Action role-playing game
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. In contrast to previous action RPGs, such as "Dragon Slayer" and "Hydlide," which required the player to bump into enemies in order 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.
History of Western role-playing video games
"Times of Lore", designed by Chris Roberts and released by Origin Systems in 1988, introduced the action-adventure and action role-playing game formula of console titles such as "The Legend of Zelda" to the American computer RPG market. "Times of Lore" and "Dungeon Master" went on to directly inspire several later Origin Systems titles, including "Bad Blood" (1990), "" (1990) and "Ultima VII" (1992). "Ultima VI" made some major changes to the "Ultima" formula, including a constant-scale open world (replacing the unscaled overworld of earlier "Ultima" titles) and a point & click interface.