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Phediuk · Nov 30, 2014

The earliest time I can remember that as distinct selling point was in previews for the first Jak and Daxter. It seemed like every preview had a passage where the devs stopped the player and had them look out onto the horizon, and said "You see those mountains? Those are actual areas in the game, and the features you see on them are actually in later levels!" It kept coming up. It was like the go-to "next-gen feature" of the game.

It's become a well-worn cliche at this point, and I doubt Jak was the origin of it. Anything else earlier? I'm not just talking about games where you can go to faraway mountains, but games in which the devs made a big deal out of it.

oatmeal · Nov 30, 2014

Ocarina?

Markitron · Nov 30, 2014

Ocarina of Time

It delivered aswell. I remember reading N64 magazine's review, and there was a picture of the Mountain from Hyrule field with the caption 'See that mountain there? You can actually go to it, climb all the way up and fight a dragon'. That image always stayed with me.

SFenton · Nov 30, 2014

A lot of people remembered Driver for being an open-world pioneer.

Garrett 2U · Nov 30, 2014

Destiny

Xe4 · Nov 30, 2014

The Elder Scrolls: Arena? Don't know if it was a hook, but that game was HUGE.

Magwik · Nov 30, 2014

Garrett 2U said:
Destiny

0/10

Bananastand · Nov 30, 2014

That was a line Todd Howard used to talk about Skyrim right? That's the most recent one I can remember.

peanutbutterlatte · Nov 30, 2014

Bananastand said:
That was a line Todd Howard used to talk about Skyrim right? That's the most recent one I can remember.

Aonuma about Zelda (Wii U).

DJIzana · Nov 30, 2014

Gotta go with Ocarina of Time as well. I love that hook though... honestly. I'm happy that more games are starting to have a larger world and feature exploration more.

Dark_AnNiaLatOr · Nov 30, 2014

Garrett 2U said:
Destiny

Except, it was a lie.

Jerry Orbach · Nov 30, 2014

Battlezone (my friend was a LIAR)

peanutbutterlatte · Nov 30, 2014

In terms of Zelda I'll be pretty pleased if they make "Death Mountain" a place where you can view all of the (reachable) overworld. You fight through a challenging cave system, barely alive, to get to the very peak.

zoukka · Nov 30, 2014

Jerry Orbach said:
Battlezone (my friend was a LIAR)

Man Battlezone blew my mind...

Ocarina of Time used distant vistas deliberately. You could see Mount Doom in the horizon and go there... it was nuts.

Gusy · Nov 30, 2014

Early flight sims if those count. My first experience of that sort was with F-18 interceptor for the Amiga (1988). Even though the mountains were basically big green pyramids, it still did the trick back then.

Joe Shlabotnik · Nov 30, 2014

That specific claim was made for Ocarina of Time. But a surprisingly early example of 3D world exploration was Drakkhen on SNES

illadelph · Nov 30, 2014

Markitron said:
Ocarina of Time

It delivered aswell. I remember reading N64 magazine's review, and there was a picture of the Mountain from Hyrule field with the caption 'See that mountain there? You can actually go to it, climb all the way up and fight a dragon'. That image always stayed with me.

this was absolutely mind-blowing back in the day

braves01 · Nov 30, 2014

Mario 64. See that hill? You can go there and fight King Bob-omb.

BluePigGanon · Nov 30, 2014

Does Ocarina really count? Death Mountain is more of a prop visual from the other areas of the game, and each area is compartmentalized... you're not actually seeing the map you walk on if you go there. And you can't see Hyrule Field from Death Mountain.

Ingueferroque · Nov 30, 2014

Gusy said:
Early flight sims if those count. My first experience of that sort was with F-18 interceptor for the Amiga (1988). Even though the mountains were basically big green pyramids, it still did the trick back then.

I started hearing the title screen music in my head when I read your post. Amazing track, amazing game.

cilonen · Nov 30, 2014

DQVIII blew me away in how it did this. I'm pretty sure the classic hook was used in reviews of it at the time if not by the devs themselves.

equippedwithtowel · Nov 30, 2014

BluePigGanon said:
Does Ocarina really count? Death Mountain is more of a prop visual from the other areas of the game, and each area is compartmentalized... you're not actually seeing the map you walk on if you go there. And you can't see Hyrule Field from Death Mountain.

