Captive

Captive is a first-person action RPG with a sci-fi setting, in which the player, as a prisoner with an implanted neurochip, wakes up in cells full of other imprisoned adventurers and must free them one by one, equip them, and then send their hired robots into mazes controlled by a hostile mega-corporation, scattered across several planets of the solar system. Instead of directly controlling the characters, for most of the game the player remotely operates the prisoners' robotic bodies, which gave the game an unusual sense of distance, vulnerability, and risk of losing a precious machine compared to classic dungeon crawlers with human heroes.

On the Amiga, the game combined a smooth step-based maze similar to Dungeon Master with a more open structure of several connected planets, between which one could freely travel using one's own spaceship, along with gradually upgrading the robots' equipment using found weapons, armor, and technological improvements. The grim sci-fi atmosphere, supported by atmospheric music and dark, finely detailed graphics of the mazes and the interiors of corporate bases, gave the game a distinct identity clearly different from the genre's fantasy-flavored competitors. The need to gradually build a team of freed prisoners and decide which of them to send where added a layer of planning to the game beyond simply making one's way through mazes.

Captive is often praised for its imaginative sci-fi take on the then-popular dungeon-crawler genre and for its boldness in combining a classic step-based maze with the strategic element of managing multiple robotic bodies, their equipment, and the gradual freeing of further prisoners all at once, which set the game apart from more straightforward fantasy contemporaries. On the Amiga it was among the technically and conceptually distinctive titles, and it remains an interesting example of how the genre could experiment with its own established formula long before the arrival of fully three-dimensional action RPGs.

Why play: For fans of dungeon crawlers, Captive offers a bold sci-fi variation with the management of multiple robotic bodies at once, an interesting example of experimenting with the genre's formula before the rise of 3D action RPGs.