Action role-playing game
Action role-playing game, commonly shortened to ARPG, sits at the crossroads of two very different gaming traditions. On one side stands the role-playing game, with its menus, character sheets, and deliberate pacing. On the other stands the action game, demanding fast reflexes and direct physical response. The ARPG fuses both. Players govern character stats that determine strength and ability, build skill trees, and shape their character's growth through decisions. They also fight enemies in real time, their own coordination counting as much as any number on the screen. The question that runs through the genre's entire history is a simple one: which side should dominate?
June 1984 saw the arrival of The Tower of Druaga in Japanese arcades, a game framed by its creators as a "fantasy version of Pac-Man, with puzzles to solve, monsters to battle, and hidden treasure to find." Its success immediately inspired other developers. Yoshio Kiya created Dragon Slayer for Falcom, released for the PC-8801 computer in September 1984. GameSetWatch later called it "the very first action-RPG ever made." Dragon Slayer abandoned command-based battles in favor of real-time hack-and-slash combat that required direct input from the player. John Szczepaniak wrote that Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, and Courageous Perseus, all released in 1984, "vie for position as genre precedent," and there was a sustained rivalry between the Dragon Slayer and Hydlide series in the years that followed. T&E Soft's Hydlide, created by Tokihiro Naito and released in December 1984, was the first action RPG to feature an overworld. Hydlide sold 2 million copies across all platforms and Szczepaniak argued that "it cannot be overstated how influential Hydlide was on the ARPGs which followed it." These early Japanese games influenced later titles including Ys and, notably, action-adventure games like The Legend of Zelda.
The Legend of Zelda arrived in 1986 as an action-adventure, not strictly an action RPG, yet its mechanical ideas reshaped the genre. Unlike Dragon Slayer and Hydlide, which required players to bump into enemies to attack them, Zelda gave the player an attack button that animated a sword swing or projectile on screen. The game was also an early example of open-world nonlinear gameplay and introduced battery backup saving. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in 1987, moved closer to a formal ARPG by adding experience points and levels alongside action elements. System Sacom's Euphory, also from 1987, went further still, offering a Metroidvania-style multiplayer ARPG on the Sharp X1 computer with two-player cooperative gameplay. Falcom's Ys series debuted the same year. While not widely popular in Western markets, it performed strongly in Japan through many sequels, remakes, and ports. The 1989 enhanced remake Ys I & II was among the first video games to use CD-ROM to deliver animated cut scenes, a Red Book CD soundtrack, and voice acting. Its English localization was also among the first to use voice dubbing, and the game received a Game of the Year award from OMNI Magazine in 1990.
Through the early 1990s, action RPGs found far more success on consoles than on personal computers. The keyboard-and-mouse setup of home computers suited deliberate menu-driven play; gamepads suited real-time action. A 1991 survey in Computer Gaming World criticized Ys, Sorcerian, Times of Lore, and Prophecy for their resemblance to "arcade" or "Nintendo-style" action combat, reflecting a general resistance from some computer players to the genre's blend. Square's Seiken Densetsu, released for Game Boy in 1991, drew heavily on Zelda's action but added stronger RPG elements. The 1993 follow-up Secret of Mana was praised for its pausable real-time battle system and a cooperative mode where a second or third player could drop in and out at any time. Its ring menu system remained in use in modern games, and its cooperative multiplayer was cited as an influence on titles including Dungeon Siege III, released in 2011. On PC, the pivotal moment came with Ultima Underworld in 1992, which was cited as the first RPG to feature first-person action in a full 3D environment. In 1998, PC Gamer ranked it the 18th-best computer game ever made. Blizzard's Diablo in 1996-97 then transformed expectations. Its click-to-move dungeon crawl stripped friction from combat and loot, and the launch of Battle.net brought always-available online co-op. Contemporary reports noted Battle.net's explosive uptake within a week of the game's release. Diablo's reach was broad enough that some players use the term action RPG to refer exclusively to Diablo-style games.
