A feature of some Wide-Open Sandbox games (but not exclusive to that genre), which allows you to summon a car/horse/any other means of moving faster than on foot to anywhere on the world map with a few key strokes, regardless where and in what condition you left them before. In some games, the ride exists only as long as needed and disappears into the ether the moment the character dismounts.
Subtrope of Power-Up Mount—in this case, you summon a mount rather than having to first catch it in the wild. Also a subtrope of Easy Logistics. May overlap with Automaton Horses. The ride may be summoned by a Holler Button.
Not to be confused with a Warp Whistle, which doesn't summon means of transportation but transports you where you want to go right away.
Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- In Darksiders, once reunited with Ruin, you can summon him with the press of a button. He instantly appears in a flame, and similarly vanishes when dismounted.
- Immortals Fenyx Rising lets you conjure your chosen steed anywhere. Fenyx leaps into the air and the mount appears in a shower of golden sparks to let Fenyx Land in the Saddle.
- In any The Legend of Zelda title in which Link's Cool Horse Epona appears, there will be some means to summon her by playing or whistling her theme. Similarly, in Skyward Sword, Link summons his Loftwing by jumping off the edge of a Floating Continent and whistling. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games have the magic flutes which can summon your animal companion (except in the sunken city). You get to meet all three as the plot requires, but which one stays with you depends on your actions.
First Person Shooter
- In Paladins, the Champions can call their mount manually by pressing a key on the keyboard at the start of the round. Otherwise, the game will auto-mount players five seconds before the round starts.
- In Realm Royale, the fighters can summon their mount at any point during the match.
Hack-n-Slash
- In Dynasty Warriors, (particularly the later installments) allows you call your horse from any location unless they're in certain buildings. Holding the button will have your character automatically mount it as soon as it's close enough.
- In Samurai Warriors (the sister series of Dynasty Warriors), starting with Samurai Warriors 3, you can summon the horse you started the stage riding in just about any outdoor location; if you didn't start the stage riding a horse, the Holler Button button summons a generic one with poor stats. Prior to 3, this ability was exclusive to Yukimura, Keiji, and Toshiie, and basically worked in exactly the same fashion.
- Warriors of Fate have certain areas where you can collect gongs. Picking up one will have the sound of a gong going off, followed by a horse instantly coming to your side, which makes you faster and give you a height advantage over most mooks.
MMORPG
- In Elsword, if you have acquired a mount, you can choose to summon them at will whenever you like (except in PVP).
- In both EverQuest and EverQuest II, mounts are summoned via Hyperspace Arsenal by merely activating an item in your inventory.
- Mabinogi players have a Hyperspace Arsenal for pets, almost invariably including at least one mount.
- Various mounts (both technological and living) in Star Wars: The Old Republic can be summoned and unsummoned at will outside of combat in any outdoors location.
- Warframe:
- You can equip items in your gear wheel that allow deploying archwings, K-drives and necramechs right at your feet in landscape areas. There's no limit in deploying archwings or K-drives (unless the terrain's too steep), but summoning your necramech is disabled for a few minutes if it gets destroyed in battle.
- The Drifter can summon their horse-like companion kaithe anytime they're in Duviri, just as easily as using a warframe ability. By putting enough points into the Riding skill, you get a gear item for summoning your kaithe in landscapes outside Duviri as well.
- Warhammer Online: using a special item takes a few seconds and results in instant materialization (no explanation within universe) of the respective fantasy horse variant under your character. Take some damage or dismiss the mount willingly and that horse instantly vanishes.
Platform Game
- In Mega Man (Classic) games, Rush's main function is to provide means of transportation for Mega Man to traverse through stages easily. His uses are limited in number, though. Rush is Mega Man's Robot Dog who teleports to Mega Man whenever he needs him and transforms into various vehicles depending on the game. Such as a jet board, a motorbike or a Drill Tank.
Puzzle Game
- In Scribblenauts you can just summon any vehicle (or animal mount) with Maxwell's Notebook
Role-Playing Game
- Once you get the Global Airship in Bravely Default, you board it by tapping a button on the menu—which is specifically a safeguard against forgetting where you parked it.
- Cyberpunk 2077: V can call any of the cars they own to come to their location.
- The Crusader class in Diablo III has a spell that summons a magical steed for just a few seconds, allowing him to enter or escape combat quickly.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: A button summons the Inquisitor's mount. Party members are forced to walk and disappear altogether once you get on the horse/dracolisk/hart.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC expansion has the "Summon Arvak" spell, which summons a Hellish Horse who serves you as a steed until the spell expires. There is also a Game Mod called "Convenient Horses" that lets the player learn to whistle and summon their horse to them.
- Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light: The dragon—which serves the same function as the Global Airship in other Final Fantasy games—can be summoned anywhere on the world map by using the Dragon Harp.
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Aloy can unlock a skill that lets her whistle to summon an overridden Strider, Broadhead, or Charger in order to ride it. In Horizon Forbidden West, the ability is unlocked from the start but she has to override a machine before being allowed to use the summons. While she can override Chargers from the beginning of the game, she needs to explore Cauldrons in order to learn how to unlock the more powerful Bristlebacks and Clawstriders. Late in the game, she also learns how to override Sunwings, which she can also whistle for.
- In Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you can use a flute to summon Latias or Latios anywhere in the overworld and have them fly you around, whether or not they're in your active party (indeed, they'll ferry you around even if you've traded them away!)
