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You'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

"Hey! Do you know what you just did? You've taken your first step into KANTO. Check your POKéGEAR MAP and see."

You're playing a nonlinear game. You find a door. You go through the door. You're now greeted with awesome new, adrenaline-pumping music, a whole new set of tiles and graphics, and weird enemies unlike any you've ever seen before. Except all those goodies are trapped behind a wall, and you don't have the key to open it yet, or the ability needed to make it through the first room. Or maybe you just stumbled onto a Door to Before from the wrong direction. You can't go anywhere! It was all a tease!

Done frequently in older games, sometimes just as a result of one map needing to borrow some space from another map, and showing you the new graphics and music for that other world in the process long before you're even supposed to explore it. But what it does do is give you a memorable impression of that new area and make you want to go there. If you're lucky, you might be able to treat this limited area as a Peninsula of Power Leveling and fight some Random Encounters for fun and profit.

Compare Disconnected Side Area, Double Unlock, Final Dungeon Preview.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Action-Adventure 
  • In ANNO: Mutationem, Dr. Doyle's lab has a locked door with a hall leading into a backroom and anytime Ann tries to enter it, Doyle requests that she doesn't interrupt his research. It's not until much later that Ann discovers Doyle was hiding information from her regarding Ryan, and proceeds to discover an underground facility.
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
    • In the first game, the room used to unlock Click Clock Wood can be accessed as soon as the player collects 50 Notes from the first level, and shares the area's music and forest theme. However, the platform used to insert Jiggies is missing until the player activates a switch at Click Clock Wood's actual entrance, towards the end of the game.
    • Banjo-Tooie has almost every world linked to another via some sort of secret tunnel, which are necessary to get certain Jiggies. You can use some of these to get a sneak peak at worlds you haven't unlocked yet, but you can never get far before you've unlocked the world proper; in many cases, these are just Disconnected Side Areas, though. Also, to get into the main area of Grunty Industries, you first have to depress the train switch, then get in there by way of Chuffy (which means a Boss Battle if you haven't already beaten it).
  • Castlevania:
    • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has multiple examples:
      • When you first get access to the Clock Tower area, you can trigger the area title card and listen to the awesome music known as "The Tragic Prince", but you will find yourself unable to cross the crumbling bridge to get into actual Clock Tower proper. You'll need to come back here with the ability to cross huge gaps.
      • Alucard arrive at the Castle Keep from the Cathedral towers. You can only explore the lower area of it to get the Leap Stone. Later, you'll enter from the Clock Tower higher up and should have the ability to explore the higher areas due to either having the bat form, a longer lasting mist form, or the high jump.
      • It's possible to enter the Colosseum area from the wrong side, but all you'll get is the music and a preview screen of the area — you'll be blocked by being on the wrong side of a one-way gate, and the title card won't appear.
    • In Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, it's actually pretty likely for players to enter the sewers pretty early on. However, this entry is the exit, and a gigantic wall blocks them from making any progress beyond the door.
    • Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a bit of an unusual example in that the player isn't exactly aware of entering anyplace significantly different. After acquiring the ability to slide in the Shrine of Apostates, Juste will return to the Corridor of Marble and find a teleport room. After using it, the player only gets a cryptic "This room looks the same, but its aura is different..." After exploring the Castle Treasury, the Skeleton Cave, and the Luminous Cavern, Juste will find another teleport room much like the first. When finding the REAL warp rooms that teleport you to other places in the castle, Juste will meet up with Death who explains that there's not just one, but TWO castles to explore. At this point, the maps for castle A and B become available and the player learns that the first transportation took them to Castle B, where they explored the Treasury, Cave, and Caverns before. The only clue of this being anyplace different from before is that it appears to be daytime in the background there as opposed to night and the fact that the difficulty seems to spike a bit.
    • In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Soma can enter the bottom-most room of the Top Floor from the Living Quarters. As you don't have the Giant Bat soul to fly yet, you can't progress any higher. You'll have to come back at the end of the game after defeating Balore in the Arena.
