Causality Chain is a series at PC Gamer exploring the unlikely links between history, culture, and videogames. Every time you cast a meteor spell in Diablo 2 or summon a cloud of daggers in Baldur’s Gate 3, you engage in a historical continuum—a causality chain that traces back to the 18th century. This was a time when the concept of a “warlock dip” had not been revisited since the Salem witch trials, carrying a vastly different connotation.
1975: The journey begins with Daniel Lawrence, a university student who took the bold step of converting Dungeons & Dragons into a digital format on a PDP-10 mainframe computer. Initially dubbed DND, this pioneering effort would later be known as Telengard upon its commercial release. It stands as one of the first video game RPGs, featuring a fireball spell, albeit without an area of effect, as all combat was strictly one-on-one.
<h2 class="article-bodysection” id=”section-friendly-fire”>Friendly Fire
The 1980s: As the decade unfolded, early video games began to embrace the concept of area-of-effect spells in innovative ways. The Wizardry series introduced spells capable of targeting multiple enemies, while Ultima 3’s noxum spell allowed for a barrage of fireballs, each aimed at a different foe. By 1985, Ultima 4 featured a tremor spell that impacted every adversary on screen. Wizard’s Crown, released in 1986, showcased a fireball that could affect enemies surrounding its target, and by 1988, Ultima 5 added cone-shaped spells to the mix. That same year, SSI, the developer behind Wizard’s Crown, acquired the license to create official D&D games, leading to the release of Pool of Radiance. This title marked the inception of the Gold Box series, employing the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition rules and introducing a genuine area-of-effect fireball spell—one that could easily turn against your own party members, echoing the cautionary tales of Tolkien.
<h2 class="article-bodysection” id=”section-sources-and-further-reading”>Sources and further reading
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