Is any kind of violence really required to have good action in a game?

Difficult question... Trine?

Mirror's Edge
it has some violence in the later levels, though the game is more about avoiding it

An action game without violence?
Katamari series (Damacy, etc)
Incredible Crisis
Dance Dance Revolution
Tetris
Portal series is without violence

Will fill this out more as I think about this.

The Original Driver was an action game with no real violence, also thinking about car games, Stuntman was another.

Barbie™ Dreamhouse Party™

good action?
violence?
its all relative. I know some people consider even the cartoonish act of Mario jumping on creatures heads as violence. (and if you're this far then I don't know what to say)
if your talking about a lack of gore/visible bloodshed then a whole bunch of games count. As long as the "fighting" done remains cartoonish.

The problem is depending on your standpoint "action" (without sports) is nearly synonymous with violence.

side note you don't need action for a game to have violence-many horror games for instance or mystery games where violent acts are committed but you walk around leisurely solving the mystery don't count as action.

Depends on your definition of "violence" and "action".

Action, to me, refers to stuff with lots going on - in other words, lots of actions being performed. In a way, the action genre has the same issue as the RPG genre - it can apply to just about anything and doesn't have one specific thing that defines it for what it is. Action Adventure seems redundant, for example.

To me, action as a genre in gaming and movies is all about violence.

No. This is the world we have created. Enjoy.

Not sure if it would count, but what about racing games? Id consider them "action"y without violence

Not really. Mirror's edge is a nice "action" game taking out the parts where you need to fight cops. But, why lie? I enjoy violence in videogames.

But... I thought action games or movies are about violence by definition.

On the other hand, I could recommend you a lot of good games with tons of violence and not even a little bit of action.

While I 'm sure that Action and Violence can be separate in a game, you would be hard pressed to find one. Action as far as I know always revolves around some sort of conflict or end and conflict pretty much is always paired with some level of violence. Even tamer games like Shovel Knight, Minecraft, Speedrunners, Subnautica, and Don't Starve have violence in the form of combat or death or whatever, though very mild in comparison to most. Without the sense of danger or failure, the game wouldn't seem very action-ey.

Undertale might fit that bill with a pacifist run? Or probably some Nintendo title.

hmm, actually, the A-team is a good example for a series without (almost) any violence. stuff goes boom. but no one gets hurt, and mostly, even the fist fights are short and "nice"

as for games? look for Stealth genre.

Violence is such an easy narrative vehicle though.

I can imagine how it might work; think about what replaces violence in narratives without violence: romance, greed, camaraderie, etc. I could imagine an action game about hanging out with friends over the summer with no particular agenda (thus avoiding the sport criteria) but still having ad hoc contests and activities that would constitute the action portion of the game. Now, I'm not sure it exists, but...

There are quite a few games where you can play stealthily and without violence, but for the most part even stealth games have some violence, either in eliminating guards or being taken out by guards. Undertale might be an example on the pacifist route, like gubertuber said, but other than that I can't think of many because violence is basically the compelling element to transition a game into action from a more reflective play style.

the Batman series, he dosent kill people.

Braid, Portal 2, and Fez?

Other than sports and racing games, I don't think there really is action without violence because violence is the reason for the action. Maybe if you are playing some kind of kids game, they may be able to make an action based game and remove the violence somehow.

Is there action in real life that is not a result of some kind of violence without being a sport, I can't think of anything. If there is no violence driving the action, then you are doing this action by choice and it becomes a sport.

I think the closest you can come to action without violence would be an adventure game. Stuff like Portal, A Story About My Uncle, Grow Home, Journey. Or there are stealth games that include violence, but they give you the choice to play the game without using any violence. I believe you can choose to play Mirror's Edge without using any weapons or killing, but I'm pretty sure you still need to hit some people.

I feel it very much depends on how you define 'action.' I mean, obviously it depends on how you define 'action,' but I feel that as a word it's a pretty big tent. I would consider 'action' to involve completing a control-based challenge or series of such challenges to achieve a specific goal within an explicit or implicit time limit.

You specifically excluded them, but I would, for instance, include sport games within the action genre—and sport games may or may not have violence within them (I don't play a lot of such games, but I remember there being fighting in the old NHL games I used to play, which would count towards your definition of 'violence'). There are also games on the fringes of 'sport' which I would consider 'action' games—snowboarding or skiing games, for example, I wouldn't inherently consider 'sport' unless there's an element of competition, and I'm leery of calling motor racing games 'sport' games, though I would definitely include them in my personal definition of 'action' games.

Then there are games in which violence is optional. This includes, say, sporting games where you could disable fighting or choose not to engage in it, but it might also include basically any game in which a 'pacifist' run is an option to the player—depending on whether the mere possibility of violence against the player is considered violence for the purpose of considering the whole game. For example, if I'm good enough (I'm not), I could play Elite: Dangerous as an explorer or trader and avoid all confrontation with other players, human or NPC, through my spectacular piloting skills. It's not my wheelhouse, but I'm sure there are stealth games that allow you to play without inflicting violence yourself, and presumably, if you're good enough, without being subject to violence, either.

Finally, there are the real edge cases. Two-and-a-half hours attempting to clear the first level of Velocibox has definitely engrained it in my mind as an action game under the definition I inaugurated this post with, but I would also not consider it (or what I've seen of it, anyway) to be violent. Can you really die when you're a box? Can you really die when you're a punctuation mark?

First thing that comes to mind are racing games but those can be considered sports (except for the abstract-arcadey ones). I guess some runners are mostly violence free as long as you ignore the levels themselves being violent against the player.
About specific games that almost match the criteria I can think of Aaa... for the the Awesome (only form of violence is flipping off at mobs of protestors and some of the humor), Grow Home (is completely optional but you can kill the sheep and dodos if you want to) and Jet Set Radio (minimal violence and most of it directed at the player character by the police).
And for an actual perfect match, in my opinion, Refunct. Is a speedrun oriented first person platformer that has no violence whatsoever.

Monkey Ball series (excluding side games) aren't violent.

Watchdogs 2. You have options to kill if you want to pass missions easier but i am pretty sure you can choose not to kill anyone and still pass missions.
EDIT: If you include no beating too then it is still possible to complete but really hard