    • In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Soma can enter the first room of the Silenced Ruins, a level that's a call-back to the first level of the very first game in the series, from the Subterranean Hell while exploring. However, as Soma enters, a cannon fires at the pillars in the way and time freezes. The second pillar contains an image of a rabbit, recognizable to those who played Aria as the Chronomage. You won't get any further than this (or even see the title card) until you find a soul with powers over time itself.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, it's possible to travel to San Fierro and Las Venturas before they've been officially unlocked (you just can't get there by road). However, until you progress far enough in the storyline, there's nothing to do there except look at the scenery and run from the hordes of murderous cops — did we not mention the four-star wanted level you get the moment you skip town?
  • Hollow Knight pulls this many times:
    • A path at the bottom of the Forgotten Crossroads leads to a locked elevator that is a Door to Before from the much later City of Tears.
    • The upper-right exit from Greenpath leads to a preview of Howling Cliffs, but you can't go any further until you have the Mantis Claw.
    • The main shaft of Fog Canyon may be passed through on the way to Fungal Wastes, but for the side areas, including the one where the map merchant is, and the path to the Queen's Gardens, you need Isma's Tear to protect yourself from the acid.
    • Two entrances to Crystal Peak are found at the upper-right corner of the Crossroads. One requires the Desolate Dive earned from defeating Soul Master in the aforementioned City of Tears, while the other requires the Lumafly Lantern, which can be purchased early on if you grind out enough Geo. You still won't be able to access several areas without the Mantis Claw and Monarch Wings, though.
    • The Moss Prophet's hideout, found from the lower-left exit of the Fungal Wastes after acquiring the Mantis Claw, provides a sneak peak of the aforementioned Queen's Gardens, but the barrier separating it from the rest of the dungeon is only breakable from the other side.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda (NES): A foreboding music not heard anywhere else plays. You can't go more than 2 rooms in without the full Triforce of Wisdom.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: The Great Palace, with its golden tiles and music if you were unfortunate enough to have marched all the way up there without having placed all the crystals in their corresponding spots. Or even unlocked the penultimate palace (let alone gotten the item from there, which would have made the trip to the Great Palace much easier).
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Your first glimpse of the Dark World is as a bunny on the dark Death Mountain, just before entering the Tower of Hera. Just open the map.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:
      • You can reach Gerudo Valley as soon as you finish the first dungeon... but due to Broken Bridge in the form of a guard not letting the player enter as a child, you can't enter it for real until much later as an adult, after which there's a literal Broken Bridge that can be easily crossed after getting a horse to jump over the gap (which can be done before setting foot in the first adult dungeon).
      • Goron City may first be discovered via a side path in The Lost Woods, which is blocked by a boulder barricade that you need Bombs to clear.
      • The game also inverts this with Dodongo's Cavern, which is the only child dungeon that can be entered as an adult without requiring a glitch or hacking, and as an adult the only new thing to do is collect some Gold Skulltula Tokens that, for some reason, only appear there when Link is an adult.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has Ikana Canyon, where you can enter (and explore the graveyard located near the entrance), but only explore in full after receiving both the Hookshot and the Ice Arrows. And even before that you can see the dungeon located there, Stone Tower, from almost anywhere on Termina.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the passage to the Snow Province is unlocked as soon as you remove the Twilight from Zora's Domain, but an impenetrable blizzard prevents you from proceeding past the first screen until you complete a Chain of Deals assigned during the Mirror of Twilight quest arc.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: First, upon completing the puzzle that opens the entry to the Ocean Temple, a big desert with a great pyramid can be seen in the distance. Then, after completing the Temple, a giant statue is facing away from you, and shortly after you can spot a train station on an island you cannot reach yet. The pyramid is the Sand Temple, which you will only visit much, much later after completing the Disc-One Final Dungeon, the statue is part of the puzzle to open it, and the train station is the Pirate Hideout that is only needed for a sidequest.
