Fantasy games sorted by release date
Dwarves and elves, trolls and gnolls, dragons and wyverns, arcane magic, ancient deities, sword and sorcery! It's not just medieval, it's a soup of imagination and reality in equal parts, mixed in a bubbling cauldron, ready to be served in your favourite old tavern.
Most popular fantasy games
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Akalabeth: World of Doom
DOS1981freeware California Pacific Computer
Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet. The graphics are so old school they could legall...
The Wizard's Castle
DOS1981freeware
The Wizard's Castle is a classic text-based, dungeon-crawling adventure game released in 1980, designed by Joseph R. Power. The game was originally developed for the Exidy Sorcerer computer and later ported to various platforms, s...
Ultima 1: The First Age of Darkness
DOS1981 Origin Systems
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness is a seminal role-playing video game developed by Richard Garriott and released by California Pacific Computer Company in 1981. It is the first game in the long-running and influential Ultima se...
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
DOS1981 Sir-tech Software
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a role-playing video game that was first released in 1981. It's one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon-crawling genre and one of the first computer role-playing games (CRPGs).D...
Adventure in Serenia
DOS1982 Sierra On-Line
Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventure gave players a taste of magic, mystery, and con...
Wizardry 2: The knight of diamonds
DOS1982 Sir-tech Software
Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
DOS1982 Infocom
Zork is one of the most popular text-adventures and one of the first interactive fiction games ever created. The first Zork was developed in the seventies and ported on various platform by Infocom in the early 80s. Infocom wa...
Beneath Apple Manor
DOS1983freeware
Beneath Apple Manor is a pioneering game in the roguelike genre, originally developed and released in 1978 by Don Worth for the Apple II and later re-released for DOS as a "Special Edition". It's one of the earliest known role-pla...
Enchanter
DOS1983 Infocom
Oubliette
DOS1983
The Hobbit
DOS1983 Beam Software
Ultima 2: Revenge of the Enchantress
DOS1983 Origin Systems
The second chapter of the Ultima saga is much similar to the first one (same top down visual, same dungeon 3d visual, same gameplay), although there are many small improvements. The series begins to take the shape of the detailed,...
Wizardry 3: Legacy of Llylgamyn
DOS1983 Sir-tech Software
Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn is a classic role-playing video game developed by Sir-Tech and released in 1983. It is the third installment in the Wizardry series. Originally released for the Apple II, it was later ported ...
Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz
DOS1983 Infocom
You survived Zork I, and now it’s personal. In Zork II, you face off against the enigmatic Wizard of Frobozz, who exists mostly to mess with you like a magical prankster with way too much free time. The puzzles get harder, t...
Archon: the Light and the Dark
DOS1984 Free Fall Associates
Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light versus dark, spellcasters versus golems, and battles ...
Below The Root
DOS1984 Dale Disharoon, Inc.
Based on a book series almost nobody remembers, Below The Root drops you into a serene world of treehouses, talking children, and deeply philosophical moral choices. Combat does not exist. Instead, you explore, read minds, and try...
Castle Adventure
DOS1984freeware
Castle Adventure is what happens when a medieval fantasy RPG gets crammed into a game smaller than your average selfie. ASCII graphics? Check. Typing commands like “GET SWORD”? Oh yes. It’s part game, part digita...
DND
DOS1984
Dragon World
DOS1984 Telarium
Hack
DOS1984freeware
ICON: Quest for the Ring
DOS1984 Macrocom
King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown
DOS1984 Sierra On-Line
King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is the first game in the popular series of King's Quest. Developed by Sierra On-line, King's Quest is an early adventure game (one of the first animated adventures), a step up from the classic gra...
Lords of Midnight
DOS1984remake Beyond Software
Rogue
Windows XP/98/95DOSLinuxMac OS1984 Artificial Intelligence Design
Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor. Rogue became popular around 1980 on mainframes an...
Sorcerer
DOS1984 Infocom
Troll's Tale
DOS1984 Sierra On-Line
Zork III: The Dungeon Master
DOS1984 Infocom
The final part of the original trilogy, Zork III ditches treasure-hunting in favor of introspection, moral puzzles, and the looming presence of the Dungeon Master—basically the Gandalf of passive-aggressive mentorship. It&rs...
Zyll
DOS1984 IBM
Released in 1984, Zyll is what happens when a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master learns to code and decides to build a text adventure inside a coffee machine. There are no graphics - just glorious walls of text - but boy, is it...
9 Princes in Amber
DOS1985 Telarium
Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things like “look tree” and “use sword&rdq...
Amulet of Yendor
DOS1985 Keypunch Software
Before there were AAA games with 100GB installs, there was Amulet of Yendor, a rogue-like so old-school it might as well come with a floppy disk and a sandwich bag of D&D dice. Your goal? Find the legendary amulet. Your method...