No Sidepaths No Exploration No Freedom - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Pipe Shooter; No Sidepaths

Hmmm, which way do I go?

Just as a gamemaster in a tabletop game may create artificial rules, boundaries and obstacles to keep his players on the game track that he has designated (a procedure known as Rail Roading), so too a video game may employ such tactics in order to force the player down a specific path or method toward the goal. And one of the easiest ways to keep a player from wandering off is, quite simply, to give the player nowhere to wander to.

Technically, No Sidepaths No Exploration No Freedom is the polar opposite of the Wide Open Sandbox; it describes level architecture which forces the player down a singular path. This trope is most common in First- or Third Person Shooters (except, usually, tactical shooters) and platform games, wherein the challenge is generally supposed to be the enemies and/or obstacles, not in figuring out which way to go. It can also crop up in RPG's as a very visual form of Rail Roading. The trope does not apply to 2D Platform Games such as Super Mario Bros, which allow only forward progression due entirely to the limitations of the ~~graphics~~ geometry; it only applies in situations where, intuitively, you'd think there might be other areas of a place to explore, but these are not implemented because they are not plot-important.

The most common incarnation is to simply have several rooms chained, each with a single entrance and a single exit, or to have long corridors with no side branches and few if any side rooms. The only options for progress are "forward" or "backward". This applies even when the rooms are tightly packed together and should have (you'd think) some degree of interconnectivity; imagine living in a New Orleans shotgun house

, where you have to travel from the front porch into the living room, then through the kitchen, to the dining room, through the spare bedroom, and finally into the den, just to get to the bathroom. Every time you wanted to go to the bathroom. No shortcuts.

Note that these layouts do not necessarily preclude entirely the presence of side rooms or hidey holes. However, these are usually just little culs-de-sac with a weapon, power-up or treasure chest, or maybe a switch to allow continuation down the main path.

This is becoming much more common these days, what with the enormous graphical detail of modern level design limiting the number of paths that can be made at the required quality. A popular method for enforcing this type of level architecture these days is by the use of Locked Doors, which adds a bit of verisimilitude by suggesting that, yes, other areas do normally exist in this location, but due to game constraints you won't be going in there. Or, such doors could possibly be unlocked from the other side, once you find your way in the hard way.

In the 3d shooter genre, games that prominently feature this kind of architecture are sometimes called "Corridor Shooters".

Please keep in mind that this trope is about level architecture, not the linearity or specificity of objectives.

Railroading is the Super Trope.

