Yes! All worlds are linked, and I travel among them! No, I will not show you how. Such power is not for you, who would cheat through life. True warriors must see all worlds before skipping among them. NOW, TO BATTLE!
— Warping Pipe, Super Paper Mario
A secret area in a video game that allows you to magically teleport to another level, possibly offering you a choice of levels.
This is slightly different in principle from Warp Whistle: the Warp Zone usually takes you on a one-way trip to a later area you otherwise wouldn't be able to visit for some time yet, whereas the Warp Whistle is a faster way to travel between areas you've been to before.
Doesn't count if it's due to a Good Bad Bug. Compare Hub Level.
Not to be confused with The Warp Zone.
Examples:
- Arkanoid: The Break powerup opens up the path to the next level (or levels, in later installments). However, unlike a proper level clear, it does not cause the ball to vanish, so a player hoping to take the warp can still lose a life if the ball drops out of the play field before the Vaus can get to it (and for insult on the injury, if the player fails to make it, the Warp Zone closes upon the start of the next life).
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The Trope Namer is Super Mario Bros., which has secret Warp Zones in two Underground Levels. In the iconic World 1-2, you can run over the level ceiling (bypassing the level exit pipe) and reach the Warp Zone with pipes to Worlds 2, 3 and 4 (or glitch through walls and enter the pipe to Minus World). Running over the ceiling in World 4-2 only gets you a pipe to World 5, but a hidden beanstalk takes you to an outdoors Warp Zone with pipes to Worlds 6, 7 and 8.
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is infamous for the Warp Zones that take you back to an earlier world. One of them is nice enough to include suicide pits in said reverse Warp Zones, so you don't actually have to take them. Even if there aren't, you can just wait for the timer to run out and kill you. Furthermore, using Warp Zones is discouraged: If you use one, even one that takes you backwards, you are locked out of reaching World 9, and if it's the Super Mario All-Stars version, you lose World 9 privileges permanently for that file, even if you reached World 9 before.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 has a Warp Zone that can only be activated after entering through magic potion doors. You use the potion to create a sub-space door in a location where a particular vase is located. Dropping into that vase in sub-space warps you to a later level. There are multiple locations for this (namely in Worlds 1-3, 3-1, 4-2 and 5-3), and each warp zone takes you to a single specific later world (respectively 4, 5, 6 and 7). In The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! King Koopa will often make his Villain: Exit, Stage Left via the Magic Potion Warp Zone.
- The literal Warp Whistle in Super Mario Bros. 3 works by transporting Mario to a Warp Zone (which is also called as "World 9" on the status bar). Using it in World 1 allows you to choose between Worlds 2, 3 and 4; using it in one of those worlds allows you to choose between 5, 6 and 7; and using it anywhere in that interval or in the warp zone itself takes you directly to World 8.
- Every New Super Mario Bros. game except U has hidden cannons that launch Mario into farther worlds. (U instead just has secret level exits that lead to extra paths opening up to later worlds.)
- Both Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World have each secret red pipes which warp the player(s) to the next world, yet these don't ever need to be found for 100% Completion (in fact, it's counterproductive for that cause).
- Since Super Mario Bros. 35 uses the same levels as Super Mario Bros., it includes the same warp zones. They allow the player to skip a few levels ahead in the randomized level order.
- The Android/iOS rerelease of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 turned the infamous spike pit death trap in the Mystic Cave Zone into a Warp Zone, leading to the otherwise inaccessible (and no longer Dummied Out, faithfully reconstructed) Hidden Palace Zone.
- Deadly Rooms of Death includes some hidden warp rooms in its larger level sets.
- Super Monkey Ball has some bonus goals that send you directly to later levels.
- Eye of the Beholder has magical portals that are activated by special stone items, including one room with no less than five of them. The items must be found first, of course. Also, most portals are two-way, but a pair of them are one-way, locking the party in a level they may not be ready to explore.
- Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest both have a few of these. They seems less "official" and more buggy in the first game, but apparently they're intentional.
- Kid Chameleon has the Elsewhere levels. Some went backwards like the Lost Levels examples, and could get pretty confusing near the end of the game.
- Charlie II. Apart from having TWELVE fiendishly difficult to find secret levels, every sixth level starting from the first, a warp zone appears, which is pretty much impossible to find without a walkthrough. Fortunately, you don't need them for Hundred Percent Completion.
- Completing a sidequest in The Nameless Mod gains you access to one that lets you travel between districts.
- Referred to by name in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, though the version displayed actually functions more like a Portal Network.
- Battletoads has several warp portals; eg, the first is accessed by headbutting the first two Psycho Pigs, and the Turbo Tunnel one is accessed by running into a certain wall.
- The Black Hole in Star Fox, and the two Warp Zones
in Star Fox 64.
- In Adventure Island games, the player can find hidden flying reptile's chamber, who can take you to the next area if prompted.
- Subverted in Super Meat Boy, which calls its secret level sets Warp Zones, but doesn't actually let you warp to other areas from them. The voiceover for entering one does make a nice page quote, though.
- Minecraft multiplayer servers generally have a warp zone at the spawn point providing easy access to player towns
- Silent Hill: The ladies' bathrooms in Otherworld Midwich school shifts you in between the first and second floors. There's no effect to indicate this is happening, as it's apparently meant to disorient and confuse a new player.
- Portal: Prelude has one of these as an Easter Egg with graphics taken straight from Super Mario Bros., accessed by crawling through a light in Test Chamber 09.
- A Pinball example: One of the rewards in No Good Gofers jumps the player up to three holes ahead.
- Hitting the Warp target in Defender sends the player three levels ahead.
- In the arcade game's sequel Stargate.note If you rescue four humanoids, and go through one of the titular stargates, the player is taken ahead a few or so levels in the game.
- Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: There's a portal in the basement of the main castle that lets you skip the entire castle and go straight to the Count's chambers on the top floor. However, you do need to explore the castle to find the last 2 family members, as the Count's chambers can't be opened until all the family members are accounted for.
- Low G Man has two warp zones in the first and third levels that allow you to skip those level's bosses, as long as you have the right vehicles to reach them. There are also secret passwords that allow you to play only those levels, where the only way out is death.
- Dangerous Dave has secret areas called warp zones, but they don't really warp you anywhere. They're just hidden areas with treacherous platforms and bonus points, and they return you to (the start of) the level you were at upon completion.
- According to the troubleshooting guide in the back of Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac, playing Aldgate three times in a row opens a secret passage beneath Chancery Lane, which will eventually take you two moves away from Mornington Crescent. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever, since Mornington Crescent is a word game.
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game has hidden warp zones that allow players to more quickly traverse levels. The corridor connecting the two points is also home to flying piggy banks that drop a lot of money.
- In all Mega Man Battle Network games, the very first area is always Lan and MegaMan's home page. This "room" is void of Random Encounters, and talking to the right NPCs will unlock shortcuts to most other major cyber areas.