  • Metroid:
    • Norfair from Super Metroid and Magmoor Caverns from Metroid Prime do this, complete with the tense, brooding music. But as soon as you step outside of the elevator rooms, you'll be greeted by a blast of heat that drains your health quickly as you stand in it. You have to go back and get the Varia Suit (unless you don't mind some risky Sequence Breaking). Later, after getting the Ice Beam, the nearby elevator deposits you in the Overworld near the crashed Frigate Orpheon, which you can enter with said Beam. But once you try to traverse the flooded reactor core, you'll hit a dead end and be instructed to find the Gravity Suit back in Phendrana Drifts. Also, the Chozo Ruins South elevator near the aforementioned Ice Beam and East elevator leads to the Great Tree Hall on the other side of the Frigate, but the gate to the lower half of the hall is locked from the other side, the blue door is only reachable via platforms that you need the X-Ray Visor to see, and the tunnel behind the upper white door, which leads to said Visor and an Artifact, is blocked by a Bendezium barrier, for which you need the Power Bombs from the Phazon Mines.
    • Metroid:
      • The entrance to Kraid's Lair is the second room you enter in the game, but you can't access it until you get the Morph Ball Bombs. Likewise, only a small section of Norfair is accessible without bombs.
      • The room leading to Tourian is accessible early on, but Kraid and Ridley have to be killed to activate the bridge allowing access to its entrance.
    • In Super Metroid, there's also the glass pipe that leads you through a section of Maridia, but exploding the pipe requires Power Bombs, and you won't get those until much later.
    • In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, you can access Elysia as soon as you leave the G.F.S. Olympus for the second time. You get to see the beautiful steampunk city in the sky and all its majesty... for two rooms. The second room contains Phazon growths that can only be destroyed by the Hyper Ball, which is obtained by defeating the Bryyo Seed boss. Even if you somehow got through that, the next area can only be traversed with the Grapple Beam.
    • Metroid Fusion has Sector 5, which unlocks after opening Lvl 2 Locks in Sector 3 and acquiring the Super Missiles. While Adam warns you against going to Sector 5 due to the metroid vaccine causing Samus to take extreme damage from cold until she gets the Varia Suit, there's nothing stopping you from going there. You can only go through a few uninteresting rooms with a couple enemies before entering the sector proper...which will see Samus's energy plummet like standing in superheated rooms in Sector 3.
  • In The Adventures of Rad Gravity, Volcania, one of the first planets accessible after Cyberia, is the second-to-last planet you'll be completing, since the Teleport Beacon is required to enter the underground area.
  • In Rogue Legacy, it's entirely possible to stumble into the hardest section of the game with a low-level character. Enjoy the new tile set and music while you can because, oops, you're already dead. There are also teleporters that dump you into a random section of the game with no way back that can function as this.
  • Tomb Raider II has a spot in the Catacombs of the Talion where Lara has to pull a lever. Nearby, however, is a set of bars that looks out into the very final segment of the Ice Palace level, the very next level.

    Adventure 

    First-Person Shooter 
  • Halo 2: At the beginning of some levels, such as Delta Halo and Uprising, you can see the structures that are part of the next level.
  • In Pathways into Darkness, Happy Happy, Carnage Carnage" has a hidden teleporter that drops you in an inescapable deathtrap room on "Don't Get Poisoned!", a much later level.

    MMORPG 
  • World of Warcraft has a bit of this in some of the Burning Crusade dungeons. Most notably, by looking straight down at the floor in the final chamber of the Blood Furnace, you can get a glimpse of Magtheridon's Lair. Also, there's a scrying device in Magister's Terrace that shows you a bit of the Sunwell Plateau.
  • Guild Wars 2 has the Super Adventure Box festival which is split in six zones. At the end of each zone a glimpse of the next zone can be seen. There was also a now-removed secret quest which allowed a preview of the seventh zone which remains unreleased.

    Platform 
  • The Licensed Game of The Addams Family for the SNES, also a Metroidvania, teases you with the Music Room, which contains a locked door leading to the Basement that only opens after all of the family members are rescued.
  • In Blaster Master: Overdrive, you can reach the entrance to Area 4 with the Anchor Kit you obtain from the first boss, but other than picking up an Energy upgrade, you can't do anything there until you have the Drill Kit to break the blocks.
