History Main / TacticalDoorUse

* ''VideoGame/XCOM'' played with it. The doors cannot be locked, and both your men and aliens can get through them. You also need a special trick (walking through the door) to slam it shut. However, doors can be used to hide or set up ambushes.

* A real life example: if there's a fire inside a home or building, it is usually a good idea to close the doors behind you as you get out to safety. Closed doors can significantly slow down the spread of the fire since the fire has to eat through the door first before it can spread to other rooms. If a door is open, then there's nothing stopping the fire from spreading.

A form of InsurmountableWaistHeightFence from the AI's perspective.

Nearly all video game protagonists stand in awe, fear and wonder at the nigh-indestructible nature of the common wooden door. But what few of them realize is that their enemies also hold the same feelings of alien terror and incomprehension for them. In fact, most of them are even more afraid of these doors than the heroes are, because while it may be a pain in the neck for a hero to get one of them open, for the enemies such a feat is nearly impossible, even if said door has already been unlocked. Many of them lie awake at night in fear that they may have to face a hero who has actually figured that out, because such a hero will inevitably make use of TacticalDoorUse.

* In the arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Mappy}}'', pictured above, your only defense against the cats chasing you is to open and close doors. For some reason, the cats knock themselves out every time they try opening a door, so the player can use doors strategically. Rainbow doors, which only the player and not the cats can open, unleashes a one-time shockwave that picks up any cat in its path and clears them off the screen temporarily.

* Subverted in ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''. Though the doors are indestructible, humanoid enemies are typically smart enough to turn the knob. DoubleSubverted in ''{{Morrowind}}'', where casting a Lock spell fixes that problem. PC players in ''Morrowind'', ''{{Oblivion}}'', and ''{{Skyrim}}'' can also use console cheats to do the same thing.

* Very effective version in {{Diablo}} I: closing doors will stop certain demons in their tracks. Combine this with a grate nearby that allows you to shoot through to the other side of the door, and soon you've got a pile of dead demons lying on the other side of said door.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life|1}}'' mod ''CryOfFear'' uses the ResidentEvil model... except on occasion, an enemy will simply break down the door, causing a pretty big JumpScare and incidentally connecting two sections of the level together.

* Very effective version in {{Diablo}} I: Closing doors will stop certain demons in their tracks. Combine this with a grate nearby that allows you to shoot through to the other side of the door, and soon you've got a pile of dead demons lying on the other side of said door.

[[quoteright:330:[[VideoGame/{{Mappy}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mappy_In-Game_5423.png]]]]

Nearly all video game protagonists stand in awe, fear and wonder at the nigh-indestructible nature of the common wooden door. But what few of them realize is that their enemies also hold the same feelings of alien terror and incomprehension for them. In fact, most of them are even more afraid of these doors than the heroes are, because while it may be a pain in the neck for a hero to get one of them open, for the enemies such a feat is nearly impossible, even if said door has already been unlocked. Many of them lie awake at night in fear that they may have to face a hero who has actually figured that out, because such a hero will inevitably make use of Tactical Door Use.

* ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}'' starts using this trope in the second game. The enemies you face are incapable of interacting with doors in any way, and what with doors being, well, doors, they're extremely plentiful, and on the higher difficulties they can be exceedingly useful.
* In VideoGame/DungeonsOfDredmor, doors separate every room from every other room. And with the exception of the locked ones you chose to kick down rather than unlock, all of them can be closed again with ease. Since this is a {{Roguelike}} game we're talking about, erecting an indestructible barrier between you and your enemies will very often save your life, especially if you encounter a dreaded Monster Zoo.
* This is a key tactic to surviving the levels in the VideoGame/Left4Dead series. If you happen to wait too long in the safe house before venturing out into the new area, eventually the AI director will send a horde after you, but they can't get past the door, and lets you kill them off through the barred window. A good wait to rack up kill points for achievements or what-have-you. Elsewhere in the levels, you can close doors to temporarily prevent the zombies from attacking you, but this forces them to either seek out another entrance or eventually break the door down.
* It's not actually used in the game, but many custom maps for {{Warcraft}} 3 give you the ability to open and close gates at your convenience.
** Zigzagged in StarcraftII: many natural obstacles are present that can be used this way, but the AI will now attack them as well to open up units for attack. The Terran's Supply Depot building can be sunk into the ground and walked on, allowing for a variant of this trope (if the enemy is stupid enough to let his troops get separated).
* While the enemies in the isometric ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games can ''open'' doors, they cannot ''unlock'' them. Which means if you are going to be initiating a fight where the enemies are divided into different rooms, you can use your lockpicks to isolate them into neat little cells where you can brutally dispatch them at your leisure. You can also use this with undamaged force fields, and in the first game, at least, to protect your woefully fragile and suicidal companions from powerful enemies.
* In the ''Retaliation'' add-on for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' multiplayer, this option was added to the Firebase Reactor map. The players can now trap enemies inside the eponymous reactor by sealing its doors just as it is about to overheat, killing everyone still inside.
* In FTLFasterThanLight you can upgrade your ship's doors to be nigh-indestructible. If enemy boarders teleport onto your ship, just lock them out of your vital systems and open all doors between them and the vacuum of space...no more boarders.
* Many creatures in ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'' are incapable of opening doors. If the randomly generated dungeon is kind to you, you might find a room that you can run to, close the door, and heal up. Opening up the door again gives you the benefit of fighting the monsters one on one as they come at you. With all the numerous items in the game, sometimes you can come across wands of door summoning, which creates a door for you. Doors can be destroyed, but most monsters don't have the capabilities to do so. Sentient creatures would sooner open the door than destroy it. However, whether enemies can eat through the walls surrounding the door is another matter altogether.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'', many low-level enemies, including notorious ExplosiveBreeders, can be trapped behind doors. Most later enemies can just bash down doors, though one can jam them with iron spikes to make that harder.
* Quite often in ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' one can back in and back out of the doorway, letting it take the enemies' shots.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'', you can often escape enemies chasing you by exiting through the door. They will not follow between rooms but sometimes might hit you a few times inside the door before you get the next one. Backing in-and-out of them is not so useful because walking through the doorway resets each room. The exception, however, is Space Pirates in ''Zero Mission'', who can still follow you from room to room, keeping up the chase.
** The SAX in ''Metroid Fusion'' will chase the player between rooms as well.
* ''EmpireOfTheOvermind''. Monsters can open doors but not unlock them. Certain locations have doors which can be closed and locked. If you can lure a monster into the location, you can go outside and close and lock the door, trapping the monster inside the area. One such location has a respawn point where monster re-appear after being killed. If you close and lock the door, you can kill the monsters and they'll respawn inside the room.

* ''CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'' has you do this in an early sequence of the game, desperately locking doors behind you and trying to find a way out.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' zigzags this one. Wooden doors cannot be locked, while iron ones have one built in because they need power to open or close. Villagers can go through wooden doors at their leisure, sometimes making them TooDumbToLive. Zombies alone of the hostile mobs can use doors... as in, they'll break down wooden doors given enough time.
* ''Door Door'', one of Enix's first games, was entirely about trapping enemies behind doors. Enemies would march right inside if a door was opened in the right direction, and any door they were trapped behind would never reopen.
* Averted in ''SilentHill4''. Walter isn't balked by silly things such as doors--in fact, he even chases you across ''screen transitions''!
* In ''DwarfFortress'' the [[NonEntityGeneral player]] can instantly lock or unlock any door in the fortress, without any dwarf under the player's control having to actually walk up to the door to effect the change. And any goblins sieging the fortress [[TheAllSeeingAI will instantly become aware of the change in the doors, even if they can't see the doors in question]]. Combine that with [[ArtificialStupidity the fact that the goblins aren't that smart]], and will always choose the shortest route possible into the fort, and the player can manipulate the goblins into marching back and forth across a DeathTrap strewn corridor by repeatedly locking and unlocking a door.

