role-playing video game

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 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 espionage.

Single-player RPGs

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.

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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.

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.

Multiplayer RPGs

Persistent multiplayer game worlds, known as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), have their origin in early text-based multiuser dungeons played on mainframe computers and minicomputers. Because the introduction of graphics in RPGs pushed early PCs and telephone connection speeds to their limits, most of the first graphical multiplayer RPGs settled for small worlds limited to a few players. For example, AOL’s Neverwinter Nights (1991–97) at first limited the game world to a few dozen players on its proprietary dial-up network. Similarly, Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo (1997), an action-oriented game with some RPG elements, which was originally released for Windows OS and later for the Mac OS, included the ability for four players to enter the game’s world together by signing up through the company’s Battle.net game-hosting service.

The most popular early MMORPGs for Windows OS were Electronic Arts’ Ultima Online (1997– ) and Sony’s Everquest I & II (1999– ). Though still persisting, the number of subscribers to these games declined significantly as MMORPGs with improved graphics were released. Sony also runs the game server for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XI (2002– ), also known as Final Fantasy XI Online, for the PlayStation 2, Windows OS, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360; its large user base is concentrated in Japan, where it is highly popular.

The leaders in the “second generation” of MMORPGs include Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (2004– ) for Windows OS and Mac OS, Turbine, Inc.’s Lord of the Rings Online (2007– ) for Windows OS, and Electronic Arts’ Warhammer Online (2008– ) for Windows OS. World of Warcraft became so popular that it created an employment category, known as “gold farmer,” in China, where thousands of players accumulated game resources to sell through various online venues.