  • In Fe, the first map area that you traverse after the Hub Level, which includes the cave where you first meet the Silent Ones, has a large sub-region that is unreachable at this time, and is also visible from the Lizard/Snake zone. This is actually where the Owl drops Fe off for the Playable Epilogue after the credits, but it can be reached from the exit of the aforementioned cave as soon as you learn the Snakes' song, which activates the springboard plants.
  • La-Mulana:
    • You can enter a side area of the Twin Labyrinths (where an important item can be bought) fairly early in the game, but the passages to the main area are blocked off. The entrance to the main area is gained slightly later, but you are instantly confronted with a Deadly Gas trap that can only be disabled by activating two switches in thirty seconds. You can do this only much later, once you've found the Twin Statue.
    • Another area which can be entered early on is the Endless Corridor, but you can only play the first level (which at least does have the useful Grail Point). Not until about halfway through the game can you get the Endless Key, which unlocks the lower levels (where you can get the aforementioned Twin Statue).
  • Ori and the Blind Forest:
    • You can open the passage to the Valley of the Wind as soon as you get the Charge Flame ability in Hollow Grove, but the Grimy Water, Spikes of Doom, and in the Updated Re-release, a Ground Pound-activated gate, preclude further progress at this point in the game.
    • In the first half of Thornfelt Swamp, you can catch a brief glimpse of the second half that you can't access until after the Ginso Tree, along with an Energy Cell that can't be collected until much later still.
    • The path to Mount Horu is accessible once you have the Bash and Stomp abilities from the Ginso Tree and Thornfelt Swamp respectively, but you can't enter the dungeon until you have the Sunstone from Sorrow Pass, which you get a sneak preview of when confronting Kuro at the Valley of the Wind.
    • Sorrow Pass proper can only be accessed by gliding with Kuro's Feather once you have restored the Element of Winds in the Forlorn Ruins, for which you need the Gumon Seal and Climb ability from the Misty Woods. Unless you utilize a certain Sequence Breaking technique.
    • The entrance to the Updated Re-release's Bonus Dungeon is right next to the first Spirit Well near the start of the game, and can be reached early on with the Wall Jump, but to access and explore the second half, you need the Stomp and other skills learned later. There's also a Door to Before leading to Gumo's Hideout that may be happened upon from the wrong direction.
  • Ori and the Will of the Wisps:
    • The entrances to Baur's Reach and Mouldwood Depths can be found during Act I, but are closed off until Act II. Likewise, you can get a brief glimpse of Luma Pools after activating the Wellspring, as well as find the back side of a Door to Before from the former to Inkwater Marsh after learning Bash. There is an exploit to get into Luma Pools proper early, but doing so can break the game and render it unwinnable.
    • Upon completing Act I, you can visit the Windswept Wastes from Silent Woods, learn the Burrow ability, and acquire a few upgrades there, but can't enter the Windtorn Ruins until after clearing the other three middle-act dungeons.
  • Rayman had a particularly evil one. After fighting through a particularly frustrating world made of musical instruments, you open up a new level in a new area of the game, the Blue Mountains. This level has a stormy background, and a very dark and tense atmosphere, complete with an awesome, pulse-pounding rock theme, a type of music you haven't heard yet for the whole game... But you can't get past the initial cliff until you go back and complete the Dream Forest to get the ability to grab the purple rings.
  • In Sackboy: A Big Adventure, at The Soaring Summit and The Colossal Canopy, SackBoy can find Flower Cannons that respectively shoot him to the third and fourth worlds, The Kingdom of Crablantis and The Interstellar Junction. However, they're limited to a Disconnected Side Area in each one and can only play a small amount of levels exclusive to that area, so the cannons in the latter two worlds shoot SackBoy back to the first two, for reference.
  • Strider (NES): The first level has an impassable red wall, for which you need the Magnetic Boots from China, and doors marked S2 and S3, which require keys from later still levels. Better yet, one of the first data files you acquire grants access to Australia, but the way forward is blocked by an insurmountable spike pit until your jumping ability is upgraded much later in the game, along with a Locked Door requiring the S5 key from Los Angeles, unless you clip through the door by taking a hit from a nearby enemy. In turn, there's a whole Disconnected Side Area of Africa that can only reached through a tube found in Australia.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • In Super Mario Bros. 3, a hidden doorway in the second fortress of World 4 leads to a secret area that looks like it could be part of one of the pipe levels in World 7, with wrap-around screen edges, curved pipes, and arrow lifts. The music even switches to the Underground theme, and the All Stars version takes it even further with the same pipe-maze background the actual World 7 levels have.
