Point Of No Return - Television Tropes & Idioms

Was it you that said, "How long, how long, how long

To the Point of No Return?"

Kansas, "Point of No Return"

"The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn!

We've passed the Point of No Return..."

The Phantom and Christine, Point of No Return

A place in the story of a video game where it permanently becomes impossible to revisit earlier areas. Any optional sidequests or items (e.g. the Infinity Plus One Sword) are effectively Lost Forever from here on out.

This often happens near the game's finale, such as before entering The Very Definitely Final Dungeon or just before challenging the Final Boss. You may even hear the narrator or another character warn you that "there is no going back" or "This Is The Final Battle".

There may or may not be Save Points, Trauma Inns, or item shops past the Point Of No Return. If there aren't, crossing this point without sufficient resources (health, ammo, etc.) to survive the challenges ahead can result in the game becoming Unwinnable — especially if there's a Save Point beyond it, but no other means to heal or restock supplies.

Games that regularly prevent you from returning to earlier completed areas are another trope entirely, although freeform or ability-based level exploration may blur the line.

This trope comes from the term used in air travel where after a certain point it becomes impossible to turn around and return to the point of origin (for example, not enough fuel); even if there is a sudden emergency, the plane must continue towards its destination.

Examples

In Kings Quest V you must ride a sled (no, not that sled) over an ice chasm. The sled is very old, so it shatters on impact. You're stuck on the far ledge, so if you forgot something you're gonna have to revert to an older save file. That's hardly the only one, though. The desert cave is a point of no return too (you can only enter once), as is the Forest of Doom at the beginning, and the Ice Castle, and the beach after the giant bird, and the harpy island, and the final island, and the dungeon maze on the final island. Of course, most of these require you to have obscure items from earlier parts of the game.
King's Quest VI has several of these. Once you enter the Labyrinth, the Land of the Dead, or the Castle of the Crown, you have to complete the respective sub-quest (or in the case of the Castle, the game). Worse, there are several points of no return within the Land of the Dead itself, so several things are easily Lost Forever if you don't get them before you move on.
- If you forgot some necessary items before entering to the labyrinth, prepare to revert to an old save. And if you haven't kept old savegames, prepare to start the whole game again.
In Kingdom Hearts, the point of no return in both games are doors that warn you pretty clearly that they are the point of no return.
- Birth By Sleep notably doesn't do this. It pretty well implies that the final boss is at Keyblade Graveyard but upon going there you can still run around and leave until you enter an otherwise unimportant looking area which will immediately thrust you into your respective characters Final Boss fight with no clear forwarning (unlike other games in the series which outright tell you "Entering here will start the final boss fight"). Likewise once you start the final chapter of the game, you can't return to Radiant Garden without starting the True Final Boss battle upon entering so if you need synthesis items from that world you're out of luck.
In the Final Fantasy series, the point of no return tends to be at the last save point in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Final Fantasy XII doesn't have any save points in the final area, although it makes sense since the final area only consists of at least 3 or 4 rooms. The game clearly warns you that once you go for the final area, you cannot go back. This was probably a first in the Final Fantasy series. Not only that, but saving at certain parts of the game will have the game advise you to save to another file if you are in a certain point in the plot where you can't go back for a while.
  - In Final Fantasy, as long as you have the EXIT spell, there is no Point Of No Return. As long as you don't speak to Garland/Chaos, you can walk right out of his room and cast the spell.
  - In Final Fantasy II, there are no save points once you go inside the Jade Passage, and you cannot return to said Passage after entering Pandaemonium.
  - In Final Fantasy III, the trip into the Dark World is only one-way.
  - Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V let you get within a few feet of the Final Boss before the game automatically starts up the endgame cutscenes. Final Fantasy VI requires all three parties to stand on obvious tiles to activate the final cutscene and Boss Battle.
  - Final Fantasy V has a miniature Point Of No Return in a sense in two places: once you enter the second world, and then the merged world after it.
  - Final Fantasy VI has a Point Of No Return for the first part of the game; once you start the cutscenes involving the activation of the Statues/Warring Triad and the Emperor's death, you can't get back to the World of Balance because it's destroyed, meaning any enemies you didn't encounter yet or items exclusive to it (which admittedly isn't that many) are Lost Forever.
  - In Final Fantasy VII, the Point Of No Return is at the bottom of the Northern Crater, where the player can place the last Save Point.
