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[MrCunningham]

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.

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

I've never played Terra Nova, but I do vaguely remember reading about this one in magazines too and the hype around the size of the landscapes.

 

[SixMachine]

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.

This happened with Dragon's Dogma, especially since the world is much more dangerous at night, with different enemies and it gets really dark (not just the blue tint a lot of games do for night time). A lot of people didn't like it and you can see a lot of those complaints on gaf. Though you can set up your own waypoints with riftstones, then use a ferry stone to port to them, but that required going through the main game and to get an unlimited ferry stone you needed the expansion. It didn't help that the enemy spawns were rather set, like bandits always guard a certain pathway for example. On the flipside it did make for some interesting stories because players often ventured to places where they had no business being, like into dragons that would wipe them out in a second.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

I remember 'everything is to scale, nothing is a backdrop' being the big pitch for 'Amen: The Awakening', though it was never released.

Smugglers run is a good example of doing it in a console game, as wehere severak of the mentioned PC games.

Zelda OOT doesn't count because the mountains you see are not real, they were backdrops. The mountain you climb is an entirely separate map from what you see in the distance.

 

[BeeDog]

I was just about to post Delta Force when someone beat me to the punch. Glad someone did; PC games used to be so ahead consoles it wasn't even funny.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

early 3D... Man it was a harsh time. It's strange because all manners of 2D feels less aged than PS1/N64 3D.

 

[adamma666]

Death Mountain in Link to the Past. My mind was blown when I discovered that I just traveled the bridge between the two moutain tops seen in this pictures background.

 

[JoduanER2]

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.

This, what the hell GAF, that doesn't count.

 

[Chev]

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

It's not quite OP's question, because then Midwinter or Hunter would trump any other game. But despite having huge worlds they couldn't use the "see that mountain" hook because of draw distance.

Elite 2 would be fair play because it actually can play the "see that star? you can go there" card.

 

[Vilam]

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

This is the one that stood out in my head when opening the thread. No bullshit trickery... If you could see it, you could drive to it.

 

[MaximusPrimus]

The only correct answer is: Oblivion

 

[GrantDaNasty]

I specifically remember either some PR or preview/review-language for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction mentioning a lack of invisible walls, to the effect of "if you can see it, you can get there".

My memory might be slipping but seeing the thread title immediately made me think of Mercs 1.

 

[Chev]

All of you who are mentioning games from after 1989 are young whippersnappers who need to learn some open world game history

 

[GamerJM]

All of you who are mentioning games from after 1989 are young whippersnappers who need to learn some open world game history

Not really, this topic is about publisher PR speak, not the actual open world itself. I can't think of any games prior to the late 90s where that phrase was actually used in PR.

 

[Jerry Orbach]

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.

That's pretty much how Jak and Daxter works, and Jak and Daxter was the specific example used in the OP, so... a definitive yes?

 

[JayEH]

Destiny

And they fooled us all

 

[The Lone Courier]

Far Cry 3 did this also.

 

[thelurkinghorror]

Maybe Midwinter II Flames of Freedom

 

[not_so_special]

Maybe Midwinter II Flames of Freedom

old school man...old school

 

[Tidus_Great]

Ass creed unity. "see those mountains, (game glitches)......now you don't "

 

[Veritigo_X]

The first time I remember hearing a dev say those exact words was with Jak and Daxter. It's funny how it's sorta become this cliche thing to say. Why mountains? Why can't they show a town off in the distance?

And why do devs keep saying it since it's something they say about literally every open world game?

 

[Ploid 3.0]

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.

I wasn't sure but I knew the game at first sight. It's been so long ago, I remember playing this game on school computers. Good times.

 

[nerdbot]

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.

I do the same thing, I rarely use aetherytes in XIV unless I'm in a hurry, just because walking around in that game is such a blast. Everything is gorgeous, and there's players in every nook at any hour of the day, it's just so lively. It's the only game that's given me the same satisfying sense of exploration as Wind Waker, where it's just this big open world with stuff all over the place for you to seek out as you please.

The funny thing is that the game's maps aren't even THAT big, they just do an outstanding job of making the world SEEM big.

 

[son of a Sven]

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.

Man, that was the one game that made me jealous as an Atari ST owner. I still remember the wire frame version of the golden gate bridge looked so damn good.

 

[Angel Abaddon]

Project IGI. I remember testing the system and spent a good 45mins wandering the opposite direction from the objective and never seemed to hit an invisible wall. Mind there wasn't actually anything out there, but it made for some great tactical decisions when you could attack the objective from whatever way you wanted, including sniping from a mountain side. Reminds me of what the Far Cry series is now.

 

[Flappy]

When friends used to visit me in the 360-era, I used to put on Oblivion and say "You can actually walk to those mountains over there".

Minds were blown.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

That's pretty much how Jak and Daxter works, and Jak and Daxter was the specific example used in the OP, so... a definitive yes?

Which i'd say makes Jak also a bad example of this, though, Jak's data streaming made everything look connected as there were no loading screens in the game.

Zelda, well, it's quite obvious when leaving one map and entering another.

 

[hatchx]

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

I totally forgot about this game. Wasn't it made by Rockstar? I wonder if the open-world tech helped pave the way to GTA3?

