History CutAndPasteEnvironments / VideoGames

** ''Every'' stage in the original ''Darius'', its UsefulNotes/PCEngine ports, and ''Darius R''.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''[='=]s original release had enormous expanses of land that re-use some assets to fill out the space, supposedly due to limitations imposed by the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 (even though the original release never came out for that system). While all [=MMO=]s do this to some extent, much ado was made about this game's usage of the trope as it sometimes recycled entire topographical features. Most infamous was the forest area, the Black Shroud, which was an impossible-to-navigate maze with identical corridors leading into identical clearings with identical stream crossings. When the game got rebooted in 2013, almost every single geographical location was split into four to six distinct zones, which each got a makeover and look unique to each other.

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' takes advantage of this for the secret level of its third episode. When you enter it, by all means it appears to be an exact copy of the first level of the episode, up until you hit the original exit switch and the walls lower to reveal an open area with a Cyberdemon. [[RemixedLevel You then have to go back through to the start of the level]], with walls lowered to reveal new monsters in every room, to find a new hallway in the beginning room leading to the key to exit the level.

* Used extensively in the original ''VideoGame/HeroesOfJinYong'', with amount of unique environments countable on one hand, the same interior design is used for taverns, temples, mansions and all that. There's also the underground cave which is blatantly remodeled into a winter-themed stage, but with the brown parts repainted white and grey. Fixed in it's 2022 remake, which did a much better job with level designs.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': The subways which the player must use to navigate [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence conveniently placed piles of rubble]] suffer from this. There's also the occasional reuse of building interiors or layouts.

** ''Fallous: New Vegas'' directly reuses a few building layouts from its predecessor. For example, the Securitron Deconstruction Plant, X-2 Transmitter Array, and train tunnels in ''Old World Blues'' are near-exact copies of the Robot Repair Center, Satcomm Array NW-05a, and subway/utility tunnels, respectively, the Mysterious Cave's layout is identical to Broc Flower Cave from the ''FNV'' base game, and Hidden Valley Bunker reuses architecture from Raven Rock. In the main game, the REPCONN basement appears to copy parts of Vault 101 (such as the GOAT room) and the Jefferson Memorial basement. House Resort and the Jacobstown lodge also have the same interior layout.

* ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'' is this in the way that Haven City shares almost all of the layout, landmarks, models and textures to its appearance in ''Jak II'', except for the added destruction. Justifiable for the sake of continuity, and doing so makes an actual emotional impact on players as they see a place they are so familiar with in ruins.

** Once you start to explore the Great Sea in ''Wind Waker'', the same interiors start showing up over and over again. The Savage Labyrinth at least has some effort put into it - two other plot coupons from the same quest are found in identical areas, just with a slightly different set of monsters. [[FridgeLogic And are we really expected to believe those identical ship graveyards formed naturally?]]

** Oddly enough, the very end of the ''Omega'' DLC for the third game revisits the area the player first visits in ''Mass Effect 2'', making this a cross-game example.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''[='=]s original release had enormous expanses of land that re-use some assets to fill out the space, supposedly due to limitations imposed by the UsefulNotes/Playstation3 (even though the original release never came out for that system). While all [=MMO=]s do this to some extent, much ado was made about this game's usage of the trope as it sometimes recycled entire topographical features. Most infamous was the forest area, the Black Shroud, which was an impossible-to-navigate maze with identical corridors leading into identical clearings with identical stream crossings. When the game got rebooted in 2013, almost every single geographical location was split into four to six distinct zones, which each got a makeover and look unique to each other.

* The ''{{VideoGame/Diablo}}'' series prides itself for its randomly generated dungeons, and apart from a few carefully-constructed areas (boss levels, the last parts of final dungeons, towns etc.) it manages to avoid this trope completely.
** However, ''Diablo III'' constructs each dungeon from a handful of very large architectural complexes, to the point that a veteran player can see a hallway and recognize whether it leads anywhere interesting. The page quote is a {{lampshade}} on this. Also, each dungeon has its entrance and exit in the same relative locations.

