What's the history of the branching level select concept?

[Natalie]

I'm referring to the style of level map used in games like OutRun:

You know, start at the top of the pyramid, and at the end of every level you get a fork and decide whether to move left or right. It appears in Taito games like Darius and Arkanoid DS, and more notably in Shadow the Hedgehog, but I'm not familiar with many other instances of it. Was OutRun the first implementation? Where else has it popped up and how has it evolved?

[dsparil]

Which was first is a good question. I personally can't think of anything before OutRun. If you mean literally in game, I'm not sure that there are actually do that. I feel like a branched level select like in the Darius sequels is more common.

[Natalie]

I'm treating the on-the-fly in game OutRun format and the Darius menu screen format as interchangeable since I think they both hit on the same core idea. OutRun is really the only time I can even think of it being folded into the gameplay.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I recently compiled a fairly extensive gallery of hub maps, intermission maps and world maps: worldsunraveled.weebly.com/hub-maps--world-maps-1980s.html

I didn't find the pyramid shape before Outrun, but it's still a possibility.

I'm sure there are various Adventure, RPG and AA games structured like this though, just without the visual map.