It doesn't mean they did it best.

orava · Nov 30, 2014

Test drive unlimited.

Woorloog · Nov 30, 2014

Dark_AnNiaLatOr said:
Except, it was a lie.

Interestingly Bungie claimed this same about Halo 3.
Also a lie.

HiredN00bs · Nov 30, 2014

Garrett 2U said:
Destiny

Halo invented "See those mountains?"

Kariodude · Nov 30, 2014

BluePigGanon said:
Does Ocarina really count? Death Mountain is more of a prop visual from the other areas of the game, and each area is compartmentalized... you're not actually seeing the map you walk on if you go there. And you can't see Hyrule Field from Death Mountain.

You say that, but in a game like Skyrim the mountain you see in the distance isn't technically the mountain that's there when you get there. It loads more polygons and better textures when you get closer.

Principate · Nov 30, 2014

BluePigGanon said:
Does Ocarina really count? Death Mountain is more of a prop visual from the other areas of the game, and each area is compartmentalized... you're not actually seeing the map you walk on if you go there. And you can't see Hyrule Field from Death Mountain.

What do you mean count? We're talking about hooks not whether games have consistent draw distances and layout. OoT was among the first to use that line I believe and you could technically go there.

brerwolfe · Nov 30, 2014

braves01 said:
Mario 64. See that hill? You can go there and fight King Bob-omb.

Yep.

toythatkills · Nov 30, 2014

DJIzana said:
Gotta go with Ocarina of Time as well. I love that hook though... honestly. I'm happy that more games are starting to have a larger world and feature exploration more.

I don't really see the point of it. Developers keep raving about bigger and bigger worlds, but all the player ever does is fast-travel.

If a developer was brave enough to commit to a huge open world with no fast travel, that'd be really interesting, but players would just destroy it in comment threads. People think they want bigger worlds, but very few of them actually do.

Shpeshal Nick · Nov 30, 2014

I know Bungie used it as a kind of excuse for their underwhelming visuals in Halo 3. "Those mountains in the distance are all real geometry that you could theoretically travel to" or something like that.

Rich! · Nov 30, 2014

Almost the exact line in the thread title was used in the N64 Magazine review of Ocarina of Time.

The quote was something like:

"you see that mountain in the distance? You can go there, and climb it. And then you can go into a temple and fight a dragon"

So OP, the answer may be Zelda

edit: hahaha someone else in this thread got there before me.

Ein Bear · Nov 30, 2014

JoeTheBlow said:
Separate areas don't count, the OP obviously means a continuous coherant world. Otherwise every game would count.

It's not about if a game 'counts' at delivering, OP is asking which was the first game to advertise it.

Ocarina definitely had 'see that mountain? You can go there' used during it's previews, regardless of if you feel that claim turned out to be true or not.

RebornYeti · Nov 30, 2014

Bungie burned us twice with that claim with Destiny and Halo 3. I will never believe them again.

Destiny hurt the worst though.

IdreamofHIME · Nov 30, 2014

Dragon Quest 8

...nah, Ocarina. But DQ8 was still a 'woah' moment at how much there was to explore...too bad about those random battles every 3 steps though.

RoKKeR · Nov 30, 2014

Garrett 2U said:
Destiny

Well played.

DidntKnowJack · Nov 30, 2014

I'm sure this wasn't the first, but it's the first I remember leaving an impression on me - Smuggler's Run for the PS2. That's the game that got me excited to buy the system. Not Tekken, not SSX, but Smuggler's Run. It was like my first sandbox. And the hills and mountains you could see in the distance were able to be driven to quickly. My mind was blown before and after getting my hands on the game.

OSHAN · Nov 30, 2014

DidntKnowJack said:
I'm sure this wasn't the first, but it's the first I remember leaving an impression on me - Smuggler's Run for the PS2. That's the game that got me excited to buy the system. Not Tekken, not SSX, but Smuggler's Run. It was like my first sandbox. And the hills and mountains you could see in the distance were able to be driven to quickly. My mind was blown before and after getting my hands on the game.

