image courtesy of neoseeker.com

You blow into the cartridge. You flip the system’s power switch. Images of a sunny, tropical island greet you overlaid with the smiling faces of a multi-ethnic cast of potential avatars. There are challenges to complete. You will be evaluated. You will fail.

On the surface, Pilotwings 64 is a game about piloting a hang glider, a jet-pack, and a gyrocopter through a series of hoops before sticking a flawless landing on a designated target. To accomplish these goals you navigate through 3D spaces and wrestle with early, and often frustrating, 3D controls to get your avatar to bank in just the right way to hit your goals in the quickest time possible. But after you pass that first level with the hang glider, the game throws an existential curveball at you. Just before you get to try jet-packing for the first time in the second challenge, a message appears suggesting that instead of flying through these hoops, you should go out and explore. There is a whole world out there to see. These hoops aren’t going anywhere. Go have fun!

This simple suggestion is the revolutionary move of Pilotwings. Nintendo and Paradigm Studios created a world for its own sake, not merely in service to the game’s objectives. There are little umbrellas on the beach, a full cityscape with buildings to fly between, and countless other little details scattered throughout the play spaces that serve no gameplay purpose, but are there to establish a sense of place. A place that is open for the player to explore and interact with.

image courtesy of wikipedia

It is true that Mario 64 also gave you 3D spaces to explore, especially the over-world that Mario could run around in without objectives. But Pilotwings provides a much clearer sense that there is a “game” which consists of accurately flying through rings, but then there is a world outside of that game which the player is encouraged to explore. Small surprises, like a cave, which upon entering turns the world from day to night. Or a doorway in a building that will teleport you from one end of the United States to the other (featured in “Little States”, a stage patterned after the continental United States). And perhaps the most fondly remembered easter egg of all are the floating stars placed in each level that, once traveled through, transform the player into “Birdman.”

Touching one of the floating birdman stars will take away whatever craft the player is piloting and replace it with a pair of colored wings that allow the player to soar around the stage at their leisure. Once the player becomes Birdman, the peppy soundtrack drops away, replaced by a mellow jazz tune to relax by. And relaxing is all the player is expected to do, all of the objectives that the player had previously been instructed to ignore have been lifted away, leaving the player free to experiment until they either crash or decide they have had enough.

From Twitter: Birdman’s soundtrack is fondly remembered:

• @miralestony – “jajajajajaja definitivamente Birdman de PilotWings 64 tiene ese sonido sensual!”
• @thesearesongs – “i saw a list of the best video game music to fuck to and i have been justified with my statements of Birdman from Pilotwings 64”

Enjoy the soothing sounds of Birdman for yourself:

Rewarding adventurous players would become a mainstay of 3D gaming which continues to the present day with the intricate worlds of the Elder Scrolls and GTA series.  It is impressive to see just how early these developers began rewarding the player for taking full advantage of the world that they had created.

Take a look at some other fond memories, culled from the annals of twitter:

• @BigJayWW – “My favorite game is Pilotwings 64 and only because the characters had amazing crash animations.”
• @lochnesssnowman – “I remember trying to do my own ‘fanzine’. It was called Red Warnin after three of my favourite things – Red Dwarf, Warhammer and Nintendo. I was a pretty cool kid. First (and only) issue had hand drawn bi-plane and preview of Pilotwings 64. I probably likened early screenshots to reality. Still have it.”

Pilotwings 64 is one of the earliest attempts at 3D world-building on a home console, and this freshman effort is grand. This was “open world” before sandbox. The stages (especially “Small States”) are huge! Even on a launch title, Nintendo and Paradigm Studios demonstrated that the Nintendo 64 was going to deliver a new sense of exploration to players. A promissory note to gamers that may never have been fully realized on the system, but set the direction for all hardware generations that would proceed it.

The Pilotwings games are characterized as technological showcases rather than fulfilling gameplay experiences in their own right.  But Pilotwings 64 doesn’t just showcase the possibility of a new piece of hardware.  It takes risks, the style and gameplay experiences it offers are innovative, and it is a thoroughly satisfying piece of software to reflect on today.