What's the earliest third-person action game with a major escort component?

Question

ICO set a major precedent for the escort archetype, as both Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and later Resident Evil 4 made excellent use of support characters who needed to be protected and escorted, but who had mission-critical abilities of their own. Was ICO the first, though? What's the earliest game in which the player's character escorts a vulnerable NPC through an obstacle-littered landscape which contains objectives that can only be achieved by employing the NPC's abilities?

Answer

Oldest example I can think of is Whistler's Brother. Which isn't polygonal, but is 3rd person. And at '1984' has an auspicious birth year.

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