Thanks to their low prerequisites and slow pacing,role-playing gameswere some of the most popular titles among ’80s and ’90s PC gamers. This was a time of incredibly fast development for RPGs: most Ultima games on DOS still used keyboard inputs, while newer series likeFalloutturned the mouse into the only tool a player needed. This period saw great development in 3D RPGs, which eventually grew into the Action-RPG genre.
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Computer games hadn’t yet found a unified control scheme to ease players in, like what consoles could do with their controllers. Games of this era areexceedingly hard to go back to. Some modern machines will struggle to boot them up. Thankfully, fans have been keeping many of those games alive with patches and guides.
10Rogue
Rogueis an absolute classic and one of the most influential games of all time.Roguegave life to roguelikes, which are influencing so many games to this day. This is also one of the first games to popularize procedural generation, ASCII art, and turn-based dungeon exploration.
Surprisingly,Rogueis still enjoyable to this day. Sure, countless games have reiterated and explained the formula of the original, but the original still has a unique charm to it. Just verify to get the commercial version and not the uncommercial version, as it amounts to a prototype of the finished product.
9Wizardry 7
Wizardry 7is the fan-favorite DOS chapter of the series, and for good reason. It’s a solid first-person RPG that goes far beyond simple dungeon crawling. It’s also one of the first games to allow the player to talk to any NPC. This is made possible by the “diplomacy” system, a mechanic not unlikeOblivion’s Speechcraft Wheel.
Wizardry 7is most well-known for its unique setting. The fantasy tropes typical of the series, like fantasy races and magic, aremixed with a unique blend of sci-fi. The stakes of the previous game, a direct prequel, are elevated to galactic proportions when the player’s party becomes involved in an interplanetary conflict.
8Dungeon Master
Dungeon Masterisn’t the original dungeon crawler, but it’s the first truly modern one. It’s the first real-time dungeon crawler to reach hundreds of thousands of players, and it introduced many of them to RPGs.
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In 1987, the year of its release,Dungeon Masterwas one of the first games to bring real-time fights to dungeon crawlers. It also scrapped experience points and character levels in favor of a new system. InDungeon Master, skills level up only as they are used, just like in modernThe Elder Scrollsgames.
7Ultima 5: Warriors Of Destiny
Ultima 5: Warriors of Destinyis one of the most popular chapters in the iconic RPG series and the last one of the“classic” ultima games. This is the last game of the series to use a tiled map shown from above, with sub-maps opening when entering cities and first-person dungeon crawling sections.
Compared to its immediate successor, which attempted to switch things up a bit,Ultima 5: Warriors of Destinyis noticeably more polished. This is easily the best game for those trying to get a feeling for the classicUltimagames, as subsequent games switch things up a lot.
6Wasteland
Wastelandis truly a classic RPG. It served as the main inspiration for theFalloutgames as well as spawning a rebooted series. What’s surprising about the original is that it still makes for an enjoyable and unique experience, at least for 1988 RPGs standards.
There are enough self-contained stories inWasteland, enough short vignettes with unique characters and strange situations, to give every session of play its narrative arc. Even now,Wastelandstands out for its unique post-apocalyptic world, falling somewhere between theMad Maxsequels andA Boy and His Dog.
5Ultima 7: Warriors Of Destiny
To most players,Ultima 7: Warriors of Destinyis where the series peaked. This is the first game in the series to be playable from start to finish with just a mouse. It’s also when the series finally dropped its grid-based maps, soon to be followed by other games in the genre.
Ultima 7offers unprecedented levels of interactivity, giving players the ability to take or carry almost everything that isn’t part of the terrain. The revolutionary menu system represents every container as a window, with pictures standing for the items inside. To take an item out, players only need to drag it with their mouse. They can even stack items to create a path for objects that are out of their reach.
4System Shock
Put simply,System ShockisUltima Underworldin space, though to be honest, it is a much more complex affair. So complex, in fact, it makes it hard to revisit. Thanks to the new 3D engine, the game’s locations can sprawl much further and with more verticality. The UI is also hard to read since every item and every action is on display all the time.
System Shockis the game that consolidated immersive sims as an entirely new genre, even if it wasn’t a smashing success.System Shock 2, its direct sequel, was certainly more popular, but the spin-off seriesBioshockiswhen the series really broke into the mainstream.
3Fallout
Falloutwas developed as a spiritual successor to 1988’sWasteland. Although they were released almost a decade apart, they were both developed by Interplay. WhileWastelandowes much to classic Ultima titles, offering a new setting and a handful of new mechanics,Falloutis a much more original title.
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Today,Falloutis remembered as one of the very first isometric CRPGs, a tradition that Interplay would build upon with titles likeBaldur’s GateandPlanescape: Torment. It also has some rough but interesting mechanics that later titles would abandon, like an in-game timer clock that tells the player how long they have until losing the whole game. Thankfully, modern versions have the option to remove this mechanic.
2The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall
Although not as famous as its younger brotherSkyrim, the second chapter in theElder Scrollsseries was one of the most popular RPGs of its time. What is still incredible aboutThe Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfallis thesize of the mapand the degree of freedom that it gives the player.
Player freedom is whereDaggerfallreally shines. There is no predetermined order in which to approach quests, which at the time was nearly unheard of. The number of spells available in the game is already incredible, and that is before factoring in the fully-fledged Spell Maker ability.
1Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyssis an adaptation of theUltimaseries as a dungeon crawler, or at least that’s how it started. In reality, Looking Glass Studios (then Blue Sky Production) had just invented a new genre. By mixing RPG elements with first-person exploration of a realistic, consistent environment, they created immersive sims.
Ultima Underworldis easily one of the most influential games of its time. The 3D tech is said to have influencedCatacombs 3D, which formed the basis forWolfenstein 3D. It also kickstarted the careers of Paul Neurath, of Looking Glass Studios, and Warren Spector,ofThiefandDeus Exfame.