FromSoftware's Demon's Souls, released in 2009, introduced a set of mechanics that would define an entire subgenre. The game emphasized hard enemies and environments, limited checkpoints, and a currency called "souls" that players could collect and spend on stats or items but risked losing on death. Players could also leave messages readable by others, assist other players cooperatively, or invade another player's session for player-versus-player combat. Dark Souls, the 2011 spiritual successor, extended these ideas, and the games that followed them became known as "Soulslike" games. Meanwhile, the decade opened with Diablo II in 2000, which moved millions of copies quickly and established the "loot chase" as a central genre pillar. Phantasy Star Online in 2000 brought instance-based ARPG play to consoles over the Internet. Kingdom Hearts, released in Japan on the 28th of March 2002 for PlayStation 2, crossed Disney properties with original fiction in a character-action RPG format; the series had sold over 20 million copies worldwide as of March 2014. Bastion, developed by Supergiant Games and published in 2011, sold over 3 million copies by January 2015. Diablo III launched in 2012 with a real-money auction house that Blizzard shuttered in 2014 after it undermined the loot-hunt core; the Loot 2.0 overhaul that followed became a widely discussed case study in ARPG commerce. Monster Hunter: World, released in 2018, became Capcom's best-selling title ever. Genshin Impact in 2020 combined open-world action, character progression, and gacha monetization to reach enormous commercial success.
Elden Ring, released in 2022 by FromSoftware, mixed open-world exploration with Soulslike combat and surpassed 25 million sales within its first few years. The accompanying downloadable content set its own sales records. The Witcher series sold over 75 million units by March 2023. The Borderlands series had shipped more than 77 million copies by November 2022, with 26 million from Borderlands 2 alone; Borderlands 3 added five million sales within five days of release. The Kingdom Hearts series reached more than 36 million copies shipped as of March 2022. Blizzard's Diablo IV, released in 2023, launched as the fastest-selling title in Blizzard's history. Two long-running turn-based RPG franchises also shifted format in this period: Final Fantasy XVI in 2023 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024 were both released as action RPGs, signaling how thoroughly the real-time combat model had moved into the mainstream of the wider RPG category.
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Common questions
What is an action role-playing game and how does it differ from a regular RPG?
An action role-playing game combines real-time combat that tests a player's physical coordination or reaction time with role-playing mechanics such as character creation, skill trees, stat-driven progression, and party management. Standard RPGs typically use turn-based or menu-based combat; action RPGs replace that with direct real-time input from the player.
What was the first action RPG ever made?
Dragon Slayer, created by Yoshio Kiya for Falcom and released for the PC-8801 computer in September 1984, has been called "the very first action-RPG ever made" by GameSetWatch. The Tower of Druaga, released in Japanese arcades in June 1984, is also cited as a major early influence that directly inspired Dragon Slayer's creation.
How did Hydlide influence the action RPG genre?
T&E Soft's Hydlide, released in December 1984 and created by Tokihiro Naito, was the first action RPG to feature an overworld. It sold 2 million copies across all platforms. Critic John Szczepaniak argued that "it cannot be overstated how influential Hydlide was on the ARPGs which followed it," including the Ys series, which borrowed Hydlide's health-regeneration mechanic.
How did Diablo change the action RPG genre?
Diablo, released in 1996-97 by Blizzard North, stripped friction from combat and loot through a click-to-move dungeon-crawl format and launched Battle.net for always-available online co-op. Its impact was broad enough that some players use "action RPG" to mean exclusively Diablo-style games, and it spawned franchises including Divinity, Torchlight, and Dungeon Siege.
What are Soulslike games and where did the subgenre originate?
Soulslike games are a subgenre of action RPGs known for high difficulty, environmental storytelling, and a currency system where progress can be lost on death. The subgenre originated with FromSoftware's Demon's Souls in 2009 and expanded significantly after Dark Souls in 2011. Elden Ring, also by FromSoftware, surpassed 25 million sales within its first few years after release in 2022.
How many copies has the Kingdom Hearts action RPG series sold?
The Kingdom Hearts series had shipped more than 36 million copies worldwide as of March 2022. The first game in the series was released in Japan on the 28th of March 2002 for PlayStation 2 as a crossover of Disney properties set in an original fictional universe.