Hey, I was going to say Smuggler's Run.

MrCunningham · Nov 30, 2014

For me, it may have been Novalogic's Delta Force from 1998 for the PC:

367057-delta-force-windows-screenshot-assaulting-the-druglord-s-mansions.jpg

The game used voxel octree rendering just like all their other games at the time. But I remember being blown away that you could actually reach the mountains way off in the distance. I mean, you needed a beast of a PC to run this god damn game, but it was still quite impressive.

Solid SOAP · Nov 30, 2014

Ocarina of Time, I think. Maybe GTA III for introducing the idea of the world being ONE huge area.

Afrikan · Nov 30, 2014

I would think the Smuggler's Run's Devs would've.

SerTapTap · Nov 30, 2014

toythatkills said:
I don't really see the point of it. Developers keep raving about bigger and bigger worlds, but all the player ever does is fast-travel.

If a developer was brave enough to commit to a huge open world with no fast travel, that'd be really interesting, but players would just destroy it in comment threads. People think they want bigger worlds, but very few of them actually do.

Most games that actually go on record about this are lying though. And funny enough I don't even recall hearing "you can climb that mountain" in any TES game, you just...can. Meanwhile "that's all playable terrain" (it's not) and "you can climb that mountain" (at the end of a completely linear sequence of events that happens to force you to climb that mountain). Wish devs would stop throwing it around.

bananafactory · Nov 30, 2014

Ocarina of Time is the first one I remember

E-Cat · Nov 30, 2014

IGN in 1998 said:
"I don't know how many games I have played in my life where you see some cool scenery in the background and you're thinking "wow, wouldn't it be great if you could actually go there?" That's what Zelda is all about. You see something and you're thinking "wouldn't it be cool if you could..." -- and you can."

http://www.ign.com/articles/1998/11/26/the-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time-review

DJIzana · Nov 30, 2014

toythatkills said:
I don't really see the point of it. Developers keep raving about bigger and bigger worlds, but all the player ever does is fast-travel.

If a developer was brave enough to commit to a huge open world with no fast travel, that'd be really interesting, but players would just destroy it in comment threads. People think they want bigger worlds, but very few of them actually do.

Speak for yourself. I play FFXIV and I love exploring. Hell, my screenshots folder for that game is 2.4 gigs. Exploration is the one thing I really love the most in RPG's.

Self_Destructive · Nov 30, 2014

Afrikan said:
I would think the Smuggler's Run's Devs would've.

This is the one that stands out to me.

not_so_special · Nov 30, 2014

mountains? who needs mountains when you have a universe

Donkeysmuggler · Nov 30, 2014

Terra Nova comes to my mind. I remember reading similiar claims in pc magazines about it in 95/96 ("you see that mountain in the distance? You can walk to it!"). Unfortunately my computer at that time couldn't really handle the voxel engine (and it was a pretty ugly game).

John Rabbit · Nov 30, 2014

MrCunningham said:
For me, it may have been Novalogic's Delta Force from 1998 for the PC:

The game used voxel octree rendering just like all their other games at the time. But I remember being blown away that you could actually reach the mountains way off in the distance. I mean, you needed a beast of a PC to run this god damn game, but it was still quite impressive.

reminds me of Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, 1996.

pretty sure this was my first "holy shit I can go all the way over THERE?" moments.

Donkeysmuggler said:
Terra Nova comes to my mind. I remember reading similiar claims in pc magazines about it in 95/96 ("you see that mountain in the distance? You can walk to it!"). Unfortunately my computer at that time couldn't really handle the voxel engine (and it was a pretty ugly game).

just beaten! i've never even seen another person who knows this game though.

Seanspeed · Nov 30, 2014

Kariodude said:
You say that, but in a game like Skyrim the mountain you see in the distance isn't technically the mountain that's there when you get there. It loads more polygons and better textures when you get closer.

By that definition, you are literally not the same person you were 15 years ago. That wasn't you. Literally.

forgeforsaken · Nov 30, 2014

Yeah Terra Nova was one of the first. They definitely talked about in the marketing too.

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