History Main / GravityBarrier

* ''VideoGame/AxiomVerge'' has one otherwise unremarkable part of Xi that, for no obvious [[PlotTunnel plot-related]] reason, is impossible to backtrack across from right to left before you get High Jump and Grapple.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Metroid Prime|Trilogy}} 3D'' games used this extensively: either there was an impassable ridge looming high above, insurmountable even by Samus' legendary jumping skills, or a precipice. There was some subtle manipulation as well, in ''Prime 2: Echoes'' and ''Prime 3: Corruption'', where attempting to cross a boundary chasm using the Screw Attack would suddenly eliminate the technique's momentum and drop Samus like a stone. Of course, this is absent in the 2D games, where the Wall Jump and the infinite Space Jump allow Samus to leap over any vertical obstacle.

* On that note, the ''JetMoto'' games for the Playstation would often prevent backtracking with huge one-way jumps and large drops off unscalable cliffs. And, of course, half of each game's tracks were loaded with {{Bottomless Pit}}s.

* The ''MetroidPrime 3D'' games used this extensively: either there was an impassable ridge looming high above, insurmountable even by Samus' legendary jumping skills, or a precipice. There was some subtle manipulation as well, in ''Prime 2: Echoes'' and ''Prime 3: Corruption'', where attempting to cross a boundary chasm using the Screw Attack would suddenly eliminate the technique's momentum and drop Samus like a stone. Of course, this is absent in the 2D games, where the Wall Jump and the infinite Space Jump allow Samus to leap over any vertical obstacle.

** The developers of ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' ''attempted'' this: the many mountains surrounding the land were (mostly) intended to be insurmountable (there are even a few glitched areas that are covered by a perfectly flat ground). Just in case the player does make it to the end of the line, the game pops in with an InvisibleWall for good measure.
** Several player-created mods remove the invisible walls and make whole provinces like Elsweyr and part of Morrowind reachable, with player-made but roughly in-canon places to visit.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' likewise attempted this by bracketing many paths with tall hills you couldn't climb. But apparently the guy who designed the terrain never consulted the guy who wrote the Levitation spell or vice-versa.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' makes it [[RuleOfThree a hat trick]]. The super-tall mountains can be scaled fairly easily with a [[AutomatonHorse horse]], leading to the [[http://i.imgur.com/Xaoka.jpg "Physics? B***, I'm a horse"]] {{meme|ticMutation}}.

* In the ''[[LegoAdaptationGame Lego Star Wars]]'' games, the only way of knowing you've encountered one of these, especially when there appears to be a ledge on the other side, is attempting to cross with an astromech droid.

* ''MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'': The Afghanistan area of operations, which mostly consists of valleys surrounded by towering cliffs, uses gravity barriers quite extensively. However, it's usually not at all apparent which parts ''are'' barriers and which parts you're supposed to be able to hike up, thanks to the game's dynamic mounting system, which can sometimes impede your progress on a shin-high rock if the angle is too steep. [[ArtisticLicensePhysics Unless you're riding your horse, of course, in which case you can climb seventy or eighty degree slopes with no problem]].

** Somewhat averted in Multiplayer in Halo 2, where super jumping (due to a patch gone right on xbox live) DOESN'T kill the player, even though they may fall in excess of 50 metres. Or how easy it is to get on the outside of the maps and fall off.

* ''[[Videogame/MechWarrior MechWarrior LivingLegends]]'' typically hems in the map with mountain ranges, though it's almost always possible to walk around them in a mech, drive over the mountains in a HoverTank or simply fly over in an aircraft, where you will be confronted with a [[BorderPatrol prompt to return to mission boundaries within 10 seconds or die]]. On the SpaceZone map 'Extremity' if you somehow manage to reach the end of the spinning asteroid before the border patrol kills you, you'll tumble off the map into interplanetary space.

* ''{{Ironclaw}}'' included a GravityBarrier in a TabletopRPG. In the middle of the map are the Walls of Calabria: a v-shaped cliff formation leagues long and a mile and a half high. Of course, they're not as much of an obstacle for the flying races, and the second edition reveals that a Noble House of Bats claim the caves riddling it as their domain.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal2}}'' has these towards the end. Normally, Chell takes no damage from falling, since she's wearing the long-fall boots (Chell even falls over 4 km and survives at one point.) However, the last set of puzzles has a bunch of pits which kill you if you fall in them. Oddly, earlier puzzles had similar pits that killed you with a plausible explanation (there's toxic waste in the pits), but the pits in chapter 8 onwards are empty.

* Recent ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' and ''IncredibleHulk'' games have featured these, especially the island-city-and-incidentally-your-hero-can't-swim variety.

* Subverted in ''{{Minecraft}}'': sheer face cliffs exist that are impossible to traverse...that is, until you mine some steps in them, or use a water bucket to make an impromptu elevator out of a waterfall.

** Occasionally used in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', usually on the treasure hunting stages. Mad Space and Meteor Herd have these surrounding the level, forcing the player to turn back should they stray too far from the path. Barriers are also used in Chao World, preventing Chao and the player from stumbling over the edge of the cliffs.

** Occasionally used in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', usually on the treasure hunting stages. Mad Space and Meteor Herd have these surrounding the level, forcing the player to turn back should they stray too far from the path. Barriers are also used in Chao World, preventing Chao and the player from stumbling off the cliff.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1'' had gravity barriers. There is a hill in the Marble Zone (part one) that you can run down but cannot run back up. It also had others that you could only go back up very slowly. So, gravity-impatience barriers. Now, the latest ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games have entire levels SURROUNDED by these, which, due to the inexplicable insistence on extremely linear paths, winds up with long stretches of road over BottomlessPits. This hasn't been met with much applause.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Glider}}'' series, where VentPhysics substitutes for JumpPhysics, gravity barriers are usually just a matter of vents that don't rise quite high enough. Since helium in ''Glider PRO'' allows VideoGameFlight, outdoor areas have to use downward-blowing lift areas at the top to prevent players from flying out of bounds.

