I was trying to think of which games created certain mechanics that became popular and copied by future games in the industry.
The most famous one that comes to my mind is Assassin’s Creed, with the tower climbing for map information.
Assassin’s Creed and the Open World Gameplay design. It definitely existed before then, but after AC came out, it felt like every RPG switched to the open world map.
I feel like GTA planted that seed waaayy before that. I remember open world games being followed by “like GTA”. Assassin’s Creed was no exception.
There have been “open world” games since the 1980s. Just of course, memory limited how big that world could be, and how much you could do in it. The genre as a whole is ancient.
The first ones I can think of is legend of Zelda and final fantasy, but I think there was also Adventure for the Atari before those even. The first Assassin’s Creed was 2007, Adventure was 1980
