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.
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
In 1992 "Computer Gaming World" named it the year's best adventure game, praising its "challenging puzzles and wonderful sense of humor, along with a stunning visual presentation". In 1996 the magazine ranked it as the 74th best game of all time. In 1994, "PC Gamer UK" named "Monkey Island 2" the fourth best computer game of all time. The editors wrote, "Anyone who claims to have an interest in adventuring cannot afford to be without this." In 2011, Adventure Gamers named "Monkey Island 2" the eighth-best adventure game ever released.