History Main / GatelessGhetto

* While this is a non-issue in 8- and 16-bit ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games, where towns and cities were composed of a dozen buildings at most, it becomes noticeable to the point of frustration in UsefulNotes/PlayStation-era games. Most egregious of all:

** VideoGame/SilentHill1'': The town is fairly wide open, but parts of it are blocked off by large crevasses and, later, construction sites.
** VideoGame/SilentHill2'': The town is fairly wide open, but parts of it are blocked off by large crevasses and, later, construction sites.

* ''VideoGame/SensoryOverload'': There's only one entrance to the building, and the terrorists have welded it shut.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingWildWorld'' takes place within a [[LawOfCartographicalElegance square]] Gated Ghetto, 256 meters on a side. West and east are solid walls, south is impassable water, and north is a solid wall interrupted by a small gate. But in order to pass through this gate, you must first be invited by another player with another DS and another copy of the game. This can get difficult if your real-life friends (mistakenly) [[RatedMForMoney think AC isn't appropriate for their age group]]. ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossingCityFolk City Folk]]'''s eponymous city also fits this trope. Averted in ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf New Leaf]]'', where your town is at the end of a giant peninsula and the sea can be seen instead of giant walls. However, your town is still blocked off in some areas.

* The ''Franchise/SilentHill'' games are an interesting example. In the [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 first]] [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 two]] games the town is fairly wide open, but parts of it are blocked off by large crevasses and, later, construction sites. While still a Gateless Ghetto, this gave the town a more open and organic feel than, say, the Raccoon City of the early ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' titles.
* The Building World and other otherworlds in ''VideoGame/SilentHill4''. All are either completely isolated from the outside, have permanently locked doors, or the exits are [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence blocked by debris]].
* In ''VideoGame/SilentHillShatteredMemories'', the inaccessible areas are blocked off by massive snowbanks.

* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' actually has all the bridges in and out of the city, they're just [[BorderPatrol Border Patrolled]] and blocked with {{Invisible Wall}}s. The game forces you back to shore if you try to go across the water; the virus allegedly has an aversion to water, the only effect of which is apparently that your character is incapable of jumping out of the water in a direction away from the designated game area.

** Neatly dodged in ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'', which was originally intended as an entry in the True Crime series, by setting the game in UsefulNotes/HongKong.

** The trope is averted in ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted (2005)'' however, as there is a road that leaves out of town. Need For Speed World also introduced the Rockport Turnpike that was seen in the background of Most Wanted, which leads to the Tri-City area of ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedUndercover''.

** Played straight with [[UsefulNotes/TwinCities Minneapolis]] [[note]]from Pro Skater 1, but also reappears as a classic level in American Wasteland[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Streets]][[note]]also from Pro Skater 1[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} Chicago]][[note]]From Pro Skater 4, but originally from Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX2[[/note]] and Beaver Valley[[note]]from Project 8, but only the PS3/360 version[[/note]], as all of these levels appear to have no connection to the outside world whatsoever.

* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/{{Blood}} 2''. The incredibly snarky journal has a few things to say about Cabalco's engineers, who are apparently responsible for every single instance of absurd architecture in the game.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' plays this straight with Taris. It's somewhat justified in the second game on Telos: the only inhabitable area is the Citadel Station, which pretty much consists of standalone modules, that can only be reached via shuttles, or Nar Shaddaa, which actually makes this a plot point.

A defining feature of a DungeonTown. Might be escaped with TheGreatRepair.

* In ''VideoGame/MidnightClub 2'', the cities of L.A., Paris, and Tokyo are modelled after real-life cities with the exception that there are no roads leading out of them.

** Played straight with [[UsefulNotes/TwinCities Minneapolis]] [[note]]from Pro Skater 1, but also reappears as a classic level in American Wasteland[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Streets]][[note]]also from Pro Skater 1[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/Chicago Chicago]][[note]]From Pro Skater 4, but originally from Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX2[[/note]] and Beaver Valley[[note]]from Project 8, but only the PS3/360 version[[/note]], as all of these levels appear to have no connection to the outside world whatsoever.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' uses a variant of {{Invisible Wall}}s (which are actually visible forcefields), and - in one city - also the rubble and ruins approach. Also, in the Ravenholm level the maps are hedged in by wooden barriers presumably built to keep the zombies at bay or in one area (though some of them could probably just jump over them anyways).