    • Super Mario World:
      • At Yoshi's Island, there's a mountain containing the very first Switch Palace. Climbing it will lead into an overlook of the second world, Donut Plains, complete with its music.
      • The "Chocolate Secret" and "Donut Secret 2" levels take place on plateaus overlooking the Valley of Bowser. While "Chocolate Secret" is already pretty close to the end of the game, It's possible to get to "Donut Secret 2," thereby getting a glimpse at the game's final area, fairly early on.
      • There is also one within the title screen. The demo level that plays on the title screen is an actual level within the game, but all you can do is stare at it. The level itself is in the Special world, which you can't get to until a lot later.
    • In Super Mario Sunshine you can see many other locations in Delfino Island (like Bianco Hills, Ricco Harbor or Pina Park) well before visiting them; in fact you could very well reach them if not because the invisible walls confining each area. The only exception is Noki Bay, which seems to be completely hidden from the rest of the island up to that point, small portions of Noki Bay are visible from Pianta Village, but that's the last standard stage in the game.
    • In Super Mario Odyssey, many kingdoms are linked together via warp paintings. In some instances, a painting can lead you to a kingdom that you otherwise wouldn't yet have access to. However, visits to future kingdoms are typically restricted to a remote section of the level containing only a single Power Moon, meaning that you'll have no choice but to go back from where you came. That said, these paintings allow you to get an early glimpse of the Metro, Luncheon and Mushroom Kingdoms.
  • In the Macintosh platform beat-em-up Kung Fu Chivalry, an area from a much later level can be seen behind a wall in the second level.
  • An Untitled Story has a teleporter before you've beaten Shakespeare, which takes you to a sealed room in the SkyLands. The room contains one Heart Container and a teleporter back.

    Real Time Strategy 
  • Pikmin 4: The opening segment has the player controlling Olimar in what would become the fourth main area of the game, Hero's Hideaway. The whole kitchen portion is inaccessible. It is not until much later on in the game that the Rookie can reach Hero's Hideaway and fully explore the area.

    Role-Playing Game 
  • The first Baldur's Gate is an interesting example as the prologue of the game starts in Candlekeep, the Ward's home. Most everywhere is available to the player to explore with exception of the castle in the center of the map. Later on, in Chapter 6, Gorion's Ward and their party will pursue after the leaders of the Iron Throne here and finally be able to explore the castle in full, as well as the catacombs beneath Candlekeep during their escape.
  • Bug Fables: The Far Grasslands can be entered as soon as Chapter 3 when competing a quest allows you to enter it, but you won't be able to explore beyond two rooms until Chapter 5.
  • In Dragon Quest, the Very Definitely Final Dungeon is right across the strait from the starting castle. In Dragon Quest II, the starting town has a locked gate connecting to a later area.
  • EarthBound (1994):
    • The stonehedge base and the boss in the cavern are just a stone throw away. You can't even get past the first room in the base without the right equipment.
    • In the Sky Runner, Jeff gets a brief look at parts of Fourside and the Dusty Dunes Desert before crash-landing in Threed.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy: The series started doing this on the fourth game, with their more interconnected overworld maps.
    • Epic Battle Fantasy 4: It is possible to get a glimpse of Lankyroot Jungle, the fourth major area in the game, before even stepping foot in Ashwood Forest, the first. The river in the way blocks progressing further, as special boots for walking on lilypads are needed, which do not become available until much later in the game.
    • Epic Battle Fantasy 5: No Man's Land can be seen from the first area before defeating the first boss. From No Man's Land, it is also possible to see the Rainbow River an entire area's worth before being able to cross it. And within the Rainbow River itself, the bottom part of the east half shows bits of the final area's volcanic terrain.
