And so, after a few changes, Questron was released in 1984, featuring a disclaimer: “Game structure and style used under licence of Richard Garriott”.

It sounds a bit mean today, considering how often popular titles are copied, and that the following years saw dozens of RPGs heavily inspired by Ultima, like Shards of Spring, 2400 A.D., Magic Candle, Deathlord, Dragon Quest, Exile, etc. But Questron was the first, and it's indeed extremely similar to Ultima I and II.

There's no character creation, you simply type a name and spawn on the game's massive open world. Your first goal is to gather gold and grow stronger, buying weapons and armour in the various towns, and visiting cathedrals to increase your HP.

Questron has no XP system; to improve your stats you must pay to play mini-games, e.g. skeet-shooting will slowly increase your Dexterity. While quite original, this means that fighting monsters is mostly pointless – it wields little gold, no XP and will drain your HP. You're better off gambling in town, playing blackjack or roulette. Not very heroic.

Once you're rich and powerful enough, the king will summon you. You'll be tasked with travelling to the Land of Evil, where you must defeat the evil wizard. This new land is another large continent, but it features more dangerous enemies, a few first-person dungeons and a giant eagle you can mount to fly around.

While the journey has few innovations, Questron's ending was revolutionary. Today we expect extensive cutscenes that will bring closure to our adventures, but, back in the day, games would just say “You Won!” and shut down. Questron was the first CRPG – and possibly the first video game – that rewarded you with a long animated victory ceremony, with trumpeters announcing your arrival, the king appointing you Baron and even some sequel-teasing.