The first commercially available video game, Computer Space, was released in 1971. Five decades later, video games look and feel extremely different from their humble beginnings: today’s video games provide photorealistic visuals, vast open worlds, and deep gameplay mechanics. They’ve become so complex that it’s hard to decidehow to introduce a non-gamer to the medium.
One thing has remained consistent throughout: no matter how video games have changed, their goal has always been to entertain you. As audiences became more familiar with the medium, games themselves had to innovate and evolve to keep from getting stale. Here, we take a look at the genres that have changed the most over the years.
10Adventure Games
The earliest adventure games were text-based, like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork; these games required you to type in commands that sometimes worked, allowing you to explore and solve puzzles. This evolved to graphical point-and-click adventures such as the King’s Quest and Monkey Island series, and point-and-click titles remain the popular image of adventure games today. The genre had fizzled out by the early 2000s due to its slow-paced nature and frustrating moon-logic puzzles.
Over in Japan, however, adventure games continued to do well, primarily as visual novels where the focus was on character interactions and dialogue choices rather than puzzles. Western adventure games have seena small resurgence, primarily through Telltale games and indie titles likeReturn of the Obra Dinn.
9Metroidvanias
Metroidvanias are a curious example in that the genre existed before the name was coined. The first Metroid game, released in 1986, is a Metroidvania in itself - a side-scrolling platformer where new power-ups allow you to revisit areas you’ve explored before and progress from there.
While the genre takes its roots from linear side-scrolling platformers and beat ‘em ups, it was soon after Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in 1997 that the term was coined. When that castle turned upside down, so did our expectations, and Metroidvanias became a beloved genre that continues to thrive in the indie community today
8Platformers
Although you can also do it in real life too, jumping is one of the definitive video game mechanics. The evolution of the platformer is the evolution of video games as a whole. From the moment Donkey Kong took arcades by storm, platformers were set to be genre royaltyno matter how silly they got. They gained massive popularity during the ’80s, and platforming remained an integral part of other video game genres.
In 1996, the 3D graphics revolution allowed the genre a renaissance. Games like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and Tomb Raider were now the hallmarks of video game goodness. True, platformers haven’t evolved as much since the introduction of 3D, but maybe they don’t need to.
7Horror
Horror games were late to the party compared to many video game genres because it’s hard to be scared of pixels (there’s probably an indie developer working to prove us wrong this very minute). Despite early titles like Haunted House on the Atari 2600, most would point to Sweet Home on the NES as the first survival horror game. The advent of 3D graphics allowed Alone In The Dark to experiment with suspenseful exploration, but with a lighthearted tone.
It wasn’t until 1996’s Resident Evil that the genre came into its own. This was the first game that relied on your helplessness and lack of resources to make you feel afraid. With Silent Hill 2, the genre gained a psychological element that’sstill present in horror games today. Fifty years of evolution just to prove that nothing is scarier than your thoughts.
6Simulation
Photorealistic video games are a dream now realized, but if you were around before the 2010s, you may remember wanting games to be like real life. Enter the simulation genre, which started with city-building sims, notably SimCity in 1989. Life simulation games exploded in popularity with the release of The Sims in 2000.
Today, simulation games are broad enough to be a super-genre. If you can think of something, there’s probably a simulation for it. There are management sims like Dwarf Fortress, farming sims like Stardew Valley and simulation games focused on certain jobs - from comedic interpretations like Surgeon Simulator to games focused on relaxation and coziness like PowerWash Simulator. Want to fly a Boeing 747 commercial airliner jet? There’s a sim for that too.
5Puzzle
The nebulous nature of what makes a puzzle game has allowed the genre to evolve greatly over time, borrowing from other genres to mix, match, and create unique experiences. When you think of puzzle games, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Tetris. But 2007’s Portal is also a puzzle game. Are these two games even of the same genre?
The easiest way to define a puzzle game is that it tests your reasoning rather than your reflexes. With that mindset, puzzle games have changed and evolved to a - dare we say it - puzzling extent. Today’s puzzle games may be casual experiences like Candy Crush Saga, which relies on tried-and-true logic, or they may be Baba Is You: a game that challenges your understanding of the very mechanics of a video game.
4Action-Adventure
Two words sum up the evolution of action-adventure games: open world. Action-adventure games always relied on a certain degree of non-linearity, but when Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, the change was seismic. Instead of just revisiting areas after gaining the required items to progress, you could nowexplore the entire map at your own pace.
Action-adventure games have evolved not just in their structure, but also in their mechanics. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time popularized 3D traversal mechanics that would influence later titles like Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed. Today’s action-adventure games are a Far Cry from the original Zelda. Yes, we went there.
3First-Person Shooters
Arguably the first video game ever made, Spacewar, was a shooter. The concept gave rise to many subgenres: first-person shooters evolved by using 3D graphics, third-person shooters evolved by incorporating action-adventure elements, andrail shooters evolved by dying out. Released in 1992, Wolfenstein 3D is considered the pioneer of first-person shooters, but the genre garnered mainstream appeal with the release of Doom, and became a driving force for the evolution of video games as a whole.
Then Quake introduced deathmatches, GoldenEye007 introduced headshots, and Halo popularized the control scheme FPS games still use on consoles today. Because the point of view has remained the same - you’re able to tell a game is an FPS just by looking at it - it’s hard to gauge how much the genre has evolved on graphics alone. Even the keyboard-and-mouse control scheme wasn’t standard until Half-Life.
2Sports Games
When the prototypical version of Pong debuted on the Magnavox Odyssey, the hardware was so limited that the system didn’t keep score - you were expected to do so yourself, using pen and paper. Compare that to the sports games of today, which feature photorealistic renditions of athletes and simulate entire stadiums’ worth of audiences.
It’s not all for the better, of course. Sports games based on real-life promotions like the NFL, NBA, and WWE have come under criticism for releasing the same game over and over with minor roster updates and relying heavily on microtransactions. However, the genre’s so widespread that for the most part, you’re free to pick and choose.
1Role-Playing Games
When the first Ultima came out, its goal was to let you have the Dungeons & Dragons experience solo. A lot of early RPGs, like Phantasy Star, even expected you to map out the dungeons by hand using pen and paper. Does that sound recognizable when we think of RPGs today? The genre has changed so much over the years.
One of the things that makes video games now so complex, compared to even fifteen years ago, is that pretty much any game you play will have RPG elements to it. Games like The Witcher 3 and Genshin Impact hardly feel connected to the humble beginnings of Might and Magic or Wizardry. In one way they are: whether it’s an RPG from 1981 or today, whether it’s turn-based or real-time, it always carries with it the promise of adventure.