* In the open world ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed'' games, the worlds don't seem to have any road connections to the outside world, even in games where there are other cities/parts of the city in the background. This is noteable in ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedUnderground 2'' and ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed2015''. Even ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedCarbon'' has parts of the map that don't seem to be connected to the main city.

** In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', Valve uses a similar technique as the Ravenholm level. Rubble, fires, and makeshift barricades keep the action moving in one direction. Subverted in that, when the players join the Zombie team, they gain access to much more of the level.

* ''Videogame/{{Earthbound}}'':

** Along similar lines, both Earthbound and ''[[VideoGame/{{Mother1}} Earthbound Zero]]'' explain, in their usual [[BreakingTheFourthWall conspicuous]] style, how to pick out the doors which can be entered from those which cannot. Earthbound often trades entering [[EmptyRoomPsych useless houses]] for hearing unusual conversations behind doors.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': Midgar, a sprawling megalopolis built on two levels (ground level, and a plate built above it.) You only visit three sections of the former, and a couple of alleyways of the latter. Other games in the ''Compilation of Final Fantasy VII'' would allow you to explore a bit more, but still never the whole shebang.

[[folder: Shoot Em Ups ]]

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing: Wild World'' takes place within a [[LawOfCartographicalElegance square]] Gated Ghetto, 256 meters on a side. West and east are solid walls, south is impassable water, and north is a solid wall interrupted by a small gate. But in order to pass through this gate, you must first be invited by another player with another DS and another copy of the game. This can get difficult if your real-life friends (mistakenly) [[RatedMForMoney think AC isn't appropriate for their age group]]. ''City Folk'''s eponymous city also fits this trope. Averted in ''New Leaf'', where your town is at the end of a giant peninsula and the sea can be seen instead of giant walls. However, your town is still blocked off in some areas.

** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Deling City and Esthar]], capital cities of opposing nations. More noticable in Esthar because it's large enough to take up a huge chunk of the World Map (the player can run across its pathways and get into random encounters later on.)
** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX Lindblum, Treno, and Alexandria]], all rather large cities with innumerable neighborhoods, alleyways, plazas, and markets. All are reduced to isolated corridors in the actual game.
** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX Zanarkand, Luca, and Bevelle]]. They're extremely linear corridors. Literally, in the case of Bevelle --you never actually visit the city, just the Temple's atrium.
** Every single city in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''.

** The various districts of Las Vegas in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' are cordoned off by makeshift junk barricades and accessed through gates (or the sewers), making these more of gated ghettoes. The only area where access is actually restricted is the Strip, where you need to be carrying at least 2000 caps to pass the security checkpoint without being shot at. The Sierra Madre Villa from ''Dead Money'' plays this trope straight, being completely self-contained. Ditto the Big Empty, which is surrounded by a radar fence (force field).

* The ''VideoGame/BioShock'' games restrict you to certain sections of the city and, to a lesser extent, certain areas within those sections. Many establishments are closed up or blocked by malfunctioning doors or rubble. Even the bathyspheres can only take you to the next level, or to levels you've already visited; this is never really explained.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' tended to avoid this with locked doors and "behind the scene" areas with conference rooms and large computer areas, and then [[GravityBarrier Gravity Barriers]] in taller areas, [[InvisibleWall not always though.]]

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' seems to make it a point to provide in-universe justification for this trope, where the titular Arkham City is a large chunk of Gotham that's been completely walled off to serve as a radical, experimental prison; all of Gotham's criminal's are simply dumped into the "city" and left to their own devices, provided they keep the hell away from the heavily guarded walls. Out-of-universe, this seems to be their way of finally giving players the chance to patrol the streets of Gotham itself, as opposed to ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' which was entirely confined to the asylum.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'': All the towns in the series are like this, consisting of one street with the only buildings accessible being the plot important ones. Larger cities like London in the first game, Paris in ''Covenant'' and New York in ''From the New World'' are divided in small subsections that are sometimes unlocked by progressing the plot.

Therefore, most games usually resort to dumping the player in the middle of an enclosed area that is indeed full of buildings and streets, but is walled off from the rest of the city. You cannot see anything that would be outside the area. Often it also has no visible connection to the outside area: no doors, gates, tunnels -- whatever.