Earliest hubs in FPS genre

[Zed]

A couple of days ago, I was wasting some time in the webs and I found this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HubLevel

After clicking in "First Person Shooters" for some examples, it caught my attention that there are not so many instances of this in the genre, and in fact, of the few listed there, it seems that Hexen and Tek War are the oldest ones (according to wikipedia, Tek War was released a month earlier than Hexen). Also, I'm not considering Catacomb Apocalypse since it seems there are not "real hubs", but maybe it does count. Now, I don't know how exhaustive is that list, but I wanted to know if any of you remember anything earlier than that?

Thanks for reading, have a nice day.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Catacomb 3D did it before Catacomb Apocalypse did, but I'm guessing you mean "not real hubs" in that the state wasn't kept between visits?

Shadowcaster was an early example as I recall.

[SavageCorona]

Quake 2 was the first game that I played that had hubs in it. In fact I didn't realize it had hubs and it really fucked with me as a kid.

[nxGangrel]

I guess Hexen? Anything with hubs before that I haven't play so... yeah.

[kristus]

Midwinter is the earliest game with hubworld I've played. It's an open world fps spy game from 1989.

But even regular hub style progression is in a lot of games prior to Hexen. System Shock for instance. And I am pretty sure Ultima Underworld as well.

[Patrol1985]

SavageCorona said:

Quake 2 was the first game that I played that had hubs in it. In fact I didn't realize it had hubs and it really fucked with me as a kid.

Haha I experienced the same! :D I played "Quake II" before "HeXen" etc. so my only experience was with "classic" shooters where you simply progress from one level to another and "Quake II" gave me this "why am I going back... I should be going forward..." feeling :D

[wildweasel]

System Shock isn't even mentioned? Came out even earlier than TekWar and is fully persistent (i.e. you can dump a bunch of useless beverage containers and helmets in a closet, go to a completely different floor, come back, and find all those containers still sitting there). Granted, System Shock is not as much an FPS as other examples...

[SyntherAugustus]

I had a lot of fun with Hexen 2 back in the day.

[SavageCorona]

Patrol1985 said:

Haha I experienced the same! :D I played "Quake II" before "HeXen" etc. so my only experience was with "classic" shooters where you simply progress from one level to another and "Quake II" gave me this "why am I going back... I should be going forward..." feeling :D

I didn't get that I just got lost and never finished it until I got older and smarter.

[Vermil]

WildWeasel said:

System Shock isn't even mentioned?

Earlier than that, you've got the Blake Stone games.

One can travel back to any previously unlocked level in both games (within the same episode in the first, the entire game in the second), which are preserved in the state one left them in.

[BaronOfStuff]

Earliest example I can think of is Blake Stone, but if you want to be pedantic that doesn't technically have a true "hub map" as such, just a floor select screen.