  - In Final Fantasy VIII, the Point Of No Return leads immediately to Ultimecia's throne room, making it a moot point. On the other hand, once you fight Adel, the time compression begins and all cities become inaccessible. So Adel's room in Lunatic Pandora is also a Point Of No Return of a sort.
  - In Final Fantasy IX, in disc 4 several overworld areas are inaccessible (as in FF 8) so that might count as a minor Point Of No Return. Most major cities and Side Quest-related areas are still accessible, though.
  - In Final Fantasy X, approaching the Tower in the Dead City triggers the Point Of No Return, although there's only a crystal-dodging minigame between that point and the Final Boss anyhow.
  - Subverted in Final Fantasy X-2. Approaching the portal in the Farplane Abyss triggers a "Continue forward?" option, with the implication that this is the Point Of No Return. However, there is a save point further on where you can return to the airship, and you can in fact fight the first couple of stages of the Sequential Boss and still return.
  - In Crisis Core, the end of the eighth chapter is the PONR. Better unlock the missions that need to be found in Midgar first, for you're never coming back past this point.
  - In Final Fantasy XIII, you basically can't go back to any place you went to before Chapter XI. That's very sad considering how nice and upbeat or cool and hardcore some of those places were. ...Okay, all of them.
The inside of Lavos in Chrono Trigger may or may not be one of these, depending on your method of ingress.
Psychonauts has an Autosave of No Return near the end of the game. Luckily, it's saved as a separate file, just in case you weren't totally ready to sneeze your own brain out and enter a creepy mishmash of yours and the bad guy's childhood fears.
- You can still revisit any of the previous levels to collect missed goodies for Hundred Percent Completion, though. Just be sure you cleaned out the hub level or you're boned.
Resident Evil 4 is chock full of these! This usually happens when an important cutscene/event occurs and sometimes after a boss battle. These include the fight in the sewer with Verdugo because he personally disables the door and after running away from the giant statue of Salazar because he sort of destroys the bridge back to the castle.
Mario And Luigi: Partners in Time uses and subverts it. Right before the final bosses, your talking suitcase warns you that it's the point of no return, but at any save point thereafter, he gives you the option of going back in time to before you passed the point.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption does this before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Its method of forcing this on you is rather unique though: ostensibly you could leave if you wanted, if not for the fact that mutagenic radiation on-site has corrupted your DNA so badly that your spaceship doesn't recognize you or even let you onboard anymore, so you're stuck until you take care of the problem.
AU 242: Take heed, Samus. Once you join the fleet and the wormhole to Phaaze is opened, there is no turning back. Please be sure to prepare yourself. We wish you the best of luck.
- Super Metroid has a particularly nasty case: The Point of No Return is before the final save point in the game, so if you're aiming for One Hundred Percent Completion, don't have that yet, and use that save point anyway...
- Metroid Fusion also has a Point of No Return in that your ship's AI locks almost the entire space station down when it's time to fight the final boss. This was incredibly annoying for players trying to get One Hundred Percent Completion, especially since you had little advance warning. Luckily, the game plays it fair by allowing you full access to the station again once you've defeated the boss.
In Okami, before the boss gauntlet, Issun literally tells you you're about to step into "the point of no return", with that exact phrasing. The funny thing is that the game fakes you out with two of these before the two fake final dungeons before the real final dungeon.
- The horrible thing about this? There's a save point beyond the final and literal point of no return. If you save there and don't have a backup save that's outside of the area, you're trapped in the final dungeon until you begin a new game plus. Since the game told you twice before hand that you would be venturing into the point of no return, one, like myself, would ignore this warning, thinking there would be more to the game after the dungeon, under the assumption that it really wasn't the final dungeon.
Your acquisition of the Krazoa Spirit in the Walled City shrine in Star Fox Adventures is a point of no return. You only find this out when trying to go back to the planet takes you to Krazoa Palace.
Neverwinter Nights has one of these, and frustratingly doesn't let you know until after you've entered the door.
Averted in Drakengard. Giant babies may be eating every person alive at the point you are in the plot, but you can go to any point in the story and play it again, no problem. In fact, this is necessary to get the other party members. You deliberately have to go back and replay certain scenes after a period of time to unlock a few of them.
Almost averted in Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. After completing the 13 (or so) level dungeon, you cross a bridge which crumbles behind you. Your fairy, Celia, says you can't go back now, and then a portal to the start of the dungeon opens up.