Examples

Most of Makeruna! Makendou Z, with the exception of the jungle towards the end (where you could end up going in circles). Only one item pickup in the game, and you can't even revisit old areas. It's even mentioned in the review
This was a complaint leveled at Final Fantasy X, as it was the first game in the series not to feature a World Map.
- It also had very tube-like pathways, even in places like forests, with strictly controlled camerawork, featured a disturbingly linear path through the vast bulk of the game's landmass, and even through corridor-like villages, and even featuring a minimap that literally tells you which way down the one giant path to go to finish the game. The temples you have to stop at are also just rest stops along the predetermined path. There is, however, one notable wide-open field near the end of the game/long corridor.
  - ...Which turns out to be nothing more than a temporary bulge in the linear path, as you can reach it from exactly one location (Macalania Forest, the previous destination) and it leads to exactly one location (Mt. Gagazet, your next objective).
- Final Fantasy XII fixed this: there's no overworld, but starting at about an hour into the game, you can go pretty much anywhere. Visit massive underground dungeons, map out the entire desert and explore new cities, find hidden Espers in the caverns, romp around a bit in the south, take three entirely different routes to the north, explore the zombie marshlands and the Bonus Dungeon while you're supposed to be playing hide and seek with moogles in a rope bridge forest... when it comes to railroading, FFXII basically did everything right that FFX did wrong. (... Too bad the actual dungeons are terrible.)
  - That, and straying into said caverns and dungeons can lead to you being utterly annihilated by the high-level monsters that call the location home. The Feywood, with its Golems and Mirror Knights, springs somewhat readily to mind.
- Even in the Final Fantasy games with world maps, however, it's seldom possible (until you get the Global Airship, that is), to travel to any destination besides where you just came from or where you're meant to go next.
- The only Final Fantasy game that gives you total freedom of exploration at the start is Final Fantasy II, and even then, accomplishing that is a feat in itself.
- The biggest complaint leveled towards the new Final Fantasy XIII is this trope. Apparently, the first 6 hours of the game (NSFW news website) take place literally in a trio of dungeons with no side rooms, no side quests, no one to talk to, etc. Literally, you walk forward for 6 hours fighting a couple bosses every dozen screens or so. Shopping is done at save points (which is nice, considering the game lacks towns), etc etc. The first non-linear, "don't just walk forward" path break is 20 hours in.
  - And the hyper-linearity of XIII was done in response to fan complains about XII being "too open." They may have taken it too far in the other direction, though...
Surprisingly common in games based on the Star Wars franchise:
- Shadows Of The Empire was notorious for this; its depiction of Echo Base on Hoth was literally a long hallway leading from the starting point to the ending point, with only a couple of side rooms at the beginning (admittedly, there is one alternate corridor early on, but it quickly loops back in and joins the main path forthwith). And the other levels in that game fared no better.
- The Lego Star Wars games do this as well; we can forgive them, though, because the real gimmick is the Lego characters. And the humor. Lego Indiana Jones has it as well, but with some hidden rooms in-between.
- The Jedi Knight series often uses the Locked Door / Door To Before method of forcing you to take the long way around. Lampshaded in Jedi Academy.
- Jedi Power Battles, in classic platformer style.
- Knights Of The Old Republic averts this, however.
  - Compared to previous Bioware titles like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights? Each area is very spartan and compact, there's a single path through each one, and planets (the only major choice the player has) are completely self-contained.
  - Seconded. Bioware's games tend to be false-sandboxes; quite linear with a little bit of random wandering within each link of the chain. They're still not quite this bad, though (yet).
- The somewhat dubious on-foot and in-walker sections of the Rogue Squadron sequels feature this - on levels like Jabba's sail barge, it's reasonably forgivable given that they're fairly limited environments. But on the various levels where you're progressing through large facilities or ships (like Hoth Station, or Yavin Base) or planets like Dagobah or the Hoth exterior level, it's a bit more irksome. Part of the walker sections become literal on-rails shooters, too. A few of the ship-based levels are similar.
This criticism has also been leveled at both Star Trek Elite Force games.
Half Life, like the Jedi Knight games, usually justifies this with such things as collapsed ceilings, Broken Bridges and Locked Doors. The justification loses any credibility after the Nth invocation.
- According to some Epileptic Trees, the strictly linear gameplay of the game is an actual story theme, representing Gordon's powerlessness as he is forced to take the path the G-Man has planned for him. Also, note the ubiquity of trains and other rail vehicles throughout the series.
  - Maybe not so epileptic, seeing as how it's lampshaded with varying degrees of subtly and blatancy throughout the franchise.
  - In Opposing Force, you can actually see the G-Man closing the door or otherwise impeding your progress (though at one point he kindly unlocks a door for you). Also, on the topic of Rail Roading, note that the only game that doesn't begin on a train thus far, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, is the one in which the G-Man loses control of Gordon.
