Early 1980s: Precursors Several games prior to 1984 are considered precursors to the action RPG genre. Jeremy Parish of
USgamer cited
Adventure (1980). Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton cited the
Intellivision games
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1982) and
Treasure of Tarmin (1983). Shaun Musgrave of
TouchArcade discussed
Adventure,
Bokosuka Wars (1983) and
Gateway to Apshai (1983). He noted
Adventure lacked RPG mechanics such as experience points or permanent character growth, arguing that
Gateway to Apshai is "the earliest game I'd feel comfortable calling an action-RPG" but that "it doesn't fit neatly into our modern genre classifications" though came closer than
Bokosuka Wars.
Mid-1980s: Emergence of genre According to Jeremy Parish of
1UP, the action RPG genre was established by several
Japanese developers in 1984, who combined the role-playing genre with
arcadestyle
action and
action-adventure elements. Shaun Musgrave of
TouchArcade also traces the genre's roots to Japan, and notes that the "Western game industry of the time had a tendency to treat action games and RPGs as separate things for separate demographics". Jeremy Parish has reported action RPGs were popularized by
The Tower of Druaga in Japan. Falcom's
Dragon Slayer, created by Yoshio Kiya, Originally released for the PC-8801 computer in September 1984, it abandoned the command-based battles of earlier role-playing games in favor of real-time hack-and-slash combat that required direct input from the player, alongside
puzzle elements. In contrast to earlier turn-based
roguelikes,
Dragon Slayer was a dungeon-crawl role-playing game with real-time, action-oriented combat, was created by Tokihiro Naito, who was influenced by
The Tower of Druaga. John Szczepaniak claims that it "cannot be overstated how influential Hydlide was on the ARPGs which followed it".
Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, released in 1985 (billed as a "new type of real-time role-playing game"), was an action role-playing game with many
character stats and a large quest.
Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness (1985) also featured a morality system. An important influence on the action RPG genre was the 1986 action-adventure
The Legend of Zelda, which served as the template for many future action RPGs, even though it does not strictly fit the definition of later action RPGs. In contrast to previous action RPGs, such as
Dragon Slayer and
Hydlide, which required the player to bump into enemies to attack them,
The Legend of Zelda featured an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. It was also an early example of open-world,
nonlinear gameplay, and introduced new features such as battery backup saving. These elements have been used in many action RPGs since.
Late 1980s: Genre evolution In 1987,
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link implemented a more traditional RPG-esque system, with experience points and levels with action game elements. Unlike its predecessor,
Zelda II more closely fits the definition of an action RPG. The fifth
Dragon Slayer title,
Sorcerian, was also released that year. It was a party-based action RPG; the player controls a party of four characters at the same time in a side-scrolling view. The game also featured character creation, highly customizable characters, class-based puzzles, and a new scenario system, players could choose from 15 scenarios, or
quests, to play through in the order of their choice. It was also an
episodic video game, with expansion disks later released with more scenarios.
The Faery Tale Adventure offered one of the largest worlds at the time, with over 17,000 computer screens without load times. In 1988,
Telenet Japan's
Exile series debuted and was controversial due to its plot, which revolves around a time-travelling Crusades-era Syrian assassin who assassinates various religious/historical figures as well as 20th-century political leaders, The gameplay of
Exile included both overhead exploration and side-scrolling combat and featured a heart monitor to represent the player's Attack Power and Armor Class statistics. Another controversial aspect of the game involved drugs (instead of potions) that increase/decrease attributes, but with side effects such as heart-rate increase/decrease or death.
Times of Lore inspired several later titles by Origin Systems, such as the 1990 games
Bad Blood (another action RPG based on the same engine) Also in 1989, the enhanced remake
Ys I & II was one of the first video games to use
CD-ROM, which was utilized to provide enhanced graphics, animated cut scenes, a
Red Book CD soundtrack,
1990s: Console games and Diablo . Action RPGs were far more common on consoles than computers, due to better suitability of
gamepads to real-time action than the keyboard and mouse. Early-’90s consoles refined the real-time, stat-driven formula. Though there were action-oriented computer RPGs created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, very few saw any success.