- The Ganondorf battle in Ocarina of Time. If you save here, there's no going back, as it immediately restarts at the cutscene when you reload. If you're low on life or magic potions or other items, God help you.
  - More recent releases of Oot prevented that problem by restarting at the entrance of Ganon's Tower regardless of where and when you save.
The final level of Ratchet: Deadlocked involves a Point Of No Return when you attempt to infiltrate the heart of Dread Zone Station to confront Gleeman Vox once and for all. Somewhat justified in that, well, once you leave you won't be able to use Dread Zone as your base of operations anymore, not to mention that pesky detail that the entire place explodes because Gleeman laced it with 'six gigatons of nitroglycerin'. Go figure.
Little Big Adventure 2: After landing on Zeelich for the second time, there's no way of going back to Twinsun.
The mirror chamber in the final dungeon from Beyond Good And Evil is a fairly innocuous-looking Point Of No Return; although you theoretically could leave, Double H will refuse to help you do so "until you complete your mission." When you rescue Pey'j during the mission, your spaceship malfunctions and you're stuck on Selene forever; presumably so the programmers didn't have to program reactions for every possible scenario involving your sidekicks that would incorporate both of them.
The last door in each Mega Man Battle Network game is a point of no return; the 3rd game onwards break the 4th wall to tell the player to save first.
- Only in the sense that you then have to fight the Final Boss. The games feature Extended Gameplay so you don't actually lose the ability to return to earlier areas afterwards.
- The Spiritual Successor to this series, Mega Man Star Force, also does this, with the second game going so far as to force the player to save before moving past.
In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, returning to the Imperial City with Martin and entering the Elder Council chamber triggers the final fight sequence. From that point on, you either complete the main quest or you die. Completing the main quest immediately causes every other Oblivion gate to close, so you can never retrieve the powerful Sigil Stones or other treasure they contain.
- The last dungeon in Daggerfall, the Mantellan Crux, would be considered a Point Of No Return, if it weren't for teleport spells. There is no portal inside the dungeon and the only way out is to complete the main quest by collecting the Mantella. Morrowind seems to pay homage to the Mantellan Crux with the Chimer stronghold, Indoranyon.
There are several of these per level in Left 4 Dead, and they are critically important. If one of the players dawdles too long without following his friends through these, he can be incapacitated and killed without the others being given a chance to save him.
Golden Sun actually had two of these : at the top of each lighthouse, the player had to defeat the boss in order to quit the lighthouse (the first time) or to finish the game (the second time). It was possible, however, to save the game after either of these Points Of No Return, which could ~~make the game Un Winnable~~ force the player to lose the fight, respawn and spend a lot of money to heal the dead party should the player not be powerful enough to win the upcoming fight.
- Not quite; you could still use the Retreat Psynergy to get out of the lighthouse, provided you haven't triggered the final cutscene. However, in the first game, you can save during the scene after you beat the final boss, which prevents you from doing anything else in the game. The second game does not allow you to save during that scene.
Ys V: Lost Sand City of Kefin has two points of no return, one when you go through the portal to Kefin, and the second when you go into The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. The good news is that, as with Final Fantasy, you can't save yourself into an Unwinnable situation in the latter area, the bad news is you have to fight three bosses in a row, the first(Karion) and last(Jabir's One Winged Angel form) of which are That One Boss. Use your health items wisely.
- In Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, the point of no return occurs when you ride the Wyvern from Kishgal to the Ark(also The Very Definitely Final Dungeon). Any sword upgrades or items you missed will be Lost Forever, god help you if you don't have an extra saved game, as the boss fights may be rendered Unwinnable. Good thing Olha tells you beforehand.
- These games also often prevent you from using Warp Wings or Warp Magic to make it a true point of no return. Averted in Ys IV: Mask Of The Sun, where you can still use the warp wing after jumping off the Iris Tower into the Golden Temple, which you can't otherwise return from.
- Darm Tower in Ys I & II. Averted in Book 2.
In Earthbound, you cannot turn back after you enter the Phase Distorter II and attempt to teleport directly to the Cosmic Horror. Oddly enough, entering the Phase Distorter III (essentially a time machine) shortly thereafter is more hyped up as the Point Of No Return, what with you being transformed into robots, the whole concept of Time Travel, and even the line "There is no turning back now," though that's probably because you run into a save point immediately afterwards. However, Dr. Andonuts does at least stress "You might not be able to return. So, make sure you are optimally outfitted" before you enter the Phase Distorter II.