  • Fallout:
    • In Fallout 3, the Brotherhood of Steel's Citadel is just halfway between Megaton and Rivet City, and you may pass by it while exploring, but you can't enter until after the Waters of Life quest, two thirds of the way through the story. In the Point Lookout expansion pack, the Lighthouse is accessible from the beginning, but the Underground Laboratory beneath it only unlocks once the DLC's last main quest is initiated, although the entrance can be seen on the map beforehand.
    • In Fallout: New Vegas, Hoover Dam, which has epic Orchestral Bombing music, is a short walk from Boulder City, where the game's first act concludes, and can be partially explored, but many areas are locked until the final battle. Also, the passage to the Divide is visible northwest of Primm in the vanilla game, but is blocked until the Lonesome Road expansion pack is downloaded.
    • Fallout 4:
      • At Fort Hagen, the elevator to the Command Center is boarded up and inaccessible until the "Reunions" story quest directs you there. A rooftop Door to Before is visible on the local map, but mag-locked from the inside. Similarly, the nearby Satellite Array can only be entered after a certain point in the Automatron DLC quest line.
      • The basement of Slocum's Joe near the Corvega Assembly Plant teases you with new music and an elevator behind a bookcase... which isn't functioning. This is actually the exit from the Switchboard, the Railroad's old base, which you enter through a different route during their first quest, "Tradecraft".
      • The Greenetech Genetics building is sealed off prior to the quest "Hunter/Hunted".
      • You can enter the Mass Fusion Building at any time to retrieve the Strength bobblehead, but you can't reach the basement or the Executive Suites section until you are teleported or airlifted to the rooftop during the Institute or Brotherhood of Steel endgame quests, after which you get a keycard to take the elevator down to ground level as well as access the basement.
      • In the Vault-Tec Workshop DLC, there are two Door to Before exits from Vault 88 that one may accidentally discover before reaching the main entrance.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy X:
      • You get a brief glimpse of the setting for the final battle when Tidus gets eaten by Sin at the very beginning of the game. And Jecht is waiting for Tidus in both cases.
      • The very first area Tidus will explore once he wakes up on Spira is a sunk and derelict temple, which the player can only return to much, much later in the game, and optionally even.
    • Final Fantasy XII: You can reach the optional part of Henne Mines through Feywood as soon as the completion of the Mjrn subplot. However, the junction road is blocked by a rock that won't disappear until you beat Zodiark, whose earliest access is granted after you beat Giruvegan.
    • Obtaining one of the spells in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest requires you to take a passage into an otherwise inaccessible section of Doom Castle. Long before you get to go there for real.
  • In Haven (2020), the first accessible path to Chogeko drops you in a Disconnected Side Area; to reach the rest of the islet, you have a much longer ways to go, which includes facing an Inescapable Ambush by Hornets.
  • Ikenfell: The map shows almost everywhere you will go to in the game. One particular place, the Ruins, is shown near the top left corner, and isn’t visited until about halfway through the game.
  • In Legacy of the Wizard, most of the time, upon discovering a new area, you'd be unable to progress very far because you have the wrong character.
  • At some point in Megami Tensei II, you can run around a statue to teleport to a small island in Makai where you can get a new sword and recruit Naga. It's only much later that you can access any other part of Makai.
  • In Miitopia, there's a path in the second world, Neksdor, which goes upwards/north on the world map and leads into the Powdered Peaks, but the path is a dead end - and the Powdered Peaks aren't even accessible until after defeating the Disc-One Final Boss.
  • Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: The city of Dundorma can be visited as soon as you reach Val Habar for the first time in Low Rank. You can fish in the pier and listen to a song in the Assembly, but that's it. None of the Caravan's characters will appear here until after you've completed the Low Rank's Story Arc, since the quests you accept here are exclusive to High Rank. Also, the Elder Hall is off-limits until you've completed all key and urgent quests from Val Habar's Gathering Hall, as the quests accepted in the Elder Hall itself are exclusive to G Rank.
