Former Path of Exile boss praises classic Dungeon Master and spiritual successor Legend of Grimrock

Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson recently shared his thoughts on the classic title Dungeon Master via a YouTube video, highlighting its historical significance in the role-playing game genre. Wilson noted that while it was not the very first first-person dungeon crawler, it successfully brought that specific style of RPG to a much wider audience. The game required players to guide a four-character party through dark, grid-mapped tunnels, utilizing environmental puzzles and lateral thinking to survive against enemies like mummies.

Reflecting on how the industry has shifted, Wilson lamented that developers largely stopped making games in this style after titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake popularized 90-degree rotation and full 3D environments, followed by the release of Diablo, which completely changed perceptions of real-time RPGs. Because Wilson helped create the Diablo-like Path of Exile, his appreciation extended toward Almost Human's Legend of Grimrock, a spiritual successor that keeps classic grid-based dungeon crawling alive on platforms like Steam and Nintendo Switch.