- However, there is a glitch in the Mother 1+2 release that allows this to be averted.
- In Earthbound's sequel, Mother 3, the game's final chapter is also a point of no return.
- Even Earthbound Zero has a borderline point of no return. A word to the wise: do not talk to Queen Mary with all 8 melodies in tow unless you are sure you can defeat the final boss, as Magicant disappears once you talk to Queen Mary to teach her the song. If you lose to the final boss, certainly do not save or you will have to fight through the mountain full of Demonic Spiders to reach him again.
Knights Of The Old Republic does this several times, with little to no warning before hand:
- Accepting Canderous's offer to help you infiltrate Davik Kang's estate seals off the rest of Taris.
- Finding the third Star Map seals off Dantooine.
- Heading to the Star Forge seals off the rest of the galaxy.
  - In Knights of the Old Republic 2, going to the Jedi Council room on Dantooine after gathering together or killing the surviving Council members puts you on a one-way track to the end of the game.
After a certain point in the Shibuya River in The World Ends With You, you cannot go back. In fact, you can't save after that point, either, because there are no enemies between you and the Final Boss, which means no Level Grinding if you can't beat him. Appropriately, the cutoff room is called "Rubicon."
In Shadow Of The Colossus, on the way to the last colossus, Wander's horse falls into a ravine, stranding you on one side of a gap.
- Also a serious Tear Jerker for many players.
In Sonic Unleashed, ("Chip warns you that once you go into Eggmanland, the only level of the game that doesn't have a hub your first time going there, you aren't coming out for a while").
- Sonic Chronicles is worse. Enter Metropolis Zone and you're not coming back, allowing you to miss picking up Cream the Rabbit. Enter the Twilight Cage, and the same thing happens there, and you can miss Omega for it. Ditto for entering the Nocturnes lair, and a fifth Point Of No Return occurs when you go to fight the final boss. Thankfully items and rings (though not additional party members) carry over, into New Game Plus allowing you to get everything you missed, or miss it again.
In Baldurs Gate II, after you defeat Irenicus the first time and kill him, your soul is dragged down to hell with him. After a few trials, you face him in Hell, and cannot return to the world of the living.
- This carries through to the expansion, as you do return to the land of the living, but you can no longer access the areas from the main game. The only shared area is a Bonus Dungeon that is unrelated to the plot, but requires a fairly powerful party to complete..
Fallout 3 contains a controversial point of no return in the final story mission Take it Back! Once the player enters the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial, there is no way to exit. Activating Project Purity will result in the game ending, but as the player cannot exit the rotunda they have no choice but to activate it and receive their ending. In response to this jarring departure from the open-world nature of Fallout 3, modders have taken upon themselves to design addons to allow PC players to continue their adventures in the Capital Wasteland after activating Project Purity. Xbox 360 and PS 3 users are, unfortunately, out of luck as their versions do not allow for modification.
- This would have been better identified as a point of no return if it hadn't been for 'you must hurry!' cried wolf at you over and over through the game. Added to this that the game story seemed to be short for it to possibly be over so soon, so even if you heard the hints dropped that you were heading into the Point Of No Return, it wouldn't sink in for most that it could be The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Even with the activation of a giant robot shooting lasers and throwing tank-sized grenades, the march to the end just lacked the climactic feel, so when the door suddenly locked you inside, it came as a surprise.
  - The developers have heard the laments of the purchasers, and the Broken Steel expansion pack allows players to continue to play the game after the (formerly) final storyline mission.
- Veterans of the series will note that you were, in previous games, able to play past the "end" of those games. Fallout 2 even unlocks some secrets after you win.
After assembling the Golden Warpship in Solar Jetman, you can't go back and pick up any treasures that you missed on the last planet. You now have to fly the super-cruiser off the planet in one shot, and colliding with the planet's surface will kill you and end your game, since that warpship is the only one of its kind.
There are three points of no return in Illusion Of Gaia: Getting on the Incan ship, going to the Sky Garden, and the cutscene immediately before Dark Gaia. You also cannot go back into Edward Castle after escaping its dungeon.
In Jade Cocoon, there is no warning that after completing the Moth Forrest you're cut off from any previous areas in the game.
Far Cry 2 has a particularly evil point of no return. The final mission briefing requires you to enter a prison to get your objectives. After you accept the final mission and carry on with the game, it warns you that you can't turn back if you go any further and to make sure you have everything you need, however if you try to go back, you'll find you can't leave the prison.
