Literature Atlas

How Stories Are Told
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Genre

Progression Fantasy

Speculative and Fantastic Fiction

Progression Fantasy is a fantasy subgenre in which the story's central engine is a character's measurable growth in power, typically advancing through a magic system that functions like a set of rules the character levels up within over the course of a hero's journey. It is closely related to LitRPG, sometimes described as its cousin genre, but does not require its world to be tied to an actual game the way LitRPG typically does, giving progression fantasy more freedom in how its world and its systems of advancement are built. The genre grew out of, and overlaps heavily with, web serial fiction and Japanese light novel storytelling built around leveling and skill growth, and works such as Sword Art Online and Solo Leveling are commonly cited as blending progression fantasy with LitRPG's more explicit game mechanics.

Facts
Origin Year
2013 1
Sources
1. LitRPG (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Lead paragraph
Quote, Lead paragraph
The term was introduced in 2013
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.