Arcus Odyssey by Wolf Team (now
Namco Tales Studio) was an action RPG that featured an isometric perspective and co-operative multiplayer gameplay. In 1993, the second
Seiken Densetsu game,
Secret of Mana, received considerable acclaim, and its innovative cooperative multiplayer gameplay, where the second or third players could drop in and out of the game at any time, and did not have to join the game at the same time. On PC, the genre's inflection point was
Ultima Underworld (1992) which has been cited as the first RPG to feature first-person action in a 3D environment.''
In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 18th-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "Light-years ahead of their time, and still regarded as some of the best roleplaying games ever created". A poll conducted in May 2023 by GQ among a team of video game journalists listed it as the 95th-best video game of all time. The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994),
the first game in the Elder Scrolls
series, was released for MS-DOS in 1994. Diablo'' (1996/97),
Blizzard North’s click-to-move, real-time “dungeon crawl” stripped friction from combat and loot, while the launch of
Battle.net alongside Diablo brought always-available online co-op. Contemporary reports noted Battle.net's explosive uptake within a week of launch.
Diablos effect on the market is significant, inspired many imitators. Its impact was such that some use the term Action RPGs exclusively to
Diablo-style games.
Deus Ex: Invisible War,
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, and
Half-Life 2. Some action RPGs used a side-scrolling perspective typical of beat 'em ups, such as the
Princess Crown and its spiritual successors, which includes
Odin Sphere and
Muramasa: The Demon Blade.
Princess Crown had a more cartoon-like visual appeal. It still had quality visuals due to the George Kamitani style. ''LandStalker's
1997 spiritual successor Alundra'' is considered "one of the finest examples of action/RPG gaming", combined platforming elements and puzzles with an innovative storyline about entering people's
dreams and dealt with mature themes.
2000s: Online co-op, console brawlers, and open worlds Right at the turn of the millennium,
Diablo II (2000) scaled its predecessor's formula with class variety, seasons-like ladder play, and deeper itemization that moved millions of copies quickly and entrenched the “loot chase” as a genre pillar.
Phantasy Star Online (2000) then brought real-time, instance-based ARPG play to consoles over the Internet. The early 2000s pushed ARPGs in multiple directions. ''On consoles,
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance'' (2001) popularized silky, pad-first hack-and-slash co-op (often called the “
Snowblind engine” lineage after the developer ), and led to a wave of couch-co-op ARPGs. In the
5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the
D.I.C.E. Awards), the
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Dark Alliance with "
Console Role-Playing Game of the Year".
Kingdom Hearts (2002), the first game in
the series, was released in Japan on March 28, 2002, for
PlayStation 2 continuing the trend of character action or
hack and slash role-playing games. It is a
crossover of various Disney properties based in an original
fictional universe. This series has been critically and commercially successful. As of March 2014, the series had sold over 20 million copies worldwide. PC saw continued
Diablo-style games and fresh spins:
Titan Quest (2006) and later
Torchlight (2009) kept isometric, loot-centric ARPGs vibrant, with Torchlight explicitly positioned by ex-Diablo developers as a modern, fast-moving take on the formula. Meanwhile, real-time, first-person/third-person
open-world ARPGs like
The Elder Scrolls entries and
Gothic built action combat atop simulation-heavy RPG systems, and broadened what “action role-playing” encompassed.
Ultima Underworld's influence has been found in
BioShock (2007), and that game's designer,
Ken Levine, has stated that "all the things that I wanted to do and all the games that I ended up working on came out of the inspiration I took from
Ultima Underworld".
Gears of War designer
Cliff Bleszinski also cited it as an early influence, and stated that it had "far more impact on me than
Doom".
The Witcher series began in 2007 with the release of
The Witcher, and concluded with 2015's
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The series has three main standalone games, two expansion packs and seven spin-off games. 2007 also saw the release of
Mass Effect which sold over one million units worldwide in less than three weeks after launch
. The
Mass Effect series had sold a total of 14 million units by July 5, 2014.
Bethesda acquired the
Fallout franchise from
Interplay and released
Fallout 3 (2008) as an action RPG in departure from previous titles.
