Role-playing video game, electronic game genre in which players advance through a story quest, and often many side quests, for which their character or party of characters gain experience that improves various attributes and grindy games abilities. The genre is almost entirely rooted in TSR, Inc.’s Dungeons & Dragons (D&D; 1974), a role-playing game (RPG) for small groups in which each player takes some role, such as a healer, warrior, or wizard, to help the player’s party battle evil as directed by the group’s Dungeon Master, or assigned storyteller. While fantasy settings remain popular, video RPGs have also explored the realms of science fiction and the cloak-and-dagger world of grinding games espionage.
Single-player RPGs
role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls
role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls
Screenshot from the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Early video RPGs generally kept some or all of the original aspects of D&D, including its fantasy world of elves, dwarfs, trolls, goblins, and dragons and its character attributes—constitution, strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. The first effort to produce an electronic version of D&D was Dungeon (1975), which was an unauthorized adaptation for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 minicomputer. Although basically a text-based implementation, it included overhead maps of the dungeon that showed where players had explored.
The New Final Fantasy XV with PS4 Joystick on November 30,2016. in Bangkok Thailand.
Britannica Quiz
Final Fantasy Games Quiz
Screenshot from the electronic game Fallout 3.
Screenshot from the electronic game Fallout 3.
The first commercial D&D-style games were Origin Systems, Inc.’s Ultima (1980) and Sir-Tech Software, Inc.’s Wizardry (1981), both originally for Apple Inc.’s Apple II home computer. Sequels of Wizardry were produced over the next two decades for the Commodore Amiga computer, personal computers running MS-DOS, and the Sega Saturn and Sony Corporation PlayStation home video consoles. Similarly, sequels of Ultima (now owned by Electronic Arts) were made over the next 25 years for the Amiga, Apple’s Mac OS, Microsoft Corporation’s Windows OS, and video game consoles from Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.
Cover of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (2008), a strategy guide for the Nintendo DS game.
Cover of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (2008), a strategy guide for the Nintendo DS game.
Popular single-player RPG franchises for home video consoles include Square Enix’s Dragon Quest (1986– ) and Final Fantasy (1987– ), for Nintendo and Sony consoles, and Sega’s Phantasy Star (1987– ), for Sega and Sony consoles. Nintendo’s Pokémon (1995– ) series is the most successful RPG franchise in terms of total media sales (games, cards, books, figurines), and the most recent versions include support for playing against others over the Internet.
Traditionally, computer gamers had been treated to a deeper gameplay experience, with richer, more complex stories than those found on early consoles. A standout example of this was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985), in which players’ characters were directly affected by the ethical choices they made. By the 1990s, however, console games had made great strides, with titles such as Square Enix’s Chrono Trigger (1995) and Final Fantasy VII (1997) redefining gamers’ expectations. Soon, outstanding games such as Eidos Interactive’s Deus Ex (2000) and BioWare Corporation’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) were winning fans on both PCs and consoles. Other popular RPGs for Windows OS, Mac OS, and next-generation consoles include BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate (1998– ), Mass Effect (2007– ), and Dragon Age (2009– ) franchises and Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls (1994– ) and Fallout (1997– ) series.