 

[Rodney McKay]

This, what the hell GAF, that doesn't count.

Yes it does, nothing in the OP is talking about seamless streaming worlds or anything like that, just how the game presents itself to the player.

It was both an advertised or review comment to describe the game, and Ocarina did this incredibly well. You come out in to the field for the first time and you can clearly see the mountain off in the distance. You run alllll the way over to it and enter the nearby town, and then can go up the path leading up the mountain. Even though there are distinct loading zones between Hyrule Field, the village, and the mountain, it doesn't detract from the idea that you were able to see a feature of the game world from far away, and you're able to journey to it over the course of the game.

 

[Small Mailman]

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.

Underwhelming? The Halo games have some of the nicest skyboxes around!

 

[FatboyTim]

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.

If we're going down this route, there were mountains you could "visit" (and crash into!) in Tomahawk for the ZX Spectrum (by Digital Integration, 1985.)

http://youtu.be/k6NhKnL2Llw?t=9m

 

[Totaly a Duder]

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.

LOL "theoretically". They really said that?
No wonder they been having a hard time trying to get any new Halo as good as the first one.

 

[ShemhazaiX]

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

One of the lead designers of Reflections taught a module on my uni game design course (name was Craig something). Awesome guy and had been in the industry since forever. Basically told us that one of the main reasons Reflections got bought out by Ubisoft was because of their open world tech being leagues ahead of anything Ubi was working with at the time. So in all honesty, if not for that original Driver game, we wouldn't have Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs.

I guess it's a blessing and a curse. :|

 

[Boogybro]

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

Lol, who are you to say what does and doesn't count?

Ocarina of Time was one of, if not the first to use that hook. The end.

 

[Oozer3993]

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

Halo invented "See those mountains?"

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.

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

Destiny hurt the worst though.

Bungie never claimed that the player would or could go to "those mountains" in Halo 3. The only claim they ever made was that the crater shown in the E3 2006 trailer was all 3 dimensional geometry and not a two dimensional skybox. Which is the truth. There were no mentions of it ever being useful to the player.

 

[MrCunningham]

I totally forgot about this game. Wasn't it made by Rockstar? I wonder if the open-world tech helped pave the way to GTA3?

Definitely not GTA3. GTA3 used the Renderware engine, which was developed by Criterion Software and who are now owned by EA. But Smugglers Run was developed by Angel Studios, who eventually became Rockstar San Diego. They developed the R.A.G.E. engine which is used in GTAIV, RDR, Max Payne 3, GTAV and such. The engine they used for Smugglers Run probably could be looked at as an early prototype for Rockstars current game engine that they are using now.

I wasn't sure but I knew the game at first sight. It's been so long ago, I remember playing this game on school computers. Good times.

It was pretty awesome for its day. 32player online and some pretty massive environments.And it even had 8-player co-op for the regular campaigns.

 

[SFenton]

One of the lead designers of Reflections taught a module on my uni game design course (name was Craig something). Awesome guy and had been in the industry since forever. Basically told us that one of the main reasons Reflections got bought out by Ubisoft was because of their open world tech being leagues ahead of anything Ubi was working with at the time. So in all honesty, if not for that original Driver game, we wouldn't have Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs.

I guess it's a blessing and a curse. :|

That's actually pretty cool! I guess Ubisoft might have thought that owning the tech would put them ahead of other open world efforts. As we can see, in terms of tech, that isn't really the case- Forza, GTA, etc., countless others have great open world technology.

 

[akachan ningen]

Sim city on snes

 

[JNT]

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.

Judging by the game I believe it's a quadtree as the base data is likely a procedurally generated 2D texture traversed using ray surfing.

But yeah, this was the game that came to mind. Then there's also Outcast, Arena, and Daggerfall.

 

[Travo]

Interesting. I never knew Nintendo made that claim with Ocarina. Skyrim is the one that really seemed to deliver on this though.

 

[CentroXer]

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.

 

[Pinko Marx]

I first remember it being used to market Oblivion.

 

[Nintendojitsu]

Except, it was a lie.

The cake wasn't even fully baked.

 

[CLEEK]

Twin Kingdom Valley. 1983.

 

[shysaursoft]

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).

Came here to post this. Terra Nova blew my mind back in the day. Before that, it was Elite. "See that star system? You can go there!"

 

[Waldo Lydecker]

Playing Grand Prix on my nephews PC and realising the background was not a static picture like Monaco Grand Prix on my Megadrive...

EDIT: this game is so damn old but still the best F1 game there is! Shu, pay Geoff Crammond top dollars and let him make a PS4 exclusive racer, ASAP!

 

[Majukun]

first time I heard it,it was for Oblivion..but it was probbaly used sooner

 

[zethren]

A lot of words being put in the mouths of the Bungie folks... All they meant was that the mountains/terrain/objects in the distance are modeled. Yes, a player could theoretically get there (though I'm sure they weren't mapped for player interaction so you'd probably fall through).

 

[hunchback]

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.

You read my mind. I still have that game in my collection. It did take a beast to run.

 

[Waltar]

My first was Just Cause 2. Blew my mind.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Was it one of the Elder Scrolls games?