Nearly all video game protagonists stand in awe, fear and wonder at the nigh-indestructible nature of the common wooden door. But what few of them realize is that their enemies also hold the same feelings of alien terror and incomprehension for them. In fact, most of them are even more afraid of these doors than the heroes are, because while it may be a pain in the neck for a hero to get one of them open, for the enemies such a feat is nigh impossible, even if said door has already been unlocked. Many of them lie awake at night in fear that they may have to face a hero who has actually figured that out, because such a hero will inevitably make use of Tactical Door Use.

* In DungeonsOfDredmor, doors separate every room from every other room. And with the exception of the locked ones you chose to kick down rather than unlock, all of them can be closed again with ease. Since this is a {{Roguelike}} game we're talking about, erecting an indestructible barrier between you and your enemies will very often save your life, especially if you encounter a dreaded Monster Zoo.

* Averted in SilentHill4. Walter isn't balked by silly things such as doors--in fact, he even chases you across ''screen transitions''!

* ''ResidentEvil'''s early installments used this, with loading screens between rooms.

* Many creatures in VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery are incapable of opening doors. If the randomly generated dungeon is kind to you, you might find a room that you can run to, close the door, and heal up. Opening up the door again gives you the benefit of fighting the monsters one on one as they come at you. With all the numerous items in the game, sometimes you can come across wands of door summoning, which creates a door for you. Doors can be destroyed, but most monsters don't have the capabilities to do so. Sentient creatures would sooner open the door than destroy it. However, whether enemies can eat through the walls surrounding the door is another matter altogether.

* In {{VideoGame/Metroid}}, you can often escape enemies chasing you by exiting through the door. They will not follow between rooms but sometimes might hit you a few times inside the door before you get the next one. Backing in-and-out of them is not so useful because walking through the doorway resets each room. The exception, however, is Space Pirates in ''Zero Mission'', who can still follow you from room to room, keeping up the chase.
** The SAX in Fusion will chase the player between rooms as well.

* Completely averted in ''DarkSouls''. Either the enemies can just walk straight through after you, or it's a boss door and something worse is on the other side. If you're really unlucky, both.

* This is a key survival tactic in ''AmnesiaTheDarkDescent''. Though the enemies can and will batter the doors down, blocking doors can give you crucial time to escape or find a good hiding place.

* ''{{Minecraft}}'' zigzags this one. Wooden doors cannot be locked, while iron ones have one built in because they need power to open or close. Villagers can go through wooden doors at their leisure, sometimes making them TooDumbToLive. Zombies alone of the hostile mobs can use doors... as in, they'll break down wooden doors given enough time.

[[quoteright:330:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mappy_In-Game_5423.png]]

EXAMPLES:

* ''{{Minecraft}}'' zigzags this one. Wooden doors cannot be locked, while iron ones have one built in because they need power to open or close. Villagers can go through wooden doors at their leisure, sometimes making them TooDumbToLive. Zombies alone of the hostile mobs can use doors... as in, they'll break down wooden doors given enough time.

* In DungeonsOfDredmor, doors separate every room from every other room. And with the exception of the locked ones you chose to kick down rather than unlock, all of them can be closed again with ease. Since this is a Roguelike game we're talking about, erecting an indestructible barrier between you and your enemies will very often save your life, especially if you encounter a dreaded Monster Zoo.

** Zigzagged in StarcraftII: many natural obstacles are present that can be used this way, but the AI will now attack them as well to open up units for attack. The Terran's Supply Depot building can be sunk into the ground and walked on, allowing for a variant of this trope (if the enemy is stupid enough to let his troops get seperated).

* In the arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Mappy}}'', your only defense against the cats chasing you is to open and close doors. For some reason, the cats knock themselves out every time they try opening a door, so the player can use doors strategically. Rainbow doors, which only the player and not the cats can open, unleashes a one-time shockwave that picks up any cat in its path and clears them off the screen temporarily.

* ''ResidentEvil'''s early instalments used this, with loading screens between rooms.

* ''CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'' has you do this in an early sequence of the game, desperately locking doors behind you and trying to find a way out.