OK, since it seems to be quiet around here, I'll go:
The Hobbit ('82) - This was my introduction to "games can be different from arcades". As arcade gamer in those years, this game was very strange for me (played it first on ZX at my friends) - it had text parser, with which you were inputting commands and interacting with world, but under the hood, the world clock was ticking, so some things and NPCs were dynamic. This was my beginning of love for adventure games and adventuring.
Montezuma's Revenge ('84) - Action-adventure/platformer/proto Metroidvania in which you're exploring a pyramid. I loved platforming in Donkey Kong in arcades, and this is game that continued platforming in the direction I preferred, toward exploration/puzzle platformers and Metroidvanias, instead of later more...popular...approaches to platforming.
Elite ('84) - 3D graphics? Check. Open world? Check. Open-ended gameplay? Check. Physics based Space-Sim? Check. Trading with functioning economic engine? Check. This is probably THE game my teenage mind was most blown away, and went on to be one of games that most influenced how I look at and what I expect of the open-ended games.
Theatre Europe or Kampfgruppe ('85) - I'm not sure which one of these two, though I'm pretty certain I played some war strategy before that, but these I remember. as games that made me stop playing chess (which I was really good at) and turning completely to war strategies, which was (and still is) one of my favourite genres.
Ultima (early 80s) - This is actually representative stand-in for something adjacent (given that it took everything from it) - while I played RPGs on computers, my first exposure to RPGs was through pen&paper RPGs in early 80s. This has pretty much defined how I look at lot of games (not just RPGs), what I expect from RPGs and what I even consider to be an RPG.
EDIT:
Honorable mentions:
Battlezone (1980) - This Atari's arcade cabinet was THE reason I fell in love with first person 3D (which carried on in my later love for Elite) - at the time where everything was sprite based, Atari was very innovative and had quite a few vector based games, with Battlezone, a tank combat arcade "simulator", being their entry into 3D. And while I've spend much more time eventually in their Star Wars cabinet that build upon it, Battlezone has opened my eyes to how different gaming can be from then standard 2D approach.
SimCity (1989) - Game that sort of is not a game, but more of a building project with goals that you set for yourself. I think this was the first game of that type I've played, I loved it and although I fell out of the genre by late 90s/early 00s (I think Pharaoh was last game I've played), the very foundation of that "building something as game" approach goes into multiple other genres and games that are my favourites (Kerbal Space Program being prime example).
Last edited by HoloDust - on 29 June 2026