  • Pokémon:
    • The first time you see the map of Kanto in Pokémon Gold and Silver, which you can do early enough in the game, might qualify. Not only you can't explore this second region in its entirety yet, you can't even select much on your map, as the cursor only goes through routes 26, 27, and 28 (the last of which is actually at the very end of the game), the Victory Road and the League HQ (leading the gamer to think that the other areas are on the map just for the show). It's only after you beat the league that you can travel there. On the side note, the Silver Cave is visible on your map from the start, without any discernible paths leading to it, though this is simply because Mt. Silver is part of the game's main region of Johto despite being directly connected to Kanto. The remakes, which allow the map screen's cursor to be moved freely, mention Kanto before it's even visited if the cursor is moved to the eastern side of the map (such as the part of the map close to Mt. Silver, which the map still initially displays no path to) because the map screen displays the region the selected area is in. In addition, the first visit to Kanto only has the map display the pre-league part of Kanto and Route 28 (which, again, is at the end of the game, but at least shows how to get to Mt. Silver) until after the rest is unlocked, after which the whole region is displayed.
    • The first set of the Kanto remakes, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, have a sidequest in three of the new Sevii Islands areas after the next-to-last badge is obtained. There are actually seven islands in total (or nine when counting the two event-only islands that aren't displayed without the items needed to go there), and the others can't be visited until the Elite Four are defeated.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, there is a warp pipe that connects Land's End to Kero Sewers. You are meant to travel through this pipe from the Land's End side, as it is too high to jump up to in Kero Sewers. However, by engaging in a battle with a nearby Boo, then running away, it is possible to stand on the Boo during its Mercy Invincibility, allowing you to use it as a makeshift platform, from which you can jump up to the pipe. Upon warping to Land's End, you will not get very far, as the section only functions as an exit, and a Shy Away will tell you to turn back. There is another Shy Away here you can actually fight, although his party will likely be able to make short work of yours if you came here early and unprepared. The intended use of this pipe is to reach a block in Kero Sewers that contains Cricket Jam (a sidequest item). However, the block will only contain a Frog Coin if accessed via the Boo method; the Cricket Jam will only appear in the block if you came through the sewers via Land's End, regardless of whether or not you already got the Frog Coin earlier on.
    • Mario & Luigi:
    • Paper Mario:
      • Paper Mario 64: It is possible to enter Forever Forest, the first area in Chapter 3, before even stepping foot in Chapter 2. However, only the first room can be explored before an NPC blocks off the rest of the area, requiring a story event that will not happen until after Chapter 2 is completed to get past him.
      • In Paper Mario: The Origami King, when the path is blocked by boulder, Bobby decides the only way to help her is to go back to a cruise ship named The Princess Peach and get a fuse. To do this, Mario and him find a boat and go out to the ship. The sea they're on will constitute the majority of the Purple Streamer, but Mario can't reach that streamer yet due to a fog, and he only gains the ability to clear the fog after he breaks the yellow streamer.
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, you very briefly pass through the Bionis' Interior early in the game, and it's just a narrow corridor leading to the next area with absolutely nothing in it but a single NPC. You can tell that there's far more to this area by the fact that it has a page in the Collectopedia despite there being no items there, and your map being nowhere near finished. Only at the very end of this long game are you finally able to explore this area in its entirety.
  • Ys:
  • The first level in Zeliard requires you to pass through a portion of the second level (which is separated from the rest of that level), in a game where levels are defined by tileset and music.

    Survival Horror 
  • Resident Evil – Code: Veronica has many rooms that are visible while playing as Claire during the first act, but are not accessible until the second, where you switch to Chris; for example, one hallway in the Training Facility is blocked by Deadly Gas that can't be ventilated until Act 2, and part of a storage room in the Antarctic Base is blocked by fire, for which you need to refill the Extinguisher at a tank only accessible by Chris.
  • If you're following one of the early sidequests in The Evil Within 2, you'll access The Marrow earlier than normal, before Sebastian is even introduced to what it is and how it works. You'll only access a small area of it, the Armory, however, finding your first shotgun here. Later, after completing everything in Union and needing to get to the City Hall, you'll return to The Marrow for real and explore it more in depth throughout the rest of the game.

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