FromSoftware's ''
Demon's Souls'' (2009) emphasized hard enemies and environments, combined with risk-and-reward mechanics such as limited checkpoints, "souls" that can be collcted and consumed as experience points to increase the player's stats, or as a currency to purchase items, and player death penalties instead of an outright failure state. It also incorporated
online features and allowed players to: leave messages in the overworld that can be read by other players, to temporarily join other players' sessions to assist them cooperatively, or "invade" another player's session to engage in
player versus player combat. Especially after the release of its spiritual successor
Dark Souls (2011) and its sequels, other action RPGs emerged in the 2010s that incorporated mechanics influenced by those of ''Demon's Souls
, which have been popularly referred to as "Soulslike" games. Borderlands is the first game in the Borderlands'' series.
2010s: Soulslike and global popularity This decade saw continued global popularity of Action RPGs with new and old game series seeing success.
Bastion developed by
independent developer Supergiant Games published in 2011 sold over 3 million copies by January 2015. Bob Mackey of
1UP.com called it "the perfect mesh of game and story", and McKinley Noble of
GamePro said that it "raises the visual and narrative bar for downloadable titles".
Diablo III (2012) launched with a real-money auction house that Blizzard ultimately shuttered in 2014 after it undermined the loot-hunt core; the
Loot 2.0 overhaul restored the series’ feedback loop and became a cautionary case study in ARPG commerce. Capcom's ''
Dragon's Dogma (2012) blended responsive action combat with systemic RPG depth (pawns, vocations). In 2013, Vanillaware'' released the fantasy beat 'em up ARPG ''
Dragon's Crown, a spiritual successor to Princess Crown and a "deeply moving product" of Vanillaware director George Kamitani. Kamitani cites many classic RPGs as his inspiration, states in the Dragon's Crown Artworks'' foreword: "The motif within Dragon's Crown is all the fantasy works that has affected me until now: the PC RPG Wizardry that I first came into contact with as a student;
Ian Livingstone's gamebooks; games like
Tower of Druaga,
Golden Axe and
The King of Dragons." He also cites his early 20s work on
Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom as "truly something that I had aspired for". ''Dragon's Crown'' was re-released with a PS4 "Pro" edition in 2018. ''
Assassin's Creed,
a previously action-adventure franchise of Ubisoft, shifted towards the action RPG formula, inspired by the successes of The Witcher 3 and the Dark Souls series, with its titles Origins (2017), Odyssey (2018) and Valhalla (2020). Persona 5 Strikers (2020)
is an action RPG offering from the turn based Persona series.
By November 2023, the game had sold over 2 million units.''
Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) is an action role-playing game set in
post-apocalyptic United States and played from a
third-person view.''
In Nier: Automata (2017) avant-garde narrative coexists with high-tempo action-RPG combat. Monster Hunter was followed by Monster Hunter: World'' (2018) which became Capcom's best-selling title ever, and popularized cooperative, animation-driven “hunting” ARPGs. 2020 saw the popularity of live and
free-to-play ARPGs:
Genshin Impact (2020) fused open-world action, character progression, and
gacha monetization to enormous commercial success.
2020s: Continued popularity The popularity of action RPGs continues to grow. In 2022, FromSoftware's
Elden Ring mixed
open-world exploration with Soulslike combat and systems, and swept Game of the Year honors and surpassed 25M sales within its first few years (the DLC itself set records).
Avalanche Software released
Hogwarts Legacy in 2023. Set in
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and nearby areas, the game is played from a third-person perspective. Players can customize their
player character, who learns to cast spells, brew potions, and master combat abilities, and eventually develop their own special combat style. As of November 2022, more than 77 million copies of
Borderlands games had been shipped, with 26 million from
Borderlands 2. An additional five million copies of
Borderlands 3 were sold within five days of release, bringing the total series' net revenues to over . The
Witcher series is critically acclaimed and commercially successful, selling over 75 million units by March 2023. Blizzard's
Diablo IV (2023), launched as the fastest-selling title in Blizzard's history, and signaled sustained appetite for shared-world, seasons-driven ARPGs on PC and console. New mainline entries in the long-term turn-based RPG series of
Final Fantasy and
Dragon Age;
Final Fantasy XVI (2023) and
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), respectively, have been action RPGs.
Diablo-style ARPGs also continue to be popular. ==Subgenres==