Grandia has a doozy at the end, where one scene starts a chain that prevents you from going to any previous area, and leaves you stuck with access to the final dungeon only if you save.
The Little Sister Escort Mission in Bioshock is a completely unmarked point of no return and you're not told this until after you're given health and ammo refills.
Quest 64 has one, sort of: at the end of a hallway in Brannoch Castle, there's a door to a room with Brian's father, battered from combat thanks to Shannon. You'll know you're in this hallway because halfway through there's a door leading to a room with Leonardo who provides an opportunity to rest. The only way to visit any previous areas if you go past this point is to die before saving again, so that you get sent back to whichever rest person you rested with last. Of course, Epona provides an opportunity to rest near the end.
The General Ross boss battle in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is one, for you will thrown immediately into the next two story missions with no chance to freeroam in-between until you complete them since they involve the Hulk breaking out of the Vault and escaping his captors.
Quest For Glory 2'' operates on a 30-day cycle. The caravan to Raseir leaves at dawn on day 17, and you are locked into the endgame for the rest of the adventure.
- In the third game, it's after the Tarna peace conference with the Simbani and Leopardmen. After the Leopardman leader (possessed by a demon) and the Laibon kill each other at the conference, the gates to Tarna close, barring you from ever entering the city again. You also can't enter the Simbani Village anymore, thus railroading you to the jungle and to the Lost City.
- In the fourth, it's the Dark One Cave once you finally enter it again.
- And in the fifth, it's the mansion of the Big Bad.
In Avencast: Rise of the Mage, don't go through the shimmery interdimensional portal if you ever want to go back... despite the fact that the other end stays open, and every other such portal you encounter later can be used repeatedly.
Mass Effect: After finding all four parts of the Big Bad's hidden location, the next time you dock the Normandy at the Citadel, your ship is grounded by the Council. You'll eventually leave the Citadel, but it and its sidequests will no longer be open to you, although you can still do sidequests on other planets. Keep a separate save file when you head to Ilos, though - at that point, you're trapped into finishing the main quest line, which ends the game and does not allow you to keep playing. Your only option then is to replay the game, but you get to keep all the equipment and level ups from your last play through.
- Mass Effect 2 also has a very obvious of point of no return, the Omega 4 Mass Relay. Various characters comment that nobody has ever returned from it. "Press A to start suicide mission," anyone? But it also subverts the trope by allowing you to keep playing afterward, if you survive.
  - Though it is true that the Omega 4 Relay is the point of no return, the Reaper IFF mission will set in motion events that will influence what kind of ending you get, making it a "soft" point of no return combined with Video Game Caring Potential.
Prince Of Persia games are built around this design in order to be linear. Doors will close behind you and lock, walls will crumble and block a pathway behind you, or you descend slopes or walls that are too sleep to climb back up again. Make sure you don't miss anything!
Wild Arms 5 has a Point Of No Return that the game is kind enough to warn you about at the top of Volsung's TF System Tower, right before fighting Volsung the first time. Once you pass that point, you actually have several bosses and a whole Very Definitely Final Dungeon to run through, so chances are you'll want to save at some point...but if you do, you can't return to Filgaia until the New Game Plus.
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines lets you wander freely through unlocked areas right up until Griffith Park. Once you head off for that quest, you're locked into a sequence of three to four endgame missions.
- Though the game does allow you to buy blood, weapons and so on in between stops.
Pokemon does this with the Elite 4. You can save halfway through or whatever if you like, but you might find yourself in a losing battle where you won't be able to win. But once you go through the first door, you can't go back.
- But if you lose, it just sends you back to the Pokemon center outside, and you can still go anywhere in the game after you win.
In Endless Frontier, you can neither save nor leave after entering the Einst world. This means that you must win three boss battles in a row to complete the game, with no chance to save. Fortunately, Koma comes with you, giving you access to both a shop and a means of free healing.
Impossamole (the Turbo Grafx 16 version) is particularly egregious; in addition to physical barriers preventing you from backtracking to get a Scroll that you missed, there are also Checkpoints of No Return, so the level becomes Unwinnable until you lose all your lives and restart.
EVERY SINGLE LEVEL In Bio Shock 2.considering that you could backtrack as much as you pleased in the first BioShock.

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