* The world of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' is composed of bleak landscape after bleak landscape after bleak landscape, with biome differences (forests ARE different from deserts, after all) to tell you where you are. Every building you enter in the game has an annoying tendency to have all its rooms look alike, with some notable exceptions.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}} II: The Chosen'' is pretty bad at this, as three separate maps are reused three separate times. Two of the three are at least an attempt at emulating a HubLevel, chapter 1 including three trips through an urban area just off of some tenements and chapter 3 making you pass through a specific area of the [=CabalCo=] offices three times, though at least in chapter 1 the reuse is so blatant that the first pass through the level even has the end-of-level triggers for later visits - with noclip, it's possible to pass through some vents at the back of a laundromat and skip from the second level all the way to the end of the chapter, 9 levels later. Chapter 2 has it the worst, reusing levels purely for {{padding}}, as the first and seventh levels are both near-identical reuses of the very first level on a subway train, modified only to change the enemy layout; the second time even ends the same way too, with your train crashing into another one.
* ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'' isn't too bad but the team do visit an awful lot of similar looking farms on the side missions for some high contrived reasons (a nuclear missile hidden under a farm comes to mind). Also the alien environments look very similar.

** CreatorDrivenSuccessor ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' is equally guilty, though with some more variety. There's at least three levels that are entirely made up of or otherwise reuse nearly-identical swastika-shaped mazes.

** And of course there's the Inverted Castle in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'', which is the regular castle but upside down with different music, enemies and bosses and almost no story. However, some rooms were definitely designed to work both right side up and upside down, and some layouts are different.
*** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'' is worse about this, having a Castle A and B, with EXACTLY the same layout in both, just different graphics and enemies.
** This problem shows up most glaringly in three places in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''. The Tower of Infinity (50 levels of the same room with different {{Mooks}}, the Tower of Evermore, which is the same thing but harder, and, most damningly, Dracula's Castle (which of course is required). It's also pretty obvious in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence''.

* The ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' games manage to do what ''VideoGame/NetHack'' does except worse. The 3D sections are identical, but you never play a level with the same layout twice because the levels are randomized.

*** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening'' had something similar, but its reused environments are the world encounters which ''Origins'' beforehand is very good at. So many times in ''Awakening,'' you'll be fighting your way through the same flaming forest, or clearing out the same farm overrun of darkspawn.
** Present to an extreme level in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', where the wastelands around Lothering, the city of Kirkwall, and the final Deep Roads dungeon of Act 1 are the only areas with a unique map. There is literally no original environment after ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'''s Act 1, the closest being Hawke's new Hightown estate. Even Sebastian's ''supposedly'' unique graveyard cave for his personal Act 2 quest is just a retextured world mine-shaft cave if you look close enough at its map layout. The two pieces of post-release DownloadableContent both take steps to address this issue, as both are set outside of Kirkwall and feature entirely unique areas.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' skews away from it again, going back to a mostly hand-built world with hand-built (though not necessarily ''unique'') dungeons, much like ''Morrowind'' before it. For example, once you've visited one Nordic ruin, you've pretty much visited them all. Only the layout really changes.

* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' follows this trope to the letter. Each race has a handful of different station, stargate, and planet designs. Agents assign you to a mission randomly picked from a relatively small pool. Also, several NPC factions use ships from one of the major factions, with the only difference being the paint job. The "Trinity" graphics upgrade made it worse. Prior to Trinity, there were 3 station interiors per race. Afterwards, there was one station interior per race.

** Earlier titles in the series use basically the same handful of maps for all random encounters. Almost all caves share the same walls and are only distinguished by their layout.
** Both ''Fallout 3'' and ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'' suffer from this trope a lot harder than you think, although Vegas tries harder to subvert it. Almost every interior corridor is yellow/blue or white with dirt marks everywhere, the same filing cabinets and desks are probably used more than any other object, identical metal boxes with nothing in them, doors are almost always wooden with 2 glass panels or the metal lever-opened kind and the wasteland itself.
*** ''FNV'' also directly reuses a few building layouts from its predecessor, for example the Securitron Deconstruction Plant, X-2 Transmitter Array, and train tunnels in ''Old World Blues'' are near-exact copies of the Robot Repair Center, Satcomm Array NW-05a, and subway/utility tunnels, respectively, the Mysterious Cave's layout is identical to Broc Flower Cave from the ''FNV'' base game, and Hidden Valley Bunker reuses architecture from Raven Rock. In the main game, the REPCONN basement appears to copy parts of Vault 101 (such as the GOAT room) and the Jefferson Memorial basement. House Resort and the Jacobstown lodge also have the same interior layout.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has about three dozen distinct combat maps, most of which get reused in different [[StoryBranching routes]] with different enemy unit placement. In most cases, this is justified by the battles literally taking place in the same location, both in-gameplay and in-story, but some reuses are much less graceful. [[CompanionSpecificSidequest Paralogues]] in particular are prone to recycling maps from the main storylines, or taking place on generic levels otherwise only used for {{sidequest}}s.[[note]]In fact, the only paralogue with an completely unique map seems to be Leonie and Linhard's "Legend of the Lake", which is the only time in the entire game we see Lake Teutates.[[/note]] Most notable cases are:

