and put to work in a player’s base, and each type of Pal is capable of doing different jobs. Fire Pals can cook food, craft items at a forge, and keep heaters running, while Electric Pals provide power for the base.

As players branch out and explore more of the Palpagos Islands, they encounter different kinds of Pals across varied biomes. Capturing Pals of each of the elements, including extra types like Dark and Electric Pals, allows the player to have a great team for combat and for building a high-functioning base.

6 Magicka 2

Wizards Channel The Elements For Spells

• Water, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Cold, Life, Arcane Magicks
• Elements can be combined to create new effects

The Magicka series are tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure games. Up to four players can travel together as wizards that can cast powerful elemental spells. There are eight kinds of Magicks that players can use, which can be channeled into powerful beams, area attacks, and more.

In Magicka 2, players can combine their elemental beams to create unique attacks like combining one player’s Cold beam with another person’s Water to make ice or using Water and Arcane Magick together to make poison. With so many different elemental combinations to play with, players can experiment to figure out their favorites, or simply focus on the elemental weaknesses of the level they are on.

7 Wizard Of Legend

Spells From Five Elements Form The Core Gameplay

• Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Lightning Arcana
• Each element has different strengths and weaknesses

In Wizard of Legend, the player character is transported to the distant past in a time when magic is strong. Hopeful young wizards compete in a tournament to see who can defeat bosses specializing in different elements and become the champion.

The gauntlet consists of three sets of randomly generated dungeons, each based on the element of its corresponding boss. The rooms, traps, enemies, and spell resistance all stem from which element the boss has mastered. With over 100 different spells from the five elements, players can feel like true masters of the elements.

8 Genshin Impact

Seven Elements Form The Foundation Of The World

• Geo, Pyro, Hydro, Anemo, Dendro, Cryo, Electro
• The elements influence everything in the game

The seven elements are the core of Teyvat, the world of Genshin Impact. It is ruled over by gods called The Seven, each of whom is associated with one of the elements.

The game is focused on open-world exploration and party-based combat, where players can switch between their four active party members. Like the gods, each character is associated with an element that determines their stats and abilities. Traveling with a diverse range of elements is the best way to be prepared for all the encounters they will find as they explore Teyvat.

9 Pokemon

The World Is Full Of Creatures With 18 Total Elemental Types

• All four classical elements are featured
• Society revolves around Pokemon

The Pokemon franchise encompasses more than twenty video games across nine generations of Pokemon, as well as anime, manga, toys, and more. Each entry in the main series, starting with Red and Blue introduces a new set of over 100 Pokemon in a new region, usually themed after regions in the real world.

Pokemon are creatures that have unique elemental powers, based on which of the eighteen types they are. Pikachu, the most famous Pokemon, is an Electric-type and so it has abilities like Thundershock and Thunderwave. Since the world of Pokemon revolves around these creatures, the classical elements are at the forefront of the game’s setting and mechanics.

10 Golden Sun

Adepts Can Manipulate The Psynergy Of An Element

• Venus (Earth), Mars (Fire), Mercury (Water), Jupiter (Wind)
• The four elements are the basis for all life, and drive the entire plot and mechanics

The four elements are the building blocks for all of Weyard, the world of Golden Sun. Long ago, alchemy — the manipulation of the elements — was commonplace until the power was largely sealed away. The villains of the first game have a plot to unleash alchemy and use it to gain power in the world, but they are stopped by the player’s party of four characters. In the sequel, it turns out that alchemy needs to be unleashed or the world will perish, and so players take on the role of some of the original game’s antagonists.

Each character in the player’s party is an Adept, someone who can control one of the four elements. In each game, the main protagonist is a Venus Adept who has earth powers, and along the way, the party grows to have an Adept of each type. The games involve using elemental spells in combat and as ways to solve puzzles in dungeons. Given the importance of the four elements to every aspect of these games, players will need to master the strengths of each different element to complete the story and save Weyard.