Role-playing video game

Lore & Background

Role-playing video games have their origins in tabletop role-playing games and use much of the same terminology, settings, and game mechanics. Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements, player-character development, and elaborately designed fantasy worlds. The electronic medium takes the place of the gamemaster, resolving combat on its own and determining the game's response to different player actions. RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences.

Reader's Guide

Role-playing video games have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences, and they enjoy significant popularity both as mainstream AAA games and as niche titles aimed towards dedicated audiences. The genre has its origins in the mid-1970s, when developers attempted to implement systems like Dungeons & Dragons on university mainframe computers. While initially niche, RPGs would soon become mainstream on consoles like the NES with franchises such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Western RPGs for home computers became popular through series such as Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and Baldur's Gate. More recently, independent developers have found success, with games such as OFF, Undertale, and Omori achieving both critical and commercial success. The genre is characterized by experience and level systems, story and setting, and exploration and quests, with three different systems of rewarding player characters: the experience system, the training system, and the skill-point system.

Did You Know?

• Role-playing video games have their origins in tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
• The first RPGs date to the mid-1970s, when developers attempted to implement systems like Dungeons & Dragons on university mainframe computers.
• Three different systems of rewarding player characters exist: the experience system, the training system, and the skill-point system.
• Independent developers have found success with games such as OFF, Undertale, and Omori.

The Logic of Genre Classification

Video game genres are organized not around narrative themes, visual aesthetics, or the platform on which a title runs, but around the fundamental mechanics of how a player engages with the game world. A first-person shooter remains a first-person shooter whether its backdrop is a far-future colony, a dusty frontier town, a mythical realm, or a modern battlefield, as long as the camera sits behind the protagonist's eyes and the core loop revolves around ranged combat. This interaction-first approach to categorization means that a single genre can swallow an enormous breadth of experiences, which is why the industry has layered in subgenres to create finer-grained distinctions. An action game, for instance, branches into platformers, fighting titles, and numerous other niches. The taxonomy is not always rigid either; browser and mobile titles in particular are frequently tagged with more than one genre simultaneously, reflecting the hybrid nature of their design. Ultimately, the genre label functions as a shorthand for a particular set of player verbs—jumping, shooting, trading blows—rather than a description of the story being told.

The Shooter's Long Reign

Since the early 1990s, shooter games have occupied a dominant position in the industry, accounting for a substantial share of total video game sales. The genre's breakthrough moment is often traced to Wolfenstein 3D, released in 1992 by Id Software, whose approach to three-dimensional movement and visual presentation became a template that countless later titles borrowed. A year later, Id's Doom cemented the studio's influence and is widely regarded as one of the most consequential games ever made. The lineage continued with Half-Life, a series praised for both critical acclaim and commercial strength while shaping the design language of modern shooters, and with Call of Duty, whose combined sales across all entries have surpassed 250 million units. Beyond the traditional first-person and third-person split, the genre has spawned distinctive niches: hero shooters like Overwatch, Paladins, Apex Legends, and Valorant draw on MOBA-style team coordination; light gun titles such as Duck Hunt rely on a gun-shaped controller with a light sensor, a technology traceable to the 1920s; and shoot 'em ups cast players as pilots of flying craft battling endless waves of enemies in continuous motion.

Platformers and the Art of the Jump

Platform games define themselves through a single, deceptively simple verb: jumping. The playable character is typically capable of leaping many times their own height, and the player retains meaningful control over trajectory, arc, and distance while airborne. Levels are designed with vertically exaggerated terrain—uneven platforms, ledges to fall from, and gaps to clear—so that navigation becomes a constant negotiation of gravity and momentum. Some platformers layer in enemies and obstacles to fight or dodge, while others strip the experience down to pure jumping puzzles with no combat at all. The genre's roots stretch back to Donkey Kong in 1981, which the American gaming press of the era labeled a "climbing game" rather than using the platformer terminology that would later become standard. The genre found its defining commercial triumph with Super Mario Bros. in 1985, a title that went on to sell more than 40 million copies and remains one of the best-selling games of all time. Together, these milestones established the template of responsive, physics-driven movement that continues to anchor the subgenre.

Fighting Games: Cycles of Dominance

Fighting games have always been built around intimate, close-range combat—typically one-on-one duels or bouts against a small group of equally matched opponents—often featuring exaggerated, violent unarmed strikes. Most titles in the genre offer a large roster of selectable characters and a competitive multiplayer mode that drives their longevity. While the majority emphasize hand-to-hand techniques drawn from various martial arts systems, a notable subset such as Soulcalibur and Samurai Shodown shifts the focus to melee weapons. For much of the 1990s, fighting games were among the dominant forces in the industry, but the genre experienced a measurable decline toward the end of that decade. That downturn proved short-lived. In the modern era, franchises like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, and Super Smash Bros. have reasserted the genre's cultural relevance. Super Smash Bros. in particular carved out a unique niche by deliberately departing from the traditional fighting-game rule set, embracing a "fun over form" party-game philosophy that attracted a broad, cross-generational audience and demonstrated that the genre could evolve beyond its competitive roots.