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is especially bad about this during Chapter 10, forcing the player to go through identical looking rooms several times, fight the first boss of the level, then go through even more identical looking rooms before reaching the second boss in the chapter.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fuel}}'' is a great offender, having objects repeated several times in a small area.

* In ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', the Fate Episodes are guilty of having near-identical background arts. Why would one character stand in the very same spot that another character stood in another episode? Why do some houses have similar interiors? All of these questions came from the usage of this trope.

** Barber shops[[note]]Except the the barber shop near CJ's home (since according to the storyline the person running that particular one has been cutting CJ's hair for years), and another on the southeast corner of Los Santos[[/note]], fast food joints, weapons shops[[note]]most of the time; one shop is larger than the others[[/note]], and tattoo parlors are all identical and even use the same workers, so it gets a bit jarring to see a guy that sells guns in San Andreas can also pop up in every other county that sells guns.
** During the burglary missions there are also only a handful of building interiors depending on what kind of building you are breaking into.
** Even as recently as ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', platform levels of underground subway stations, fast food joints, a clothing chain, two gun stores, bowling alleys, and a multitude of apartment corridors still share common interiors.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has been infamous for this:

*** The entire second half of the game is basically you going through the first half backwards. Perhaps that's why the level which marks half-way point, "The Library", is basically this trope embodied.

** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'':
*** The game as a whole likes to feature many rooms exactly two times.
*** You also go through at least 3 or 4 large identical bridges.
*** "Sacred Icon", which is basically ''2''[='s=] version of "The Library".

* The 3D ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games have all had an enormous BonusDungeon with some of the toughest battles in the game. The Gerudo's Training Ground in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' is a fairly interesting [[FinalExamBoss pastiche of other dungeons]] and their puzzles, but ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker's'' Savage Labyrinth and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' Cave of Ordeals consist of '''fifty''' nearly identical chambers packed with wave after wave of enemies (even worse, ''WW'' requires you to fight through 31 rooms for a mandatory PlotCoupon!). ''TWW'', ''TP'', and ''[=OoT=]'' also feature a number of caverns with identical chambers full of puzzles.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' is very guilty of this. Just about every Comp system that doesn't house a major boss or is not in the second scrap yard area will be identical regardless whether the Comp system is designed for a soda machine, a dog house, a statue, etc.
** ''Star Force 3'' is worse: all the boss areas even look the same.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork1'' is horrible about this. The whole Internet looks the same! Every area! Even the "scary" WWW-controlled areas! This makes it rather easy to walk into the Undernet without knowing it until you suddenly get curbstomped by a scary-powerful group of viruses. Later games are better about this.

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' is built on this; there are innumerable room interiors that are all the same except for some minor set dressing like tables and detritus. Indeed, that's how ''NWN'' levels are built; they're like 3D tilemaps. Oddly, ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' (from the same developer) averts this, despite using a modified version of the ''NWN'' engine.

* Sega employs this trope liberally for the post-millennial ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' games: ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarPortable'' and ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarZero''. ''Phantasy Star Online'' is the worst offender, tropewise: The first ''PSO'' game told an entire story, with side stories, optional missions and all, '''in the same four reused maps.''' (This isn't even counting how many of the enemies encountered were reskins that used the same character "skeleton" and animations!) The add-ons/sequels to ''PSO'' often included [[DittoFighter reskins of previous content]], especially [[PaletteSwap bosses and enemies]]. ''Phantasy Star Universe'' and ''Portable'' tried to add variety to layouts of the same area, but it's still based on the same concept--and despite having more content to begin with than the first ''Phantasy Star Online,'' it was more or less the same as ''PSO'' with all its add-ons (that is to say, it had a lot of reskinned areas, enemies, and bosses--just with different behavior flags).

