What Record of Lodoss War video games are there?
Thirty-three years of games, and for twenty of them exactly one left Japan.
Lodoss began as a game, so its video games close a circle. The line runs from Hummingbird Soft’s computer RPGs of the late 1980s through the CD-ROM era to a Dreamcast action RPG and, in 2021, an indie Metroidvania. Release facts below are the documented ones; the Super Famicom game, often misdated, is a 1995 release.
THE COMPUTER AND CD ERA
1988 to 1998Record of Lodoss War · PC-98, 1988
Hummingbird Soft’s RPG of The Grey Witch, among the first Japanese computer RPGs built on a domestic fantasy novel. Ported across PC-88, MSX, X68000, and FM Towns over the following years.
PC Engine CD-ROM² · 1992 and 1994
Two CD RPGs adapting the novels with voice and animated scenes: the format Lodoss was born for, sold for the system whose magazine, Marukatsu PC Engine, was serializing The Lady of Pharis.
Mega-CD · Eiyū Sensō, 1994
The War of Heroes on Sega’s CD system, the same year as the second PC Engine game: 1994 was Lodoss’s CD peak.
Super Famicom · 1995
Kadokawa’s console RPG of the novels, Japan-only in its day and fan-translated in 2014. Frequently misdated to 1994 in secondary sources; the documented release is 1995.
Game Boy Color · Eiyū Kishiden, 1998
Tomy’s handheld Chronicles of the Heroic Knight tie-in, riding the TV series’ broadcast year.
THE WESTERN DOOR AND THE RETURN
2000 to 2021Advent of Cardice · Dreamcast, 2000
Neverland’s action RPG: Japan June 29, 2000, Europe December 15, 2000, North America March 14, 2001 from Conspiracy Entertainment. A Diablo-shaped Lodoss, and for twenty years the only Lodoss game released outside Japan.
Record of Lodoss War Online · 2016
The Korean-developed MMO chapter of the franchise: Lodoss as a live world, a format its tabletop origins always implied.
Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth · 2021
Team Ladybug and Why So Serious’s Symphony of the Night-shaped Metroidvania, supervised in story by Mizuno and set just before The Crown of the Covenant. Steam early access March 2020; full release March 27, 2021; consoles followed in December 2021 and January 2022. The best-reviewed Lodoss game ever made, and the one that reopened the West.