- Sacred: If the Player Character owns a horse, clicking the horseshoe button next to their character portrait will make them whistle, calling it to their side and allowing them to mount it.
- In Secret of Mana, the party acquires the Flammie Drum, which summons a large dragon that serves as the Global Airship of the game. It can only be used outdoors for obvious reasons.
Tabletop Game
- Low-to-mid-level Paladins in Dungeons & Dragons, d20 System, and other games derived from them gain the ability to summon their personal divine mounts anywhere they require.
- Arkham Horror has the Summon "Shantak"
spell, which summons an otherworldly bird... thing that gives you an extra movement point and bypasses any monsters safely.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- The 5th Edition sourcebook "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" features a magical item called "Infernal Tack" that can be used to bind a Nightmare into an evil character's service. A nightmare subdued by the tack must appear before its master if the spurs are clicked together and serve them as a steed for 24 hours.
- The Phantom Steed spell summons an illusionary horse that's nevertheless real enough for the caster to ride on for the next hour. It's also twice as fast as a normal horse and is immune to fatigue.
- Earlier editions had the Obsidian Steed, a small statue of a black horse that would summon a Nightmare that would serve as a mount for a period of time. However there is always a chance that it will instead take you into one of the lower (evil) planes and dump you there.
- Mekton Zeta has the "Summoning Your Mecha" Stupid Mekton Trick, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- One scenario for The World of Darkness contains a Garou magic item, "the checkered whistle", which, when used, creates a minor magical coincidence that would direct the nearest free cab towards the user.
Wide Open Sandbox
- Assassin's Creed:
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed III allow the player to use a whistle that summons a horse to wherever they were, even if such a location seemed impossible for one to reach. How this manages to summon only one horse has not been explained.
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey allows you to summon Phobos from any outdoor area in the game, so long as it isn't a restricted area. This includes tiny deserted islands you had to swim to. Sadly, the game doesn't let you ride Phobos onto or off of the Adrestria, which would have explained how Phobos gets to you in the local port* .
- The "Drop a Deuce" guitar solo in Brütal Legend instantly repairs and summons Eddie's signature car anywhere in the world (except quest locations).
- In Ghost of Tsushima, Jin can whistle for his horse which he handwaves as the bond between a warrior and his mount.
- In Grand Theft Auto Online, you can call your mechanic to bring you a vehicle as long as: you're not too close to your house/garage; the vehicle is not destroyed or impounded; and you're not in an area with no roads or some type of obstruction that can be accessed normally.
- In No Man's Sky, you have the ability to quickly summon any spaceship in your collection to your location. It may cost launch fuel depending on where the ship is currently parked (on a dedicated landing pad or anywhere else) and where you summon it.
- No More Heroes gives Travis the ability to call his friend in order to retrieve his motorcycle anywhere in the city.
- Whistling while out in the wilds in Red Dead Redemption immediately summons your horse, regardless how far away you "parked" it. In Red Dead Redemption II however, there is actually a range for how far the horse will reach (though it's still pretty generous).
- In The Saboteur, you get the ability to call a getaway car selected in the garage right to your location. You can also purchase a perk that turns drivers delivering the car into black marketeers who can supply you with weapons.
- The ability to summon cars exists in most of the Saints Row games.
- Saints Row summons your car and a driver along with it to chauffeur you around.
- Saints Row: The Third: The Boss can call a homie who will bring any ground vehicle from their garage to their location, even if that vehicle was just blown to smithereens by the Boss themselves (though there is a Cooldown on this ability).
- Saints Row IV: Your summoned vehicle simply appears around you, since it takes place inside a computer simulation.
- Sleeping Dogs (2012) has a Face upgrade that lets you specify a vehicle that you can have a valet deliver to you when you call him on your cellphone.
- Terraria features mount items, which were given a quick access key in the 1.3 update. Pressing R twice, using a grappling hook or entering certain liquids causes it to disappear and they appear/disappear in a cloud of their respective particles (sparkles for the giant bunny, honey for the bee mount, slime for the slime mount, etc.)
- Geralt in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can call his horse, Roach, from anywhere in the world, and she will arrive in short order, even if she has to cross rivers, mountains and oceans from the other side of the map. This, combined with her invulnerability, is for the sake of convenient gameplay. This is lampshaded in the Blood and Wine expansion, where Geralt —being able to understand Roach after taking a special concoction— asks her about it. Roach simply states that she will go wherever Geralt is as long as he needs her.
Non-video game examples
- Aang buys a bison-shaped whistle in an early episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It appears useless, but can be used to summon his flying bison Appa from a distance.
- In Dragon Ball, Goku usually shouted "Come to me Kinto'un/Flying Nimbus!" to make the cloud fly to him until he learned how to fly himself and it became obsolete. After this he used it only once (to save on energy as he raced to save the survivors of Vegeta and Nappa's brutality).
- Parodied in one Lucky Luke episode where Luke whistles for Jolly Jumper... and gets every horse in the vicinity.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: In the Marching to the New Wonderland series, Weslie can ring his bell to summon the Xiha trains.
- The Silver Surfer can summon his board with a cry of "To me my board!" from just about anywhere.
- In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, while in Toontown, Eddie puts a toon thumb on his hand and instantly summons Benny the Cab.