* The original ''VideoGame/PlanetSide'' had only a few base types at release, most of which were visually very similar except for the layout of rooms. At most, the only difference between a base on one continent and the same type of base across the continent or on an entirely different continent is the placement of defensive pillboxes outside and the courtyard's ground texture. Tactics for taking a base almost never varied unless it is in a special position, such as Cyssor's Gunuku Dropship Center, which is isolated on a small island. The ExpansionPack added Ancient Vanu facilities in the caverns which, while limited to only three base designs, had significantly more variety due to the chaotic terrain of the Caverns. [[ScrappyLevel Too bad nobody played there]].
** The same issue returns in ''[=PlanetSide=] 2'', particularly at release; all bases were copy-pasted and there were only about 5 base types and with less than a half dozen independent building designs. Later updates made bases more unique and with unique rooms, such as the underground bases on Amerish, though surface facilities still frequently suffer from having identical buildings.
* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' you can go into an area called the Rubicon where Modrons (beings of pure law) are trying to study dungeon crawls. [[JustifiedTrope Because they are beings of law they created a dungeon area of almost completely identical rooms]] (the only difference being which exits are open and how many creatures are present). The only unique rooms are the control center, a boss fight room and a room where you can pick up a character.
** The dungeon's pretty much a magnanimous dig at dungeon crawls in general, with the enemies being CardCarryingVillain constructs that dutifully play their role as opponents and an "Evil Wizard Construct" who spouts stereotypical bad-guy tough talk.

** Celadon Hotel in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' (and ''Yellow'') is a slightly modified Pokémon Center. In ''Red'' and ''Blue'' you can even stand where the PC would be in a regular Pokémon Center [[GoodBadBugs and use it]], even though it doesn't exist! Possibly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when you talk to the receptionist and she says "Pokémon? No, this is a hotel." ''[[VideoGameRemake FireRed/LeafGreen]]'' {{avert|edTrope}}s this by redesigning the Pokémon Centers while leaving the hotel's layout alone, though this means that the receptionist's line no longer makes sense.

** Heck, even in ''[=SimCity=] 4'', where lots can come in different shapes and positions, you will still have the same buildings ([[MemeticMutation hence why everyone hates Wren Insurance in that game]]), in fact, it's very common to have two of the same buildings right next to each other.
** As for the games before ''[=SimCity=] 4'', the buildings all face the same direction.

* ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'' (at least the original SFC version) has only two designs for its ports, one that faces west and one that faces east (with Sylvalant port looking like every other east-facing port but with snowfall). A better example is the Seven Star Ruins BonusDungeon, which is 30 floors of descending through mostly the same caverns with only differences being in puzzles and treasure.

* Used very literally for the level generation in ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRogue'', each piece of a level from intricate buildings to the empty areas between them is a premade "chunk" and every level is just thrown together by the game copying and pasting them into different configurations. A few minor details like windows might be randomized but for the most part each location will essentially be the same every time it shows up, even something as simple as moving the front door requires saving that as an entirely new chunk (although thanks to the powerful level editor players are able to signficantly off-set the potential tedium of the system).
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has Goldleaf Galaxy, which has a main planet simply being a color-swapped, mirrored Honeyhive Galaxy.

* ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'' constructs its "cave" dungeons from geomorphs. This wouldn't be so bad if most of the dungeons weren't part of a ''single ginormous world-spanning cave,'' so one wrong turn can leave you unbelievably lost.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' uses tile-based randomly generated levels (with about a dozen tilesets). It can lead to oddities like walking through what appears to be the same room half a dozen times. Corpus tilesets are the biggest offender; the Corpus Ship and Corpus Outpost tilesets share many identical tiles. Considering the Corpus rely heavily on mass-manufacturing, it does seem to make a certain amount of sense.

** In ''VideoGame/WarioLandII'', both Wario's Castle and Syrup's Castle have the same sprite design for their environments, just with different color palettes.
** ''VideoGame/WarioLandShakeIt'' uses this for the secret levels, often without even a colour change (and those that are have changes such as in one case going from having a dark blue sky to a red sky). Kind of saddening, considering ''VideoGame/WarioLand4'' used a completely different background per level.