Halo.
- Especially the second game, which cruelly uses instant-death barriers to prevent shortcutting. Although, ironically, it starts to move away from the Copy And Paste Environments of the first game. It does fall back on this in levels such as Sacred Icon, aka The Library II.
- Assault on the Control Room: Hallway, bridge, hallway, nondescript circular room, hallway, canyon, hallway, underground room, hallway, canyon, ad nauseum. Complete with the usual Copy And Paste Environments. It doesn't help that it's the longest level.
- The Library. A series of long, identical, Flood-infested, albeit spacious, hallways.
- Halo 3: In the final battle against the Prophet, you have one long hallway to the battle, one long hallway back.
  - Although it was as chaotic as a long walkway can ever be.
- Quarantine Zone, especially the vehicle sections, is one big gauntlet, ie sticking around to fight the enemies will just get you killed repeatedly.
- Crow's Nest is somewhat this, but has an unusual amount of Backtracking.
The very end of Metroid Prime, where Samus has to chase Metroid Prime through a long series of chambers to kill it; each room has one entrance and one exit, and there's no way to go back through the entrance once inside.
- The rest of Metroid Prime averts this, though. In fact, averts it to the point of annoyingness.
Subverted in Super Mario World: It's 2D, so you'd think it's just a straight path to the exit. No, it has up and down, and entire hidden levels.
- Such things are surprisingly common in pretty much any 2D platformer since Super Mario Bros 2…
The demo game that used to come with the RPG Toolkit Lampshaded this; doors were noted to be locked, and then commented that it was probably because the programmer was too lazy to make another room.
The regrettably forgettable Warhammer 40000 FPS Fire Warrior.
Dungeon Siege is one of the worst offenders, mainly because the required path is very, very long. The game also has only one Door To Before, meaning that backtracking from the end of the game back to the very beginning could easily take over half an hour real time.
One of the big reasons Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time was weaker than its predecessor.
The weird, little known FPS You Are Empty is the epitome of this trope. Whenever it seems like you might have more than one choice (two paths, two corridors, two doors...) expect one of them to be blocked by collapsed walls and ceilings, fences, gates, locked doors and... furniture.
Medal Of Honor
- Airborne, of course, mostly averts this.
XIII
Red Faction, made even more tragic by the primary feature of its engine.
- Inverted by Red Faction Guerrilla. One guy with a sledgehammer can lay waste to an entire planet.
Clive Barkers Jericho is perhaps the worst, with monochrome and identical layouts, shallow sidelets that are fruitless to explore. There are no pickups in the game and plot coupons are only delivered on the intended track. The player is often locked down for exposition time, and at one point control is seized from the player, who is forced to watch as the team simultaneously engages in plot-induced stupidity.
The Temple of Time from The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which is rather jarring considering the more open-endedness of the other dungeons.
- This was done to accommodate the dungeon's "gimmick": you have to direct a giant statue all the way back down to the bottom of the dungeon from the top. So you have to go through every puzzle in the dungeon twice. It was an interesting break in style, at least.
Many levels in the Soldier Of Fortune series, including Siberia, Sudan, Colombia, the Hospital, and the second level of Payback.
Most levels of Doom 3. A few levels, such as Alpha Labs 4, have branching paths.
killer7 lives and breathes this trope. There are only two directions you can move: forward and backwards. This is on purpose. Granted, there are forks.
Kingdom Hearts II has more than a few levels like this or close to it (i.e. not a lot of exploration). The most Egregious examples would probably be The World That Never Was and Disney Castle.
In an extreme case of Tropes Are Not Bad, Painkiller: Resurrection attempted to avert this by giving a more open-ended level design compared to previous installments. This being Resurrection, it didn't work out that well.
Ratchet And Clank up until A Crack In Time, which replaces the glorified loading screens in outer space with a true sandbox mode.
This was one of the major points of contention with Tomb Raider: Legend. The earlier games generally averted this, whereas all but a couple of Legend's levels were almost a straight line, which drew several complaints and some attempt at averting it in Anniversary and Underworld (YMMV).
Call Of Duty, though they did a pretty good job at hiding it except for World at War and Modern Warfare 2.
The earlier Crash Bandicoot games were notorious enough for this that Crash Bandicoot: The RPG is the alternate title for this trope in The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Cliches.
- A good definition of Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot games (and possibly The Wrath of Cortex too) is that they're a mixture of forward and side scrolling.
MegaMan X Command Mission, very much so.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia has many levels that are very short and only have one path from left to right. It's a departure from the more recent Metroidvanias, but not too different from the 16-bit and earlier entries in the series.
While Portal's test chambers are deliberately designed as well, a test, once your character breaks free from them the paths are arguably more railroaded, especially in the office stages.

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