History Main / BrokenBridge

*** You can't leave Viridian City unless you [[MacGuffinEscortMission deliver]] [[PlotCoupon Oak's Parcel]] because the exit is [[NPCRoadblock blocked by an old man]]. In the Japanese versions he's passed out drunk. Why can't you just walk around him? In the [[{{Bowdlerization}} American release]] he's merely grumpy and hasn't had his coffee. Amazingly, by the time you obtain the Pokédex, the man has had his coffee and will let you pass.

* Adorable little kid asks for your help with some random task, like saving his lost brother or finding medicine for his mom. One or more of the members of your party (usually TheChick) will feel pity for him and, since they can't resist random chivalry, [[DudleyDorightStopsToHelp demand that you stop and help]]. If you try to leave anyway, they'll whine and [[ButThouMust stop you]].

* ''VideoGame/StardewValley'', being a SpiritualSucessor to Harvest Moon also has a few:

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI'': On the first floor of the Labyrinth, a guard stands posted at the entrance to a particular area to keep you from progressing to the second floor until you wander the rest of the current floor and create a perfect map for it to prove your worth (or something to that effect), despite the fact that there must be a million maps of the first floor created by the countless other exploration groups that came before you. It should be noted that drawing your own maps of the floors as you go is half the work of the game, with the other half being the encounters you can face. This is also {{Justified|Trope}} with almost the same quest in ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIHeroesOfLagaard'': The guards explain that if you can't survive long enough to draw a map of the first floor, you're guaranteed to die if you go any further.

* In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' on the first floor of the Labyrinth, a guard stands posted at the entrance to a particular area to keep you from progressing to the second floor until you wander the rest of the current floor and create a perfect map for it to prove your worth (or something to that effect), despite the fact that there must be a million maps of the first floor created by the countless other exploration groups that came before you. It should be noted that drawing your own maps of the floors as you go is half the work of the game, with the other half being the encounters you can face. {{Justified|Trope}} with almost the same quest in the sequel. The guards explain that if you can't survive long enough to draw a map of the first floor, you're guaranteed to die if you go any further.

* ''VideoGame/LegoCityUndercover'' has not one, but two bridges that you can't pass until you complete the "Kung-Foolery" mission -- the first is being repaired, and the second has someone refusing to move their boat from beneath the bridge.

** Ironically, a broken bridge at the end of ''Most Wanted'' 2005 is what allows you to escape the police at the game's final climax as you jump over it. Even so, the road with the broken bridge (the only one leading out of the city) has its own figurative broken bridge: being ''blocked off by boulders'' until you get a call about the bridge three minutes into the final chase.

** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' broken bridges actually force you to keep going. Though Leon needed to go on I'm sure Billy and Rebecca would have rather got out of the freaky leech filled mansion. ''RE 4'' is also notorious for ''breaking bridges'' behind Leon, thereby [[PointOfNoReturn preventing the player from returning to previous areas]]. Most notable are the bridge out of the village, the castle drawbridge, and the boat ride with Ada.

If something ''appears'' to be a broken bridge, but never actually lets you by at any point in the game, see MissingSecret. AbilityRequiredToProceed is a subtrope of Broken Bridge. In this case, gaining new powers serves as a way to "repair" the bridges and move forward in the game.

* Parodied in Act 2 and 3 of ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}''. An NPC literally tells you that he won't fix the bridge leading to the rest of the world until you defeat a boss.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral'' has this and NPCRoadBlock. You can't across a few areas without capturing castles in the order because of the closed gates or the water tiles. Sometimes, you can't proceed to a new area without witnessing [[PlayerPunch your NPC allies getting slaughtered by the enemies first.]]

* ''VideoGame/ResonanceOfFate'' takes this trope UpToEleven. The game takes place in Basel, a tower big enough that it contains several cities, but pretty much all of the walkways are powered down so you'll have to restore them with energy hexes. Certain chokepoints or areas are blocked off with coloured hexes, required an appropriately-coloured energy hex, which of course won't be available until you're far enough into the plot.

* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'': Used a couple of times, most directly in the form of 'curse zones', which (if stumbled into) turn the background rather trippy, and slowly chip off Amaterasu's health (unless escaped from, or her 'health-bubble' runs out). There are also a couple of ''literal'' broken bridges, some of which you immediately fix.
** One interesting example is the broken staircase that leads to Orochi's lair. Amaterasu must travel through a set of caves as an alternate way to reach Orochi. The interesting part is that, much later on, Amaterasu [[spoiler:winds up traveling back in time to before the staircase was destroyed and uses it to confront Orochi again, this time without getting sidetracked.]]
** Also, there is the held-up bridge at the City Checkpoint and the closed bridge in between the Commoners and Aristocratic Quarters. Funnily enough, they were invented by the same person.

* In VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge, You can't leave Scabb Island until you run Largo [=LaGrande=] off the island.

** The ''[[VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy Metroid Prime]]'' games can actually be pretty bad in this department. There's a lot of materials that can inconveniently only be broken by ''one certain weapon''. There's always free side quests, but the main plot uses a lot of these.

* ''Silvertale'' has a literal broken bridge which, just like every other obstacle, requires finding the necessary materials by playing match-3 levels.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', the player character's home village is eventually wrecked by the big bad. Not that there was much to begin with. The only way into the village was on a rope bridge over a canyon. Guess what happens to that bridge.

** ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' will put everything and its [[{{,Pun}} mother]] in your way, including policemen, rocks, ghosts, timid cactus people, even a traffic jam in the middle of the desert. And let's not forget inexplicably placed statues. However, to its credit, it lampshades it liberally. The police force in Onett repeatedly talk about how their claim to fame is that they are constantly erecting road blocks, to the point where they don't actually bother to deal with real crimes. They actually do have a broken bridge in Peaceful Rest Valley when you arrive. Guess what gets repaired by the time you've rescued Paula?

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' Inverts thee trope THEN plays it straight by repeating the scenario of [[GoldfishPoopGang The Dark Wings]] destroying the first bridge in the game to prevent their pursuers from catching them, only this time AFTER the main characters have crossed in a carriage carrying Luka and Tear "to the capital", at which point they learn the capital in question is that of Malkuth, the nation Luke's Kingdom of Kimlasca is at war with, preventing them from turning around immediately.

* ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'':

* Parodied in Act 2 and 3 of VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}. An NPC literally tells you that he won't fix the bridge leading to the rest of the world until you defeat a boss.

** The {{Groundhog Day Loop}}ing ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' had a variation where a pass blocked by a rock would, if you waited for workers to clear it, only be opened after it was far too late. You had to show up with a huge bomb once you unlocked it and blast it open ahead of time.
** In fact ''Majora's Mask'' is worse on this matter than just that. You want to go the Swamp? Just dandy! Wanna go to the mountains? Well you have to shoot down an icicle with an arrow (found in the swamp) that breaks the ice blocking your path. You wanna to go the beach? Well you're going to need a horse (which can only be gotten by going to the mountains to get a big enough bomb to unclog the path) to jump over a fence. Wanna go to the canyon? Get ready to write this one down. You're gonna need to find the horse to hop over fences, then ditch the horse and use the hookshot to get past a cliffside, and ''then'', here's the kicker, use ice arrows to freeze octoroks so you can cross the river. (Fortunately, as with [=OoT=], when you reach a new area you can learn a warp song that flies you back as often as you want.)
** Similarly, at the beginning of the game you're stuck in Deku scrub form, so the guards bar you from leaving town because it's too dangerous outside the walls...until it's too late and they have bigger things to worry about. You can only pass by completing the first quest, retrieving your [[MacGuffin Ocarina of Time]] and escaping deku scrub form. However, even once you do this, the guards will continue to stop you from leaving town if you're in the wrong form.

** Another one happens in the Forest Temple, where Ook cuts down the central bridge with the Boomerang and you have to rescue the captive monkeys throughout the temple to cross.
** you actually go all the way to the first dungeon near the beginning of the game, but its entrance is blocked with boulders. Sometime between the Ordon children in the woods plot and purging Faron of the twilight, the boulders get replaced with a web you can burn with your lantern.

