History Main / AlternateWorldMap

** ''VideoGameFinalFantasyI'' is an odd case -- in the ''Dawn of Souls'' remake on Game Boy Advance and on [=PlayStation=] Portable, some of the BonusDungeon floors are entire world maps rather than being one of the expected cave environments. There are no towns on these floors, although you might find an airship to use exclusively on the floor you discover it. One subtype of map is the "floating continent" map, which makes about as much sense to find in a dungeon that's supposed to be underground.

** ''FinalFantasyI'' is an odd case -- in the ''Dawn of Souls'' remake on Game Boy Advance and on [=PlayStation=] Portable, some of the BonusDungeon floors are entire world maps rather than being one of the expected cave environments. There are no towns on these floors, although you might find an airship to use exclusively on the floor you discover it. One subtype of map is the "floating continent" map, which makes about as much sense to find in a dungeon that's supposed to be underground.

The tendency for modern {{RPG}}s to have more than one world map: sometimes this is a DarkWorld, an FictionalEarth or an AlternateUniverse, but sometimes it's another planet, or a different time period, or simply an AfterTheEnd scenario. A very common way to make DiscOneFinalDungeon less obvious (because you can have the entire world visited before you get to it).

* One could make an argument for ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic World of Xeen'', which has two separate 'worlds' connected mainly by a few scattered portals -- the reason being that ''World of Xeen'' is the combined version of ''IV'' and ''V'', with each game covering [[FlatWorld one side]] of Xeen (having both games unlocks the aforementioned connections between the sides, and adds a short questline to provide the ''real'' end of the game after you've beaten the main quests of both of the component games).

* ''VideoGame/Ultima'':

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'''s World of Light mode, the first half of the game takes place in the titular "World of Light". After you defeat Galeem, [[spoiler:Dharkon]] takes over and creates his own twisted Dark Realm. [[spoiler:After defeating Dharkon, there is a third map where the forces of both sides battle, which you can alter by defeating minions of one side or the other.]] Both world maps also contain several sub-worlds that can be accessed from within the overworld, ranging from a molten fortress to a [[VideoGame/{{Splatoon}} Zapfish]]-powered power plant to a ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII''-style World Tour to [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Dracula's Castle]].

* ''VideoGame/{{The 7th Saga}}'' has the player character(s) sent to the past.

* ''VideoGame/SaGaRPG'': %%Yes, Final Fantasy Legend is a part of SaGa series

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'''s World of Light mode, the first half of the game takes place in the titular "World of Light". After you defeat Galeem, [[spoiler:Dharkon]] takes over and creates his own twisted Dark Realm. Both world maps also contain several sub-worlds that can be accessed from within the overworld, ranging from a molten fortress to a [[VideoGame/{{Splatoon}} Zapfish]]-powered power plant to a ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII''-style World Tour to [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Dracula's Castle]].

* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has an AlternateUniverse.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' has the floating continent and the surface world.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has the main world, the underworld, and the Moon.
** ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'' has ''another'' moon, in addition to the other 3 maps, although huge portions of it are identical to the first moon.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' has two planets, [[spoiler:and a third world map when they combine]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had the World Of Balance and [[AfterTheEnd World Of Ruin]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' occasionally has several maps of the same locations in the different time periods (e.g. New Bodhum and Academia). Annoyingly, you have to explore 100% of each version of every location for the [[CartographySidequest Paradox Professor sidequest]], leading to situations when the QuestGiver refuses to accept the seemingly complete map of the area because you still haven't visited the area's alternate version in a different time period.
* ''VideoGame/{{The 7th Saga}}'' has the player character(s) sent to the past.

* ''VideoGame/TheFinalFantasyLegend'' has four different main worlds, several minor ones, as well as the tower which connects them all.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendII'' has twelve different worlds all connected by a celestial-based hub.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendIII'' went a bit nuts with this concept. It has three time periods, each with an overworld and an under(water)world. It also has a floating island and a separate dimension, the latter of which had its own underworld.
* The ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' series: some of the games let you travel between worlds (like in ''[[VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime Till the End of Time]]''). ''[[VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory The Second Story]]'' [[spoiler: destroys the planet you're on at the end of Disc 1 during the DiscOneFinalDungeon. As a result this might actually be surprising in the PSP remake which is on one disc...]]

* ''VideoGame/UltimaII'' had 5 time periods: Pangea, B.C., A.D., Aftermath, and Legends.
* ''VideoGame/UltimaIII'' had an alternate world, Ambrosia, accessible via a whirlpool, which was also pretty important as it was the only place to increase character stats.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' uses this often:
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' has pre- and post-[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt cataclysm]] maps.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'' has the normal world and the Abyss.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has pre- and post-conception maps much like the first game. However, you don't see the pre-conception map as much, since TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt happens very early on.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' has Mikado (which isn't so much a map as a menu), Tokyo, [[spoiler:Blasted Tokyo, and Infernal Tokyo]]. Depending on your choices, one or more of these may be [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost forever]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'' each have an overworld and [[DarkWorld underworld]].
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' too, although only one area has a Dark World map for it (Empychuu island). So, this is probably averted.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'' has the dream world and real world. [[spoiler:[[DarkWorld The Dread Realm]] opens up after exploring both of those and aside from the fact that it's reached by air (specifically, by having Pegasus fly there), it's basically the equivalent to the underworld in the rest of the Zenithia trilogy (i.e. IV and V).]]
* Every game in the classic ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' series: ''{{VideoGame/Phantasy Star|I}}'' and ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' both have 3 worlds, ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'' has two (one after the other, in perhaps the straightest example of this trope), and ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIII'' has a whopping ''eight worlds'' (if you count the underworld), though they're much smaller than the worlds of the other games.
* One could make an argument for ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic World of Xeen'', which has two separate 'worlds' connected mainly by a few scattered portals -- the reason being that ''World of Xeen'' is the combined version of ''IV'' and ''V'', with each game covering [[FlatWorld one side]] of Xeen (having both games unlocks the aforementioned connections between the sides, and adds a short questline to provide the ''real'' end of the game after you've beaten the main quests of both of the component games).
* ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', and its remakes, are the only games in the series to have two visitable regions (not counting ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue FireRed and LeafGreen]]'' with its Sevii Islands). The only way to get between Kanto and Johto in the original games is to either use the Abra at the Indigo Plateau, use travel on the S.S. Aqua, use the Magnet Train or travel on the waters between New Bark Town and Route 28. The remakes removed the ability to travel back to Kanto via the Abra at the Indigo Plateau, but added the ability for the player to fly between any Kanto and Johto location if they happen to be on Route 26, Route 27, Route 28 or the Indigo Plateau.

