Open world
There is no consensus on what the earliest open world game is, due to differing definitions of how large or open a world needs to be. Ars Technica traces the concept back to the free-roaming exploration of 1976 text adventure game "Colossal Cave Adventure", which inspired the free-roaming exploration of "Adventure" (1980), but notes that it wasn't until 1984 that what "we now know as open-world gaming" took on a "definite shape" with 1984 space simulator "Elite", considered a pioneer of the open world; Gamasutra argues that its open-ended sandbox style is rooted in flight simulators, such as SubLOGIC's "Flight Simulator" (1979/1980), noting most flight sims "offer a 'free flight' mode that allows players to simply pilot the aircraft and explore the virtual world". Others trace the concept back to 1981 CRPG "", which had a free-roaming overworld map inspired by tabletop RPG "Dungeons & Dragons". The overworld maps of the first five "Ultima" games, released up to 1988, lacked a single, unified scale, with towns and other places represented as icons; this style was adopted by the first three "Dragon Quest" games, released from 1986 to 1988 in Japan.
John Howard (adventure racer)
Very few individuals have dominated endurance sports in the way John dominated adventure racing. Since winning the first ever major adventure race held in the world, the Raid Gauloises in 1989, he went on to win every significant race in the sport, including Eco-Challenge (three times), the Raid Gauloises (three times), the Elf Authentique, the ESPN X-Games (twice) and the Southern Traverse. In addition, he has served as a course designer or advisor to numerous high-profile outdoor adventure events, including the Mild Seven Outdoor Quest, Action Asia and New Zealand's (which he won in 1984).