** While the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'' often allow minimal sequence-breaking in the form of collecting items in a dungeon, ignoring the boss, and moving on to the next dungeon, there are a few hard-wired Broken Bridges that stop this for [[SolveTheSoupCans no discernible reason]]. One of the most frustrating examples is an old man NPC in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Seasons]]'' who is supposed to give you a jewel used to access Tarm Ruins; for no adequately explained reason, he will refuse to speak to you if you have not collected a certain number of the game's otherwise useless {{MacGuffin}}s, the Essences of Nature. This is in spite of the fact that Link's only goal in this game is to collect the Essences; there's no in-universe reason why he should need to collect them in a particular order, and there are no plot events that would be missed if the OneTrueSequence were broken.
** In the beginning of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' guards block all paths that don't lead to the castle until after you've rescued the princess.
** Similarly, in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap The Minish Cap]]'', boulders, grass, and people block off all passages away from the path directly north to the castle. New areas can only be accessed once the player gets an item or skill that remove the obstacles.
** Downplayed in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]''. When you first emerge on the Great Plateau at the very beginning of the game, you find that the cliffs are too steep for you to safely get down. You need to complete the four Shrines on the Plateau so that the Old Man will give you his Paraglider. But once you have gotten the runes from the Shrines and the Paraglider from the Old Man, there's nothing, besides your upgradable stamina and the occasional BeefGate, keeping you from traveling to any place in Hyrule, including TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. You can make a beeline straight for the FinalBoss with nothing but your underwear, three hearts, and swinging whatever weapons you scrounged upon the way... and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flcUjqDKpxM it's actually possible to win]].

* Used a couple of times in ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', most directly in the form of 'curse zones', which (if stumbled into) turn the background rather trippy, and slowly chip off Amaterasu's health (unless escaped from, or her 'health-bubble' runs out). There are also a couple of ''literal'' broken bridges, some of which you immediately fix.

* In some of the alternate canon 'Snake Tales' of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2: Substance'', the game map is round, so there should be two routes to each sector. At least one of the missions sees the game regularly close the door leading to the quick route to force the player to go the long way.

* ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'' series
** ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' will put everything and its [[JustForPun mother]] in your way, including policemen, rocks, ghosts, timid cactus people, even a traffic jam in the middle of the desert. And let's not forget inexplicably placed statues. However, to its credit, it lampshades it liberally. The police force in Onett repeatedly talk about how their claim to fame is that they are constantly erecting road blocks, to the point where they don't actually bother to deal with real crimes. They actually do have a broken bridge in Peaceful Rest Valley when you arrive. Guess what gets repaired by the time you've rescued Paula?

*** When trying to exit Opelucid City from the east before defeating the final plot portion, a man stops you and says "There is something ahead, and the road is closed now." It's like they just gave up.

*** Random people block your way for no legitimate reason. Route 212 is blocked from the northern side, even after you've beaten Hearthome City's Gym. And they disappear once you reach Pastoria. All this does is make you take a longer path. No badges, no special events, nothing.

*** The Pokémon Sudowoodo is blocking the crossroad between Violet, Goldenrod and Ecruteak. To wake it up, you have to squirt it with water -- and no, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation you can't get your Totodile to use Water Gun on it]], you have to obtain a particular [[CommonPlaceRare Squirt Bottle]] from a certain NPC. The woman won't give you the bottle until you defeat the [[ThatOneBoss Goldenrod Gym Leader]]. Why? Because it's too dangerous to give a 10-year old with mons that could destroy cars a watering can! (Think about how much damage that could do in the wrong hands!) Not to mention that, to even get to that NPC, you have to go all the way from Violet City to Union Cave, Azalea Town, and Ilex Forest, plus the routes in-between. In terms of geography, that's a detour through nearly half of Johto just to get around a damn walking tree.

*** The roadblocks do feel particularly egregious in Gen V. In earlier games much of the limit on your progression was due to terrain obstacles that required an HM, so a Pokémon could get you past them, but in ''Black and White'' there's only one point early in the game where you need an HM. Instead there's a ragtag of random reasons to limit your progress. Oh, and some of the earlier games gave you a fair bit of choice in the order you tackled things in, for example in ''Gold and Silver'' you can choose which of Mahogany Town or Olivine City to visit first. Black and White keep you strictly and obviously on-rails, due to the map itself being more linear than previous games.