What Was the First RPG Video Game? The Debatable Origins

There's no single "first RPG"—it depends on definition. Key contenders:

• Dungeons & Dragons (1974): Tabletop origin; established core RPG mechanics (classes, levels, dice, narrative).
• Colossal Cave Adventure (1976): Text adventure; exploration, inventory, puzzles—considered first computer RPG by many.
• Zork (1977): Expanded text adventure with richer parser, world, and puzzles.
• Wizardry (1981): First-person dungeon crawler; party-based, turn-based combat, character progression—popularized "RPG" term for video games.
• Ultima I (1981): Open world, narrative focus, party system—template for open-world RPGs.

All contributed essential DNA. Wizardry and Ultima directly inspired Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, birthing the JRPG genre.