[[folder:Action Adventure]]

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series:
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]'' has the Light World and the DarkWorld.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Ages]]'' both involve traveling between two time periods; in ''Ocarina of Time'', you travel to and from seven years in the future (with Link aging or deaging respectively), in ''Oracle of Ages'' you travel to and from several centuries in the past (with Link, obviously, ''not'' aging).
** ''Oracle of Seasons'' has an underworld and an overworld, and on the overworld features are changed by the passing of the seasons (which Link can accelerate).
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' has The Sky and The Surface, [[spoiler:the latter being in either the past or the present.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds'' has Link traveling between Hyrule and Lorule. Lorule resembles the Dark World from ''A Link to the Past'' that might not be an entirely different place altogether. [[spoiler:It's a counterpart of Hyrule complete with princess, hero and villain. But instead of sealing their version of the Triforce, they destroyed it, only to find that it was the CosmicKeystone holding their entire world together.]]

* ''[[VideoGame/{{SaGa 3}} Final Fantasy Legend III]]'' went a bit nuts with this concept. It has three time periods, each with an overworld and an under(water)world. It also has a floating island and a separate dimension, the latter of which had its own underworld.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Makai Toshi SaGa}} The Final Fantasy Legend]]'' has four different main worlds, several minor ones, as well as the tower which connects them all.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{SaGa 2}} Final Fantasy Legend II]]'' has twelve different worlds all connected by a celestial-based hub.

* All of the ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' games take place in Kamurocho (Tokyo), but all of the main series games other than ''1'' and ''4'' feature at least one other city to explore. In ''2'' and ''0'' it's Sotenbori (Osaka); in ''3'' it's Ryukyu (Okinawa); in ''5'' it's Sotenbori again, along with the new cities of Nagasu (Fukuoka), Tsukimino (Sapporo) and Kineicho (Nagoya); and in ''6'' it's Jingaicho (Onomichi, Hiroshima).

[[folder: Action Adventure ]]

[[folder: Fighting Game ]]

[[folder: Platform Game ]]

[[folder: Role Playing Game ]]

[[folder: Wide Open Sandbox ]]

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' goes hard on this after the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, with the then-new ability of the game to phase areas. Any area, depending on your progress in the zone's storyline, can be a ten thousand year old village filled with life or a burned out wreck filled with corpses. Many of the older zones have a member of the Bronze Dragonflight, holders of the TimeyWimeyBall, who can send you to previous versions of the zone.

* In the StoryMode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', World of Light, you spend the first half of the game in the titular "World of Light", but after you defeat Galeem for the first time and Dharkon takes over, the world is changed into the Dark Realm.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' goes hard on this after the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, with the then-new ability of the game to phase areas. Any area, depending on your progress in the zone's storyline, can be a ten thousand year old village filled with life or a burned out wreck filled with corpses. Many of the older zones have a member of the Infinite Dragonflight, holders of the TimeyWimeyBall, who can send you to previous versions of the zone.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds'' has Link traveling between Hyrule and Lorule. Lorule resembles the Dark World from ''A Link to the Past'' but it's an entirely different place altogether. [[spoiler:It's a counterpart of Hyrule complete with princess, hero and villain. But instead of sealing their version of the Triforce, they destroyed it, only to find that it was the CosmicKeystone holding their entire world together.]]

* In the StoryMode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrothersUltimate'', World of Light, you spend the first half of the game in the titular "World of Light", but after you defeat Galeem for the first time and Dharkon takes over, the world is changed into the Dark Realm.

* All of the ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' games take place in Kamurocho (Tokyo), but all of the main series games other than ''1'' and ''4'' feature at least one other city to explore. In ''2'' and ''0'' it's Sotenbori (Osaka); in ''3'' it's Ryukyu (Okinawa); in ''5'' it's Sotenbori again, along with the new cities of Nagasu (Fukuoka), Tsukimino (Sapporo) and Kineicho (Nagoya); and in ''6'' it's Onomichi (Hiroshima).

* VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft goes hard on this after the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, with the then-new ability of the game to phase areas. Any area, depending on your progress in the zone's storyline, can be a ten thousand year old village filled with life or a burned out wreck filled with corpses. Many of the older zones have a member of the Infinite Dragonflight, holders of the TimeyWimeyBall, who can send you to previous versions of the zone.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Bored with Website/{{Google}} Maps? Try Google Moon or Google Mars. In a major {{subversion}} of this trope, you can't actually go there (as of 2013) and there's nothing to really see besides a desert wasteland with some mountains and craters.
[[/folder]]

The tendency for modern {{RPG}}s to have more than one world map: sometimes this is a DarkWorld, an AlternateEarth or an AlternateUniverse, but sometimes it's another planet, or a different time period, or simply an AfterTheEnd scenario. A very common way to make DiscOneFinalDungeon less obvious (because you can have the entire world visited before you get to it).