** ''VideoGame/DeadlyTowers'' has every dungeon room looking approximately the same, which is made worse by the dungeons being pointlessly vast.

** This is especially noticeable in the very first ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan1 Mega Man]]'', where rooms and even entire lengthy corridors are copy/pasted with reckless abandon. The worst offender by far is Wily Castle Stage 2, where barring enemy/item placement, the same exact screen layout is reused ''nine times'', and what's worse, '''''in three sets of three consecutive screens!'''''
* Some pseudo-random level generators used in a variety of games, from ''VideoGame/XCom'' to ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'' and even ''VideoGame/NetHack'', use Cut And Paste Level Elements - while the overall shape of the level differs each time, the maps are generated with some sections of level that are always designed in a particular manner:

* While ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey Nexus'' is a MegamixGame reusing many levels from past entries, its unique dungeons that separate sectors are the four Shrines, all of which have the same tileset and theme. They're also significantly longer -- each Shrine barring the first is five floors long as opposed to three in recurring dungeons, so sixteen floors of the same thing can get old. [[spoiler:The final dungeon offers little deviation other than a palette swap and the backing of a choir, so this can amount to twenty-one floors of the same thing! The postgame dungeon is a slight improvement over this as its music is distinct but the tileset is yet another palette swap.]]
* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' follows this trope to the letter. Each race has a handful of different station, stargate, and planet designs. Agents assign you to a mission randomly picked from a relatively small pool. Also, several NPC factions use ships from one of the major factions, with the only difference being the paint job.
** The "Trinity" graphics upgrade made it worse. Prior to Trinity, there were 3 station interiors per race. Afterwards, there was one station interior per race.

** SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' is equally guilty, though with some more variety. There's at least three levels that are entirely made up of or otherwise reuse nearly-identical swastika-shaped mazes.

** Celadon Hotel in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' (and ''Yellow'') is a slightly modified Pokémon Center. You can even stand where the PC would be in a regular Pokémon Center and use it...even though it doesn't exist! Possibly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when you talk to the receptionist and she says "Pokémon? No, this is a hotel."
** {{Averted|Trope}} in ''[[VideoGameRemake FireRed/LeafGreen]]''; the hotel looks the same but the Pokémon Centers have a new layout. However, this means that the receptionist's line no longer makes sense.

** Heck, even in ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', where lots can come in different shapes and positions, you will still have the same buildings ([[MemeticMutation hence why everyone hates Wren Insurance in that game]]), in fact, it's very common to have two of the same buildings right next to each other.
** As for the games before ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', the buildings all face the same direction.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''[='=]s original release had enormous expanses of land that re-use some assets to fill out the space, supposedly due to limitations imposed by the UsefulNotes/Playstation3 (even though the original release never came out for that system). While all [=MMO=]s do this to some extent, much ado was made about this game's usage of the trope as it sometimes recycled entire topographical features. Most infamous was the forest area, the Black Shroud, which was an impossible-to-navigate maze with identical corridors, right down the shapes of the walls and the angles of several stream crossings, all the way through. When the game got rebooted in 2013, almost every single geographical location got a makeover and looks unique to each other.

** {{Averted|Trope}} in ''[[VideoGameRemake FireRed/LeafGreen]]''; the hotel looks the same but the Pokémon centers have a new layout. However, this means that the receptionist's line no longer makes sense.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has enormous expanses of land that re-use some assets to fill out the space, supposedly due to limitations imposed by the UsefulNotes/Playstation3. While all [=MMO=]s do this to some extent, much ado has been made about this game's usage of the trope as it sometimes recycled entire topographical features. When the game got rebooted in 2013, almost every single geographical location gotten a makeover and looks unique to each other.

** The original ''VideoGame/Metroid1'' (128 KB) has a lot of rooms and areas that look alike, making navigation harder. This was, however, crucial in making a fairly large world without running out of cart space. The upshot is that many of the secret area entrances are copy-and-pasted as well, so finding one can make it easier to find others in the same area. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' lampshaded this by having you encounter the starting point of the original Metroid, only with slightly better graphics.