** ''MetroidFusion'' puts a twist on the water variant by making it ''horizontal'' as well: until you get the Gravity Suit, you can't use the SprintShoes you'll need to escape a flooded area late in the game.

** Even though [[CutscenePowerToTheMax in various cutscenes]] you witness Master Chief surviving jumps and falls from ''the outer atmosphere''... fall 50 feet or so in-game and you're dead. Oddly enough, you die in mid-air rather than on landing. Even worse, many supposedly harmless drops are guarded by instant-kill barriers, usually to prevent players from shortcutting. Notoriously prevalent in ''Halo 2''. For example, on the Arbiter mission "The Oracle", even if you try to shortcut down the shaft by running around the narrow ledges, you will still be foiled by the death barrier (unless you get lucky and somehow avoid it). And then there are the water barriers, where MC suddenly acquires SuperDrowningSkills.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife 2'' has a rooftop chase sequence near the beginning. Even if the player manages to slow their descent, or jump down from ledge to ledge, if their feet touch the ground, they're instantly killed (as if from a fatal fall). The expansion ''Episode 2'' adds lush outdoor environments with mountain vistas and sprawling forests... but the player will often find his progress restrained by unclimbable cliffs that surround the valley Gordon Freeman stands in.

* The original ''SonicTheHedgehog'' had gravity barriers. There is a hill in the Marble Zone (part one) that you can run down but cannot run back up. It also had others that you could only go back up very slowly. So, gravity-impatience barriers. Now, the latest games have entire levels SURROUNDED by these, which, due to the inexplicable insistence on extremely linear paths, winds up with long stretches of road over BottomlessPits. This hasn't been met with much applause.

* ''VideoGame/{{Myst}} IV'' has a one age with sheer cliffs. Myst V also has some.

The gravity barrier may also be used to allow a player to move forward, but then restrict their backtracking. For example, a character may leap off a small cliff and fall into a new region, and the cliff behind them is unclimbable. The player knows they've both made forward progress and cannot retreat, because they crossed a gravity barrier.

* In VideoGame/InFamous'', in which the protagonist accidentally electrocutes himself in water more than a couple of inches deep.

* In the ''[[LegoAdaptationGame Lego Star Wars]]'' games the only way of knowing you've encountered one of these, especially when there appears to be a ledge on the other side, is attempting to cross with an astromech droid.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' has this in many areas. Falling off a cliff results in instant death, even though you can survive the fall most likely. Jakkob's Cove also kills your character if you try to jump off a cliff to get down to the docks as a shortcut and going too far out in the water also kills you.

** The game has monsters appearing by climbing over barriers that players simply can't cross... or by leaping from open windows or rooftops that are unreachable from ground level. The implication is that more of the city would be reachable, if the players just had the right tools to climb it. Also, there are city streets visible from building rooftops, but these regions are unreachable because the only way to get to them would be a fatal fall. In the event that a player manages to survive a fall to the street below, but are not supposed to go there, they are incapacitated and then killed within one second. Gravity barriers also block the players from entering some of the monster's [[RespawningEnemies spawn points]] -- infinite zombies "blink" into existence in an unseen, unreachable third-story room, then they jump out an open window to spill into the playing field.

** On several maps in both games gravity barriers are used as a point of no return. These are all very popular ambush spots in versus mode as most can result in a guaranteed kill if the survivors aren't paying attention and fail to cross the barrier all at once.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal2}}'' has these towards the end. Normally Chell takes no damage from falling since she's wearing the long-fall boots (Chell even falls over 4 km and survives at one point.) However, the last set of puzzles has a bunch of pits which kill you if you fall in them. Oddly, earlier puzzles had similar pits that killed you with a plausible explanation (there's toxic waste in the pits), but the pits in chapter 8 onwards are empty.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' has these around many of it's [[SceneryPorn incredibly huge and detailed environments]], where the characters will fall to their doom if they cross them. Justified, as most of the game takes place across the bodies of two continent-sized giants.

* ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'''s Pacific City is surrounded by water. Swim too far away from the city - a good distance, surprisingly - and you'll run across an invisible wall.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' uses this on most of the edges of its large map -- nuclear war seems to have kicked up box-shaped range of mountains around Washington DC. If one tries to swim off the south edge through the Potomac, however, you are simply stopped by a pop-up telling you you can't go any further. ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' prefers to block the apparent exits with insurmountable waist-height obstacles such as wrecked vehicles. Both games also have a few barriers of the lethal variety, where falling off a precipice results in mid-air death and a FadeToBlack as if it were a BottomlessPit. Most notable in the ''Lonesome Road'' DLC.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' uses this on most of the edges of its large map -- nuclear war seems to have kicked up box-shaped range of mountains around Washington DC. If one tries to swim off the south edge through the Potomac, however, you are simply stopped by a pop-up telling you you can't go any further. This game and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' also have a few of the lethal variety, where falling off a precipice results in mid-air death and a FadeToBlack as if it were a BottomlessPit. Most notable in the ''Lonesome Road'' DLC.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' uses this on most of the edges of its large map -- nuclear war seems to have kicked up box-shaped range of mountains around Washington DC. If one tries to swim off the south edge through the Potomac, however, you are simply stopped by a pop-up telling you you can't go any further.