alt Hacker NewsMan I played Operation Neptune a lot when I was a kid. I wonder if it was the first game to do this style of adaptive music layering. It predates the iMUSE system used in LucasArts games like X-Wing and TIE Fighter.
For anyone curious, you can actually play it here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Operation_Ne...
The arcade classic Space Invaders had a primitive soundscape in that every time the remaining invaders advance, it plays a short bass note. As fewer and fewer invaders remain, it takes less time for them to advance, and the note repeats faster and faster, it adds a remarkable amount of increasing tension as each level progresses.
So not exactly the same, but perhaps prototypical. I think Asteroids did as well.