Single Biome Planet / Video Games

Single Biome Planets in video games.

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• In the Visual Novel Bionic Heart, global warming has destroyed Earth’s climate. As a result, rainclouds have blocked out the sun, and it's always raining. Because growing food is near impossible, people are forced to eat flavored foam.
• Body Blows: Zig-Zagged. While some planets introduced in Galactic play this straight (Miasma and Gellorn-5, with the former having an in-story explanation being the result of moon sized asteroid destroying almost all life on that planet.) and a third Planet, called Eclipse, is a Tidally Locked Planet, Feminon and Titanica avert this by having diverse biomes similar to Earth's.
• Bomberman Hero: This is played straight with Primus, a forest planet, and averted with the Earth-like Planet Bomber, as well as Kanatia and Mazone, which have a few distinct biomes (volcano and desert for Kanatia, jungle and ice for Mazone).
• In Borderlands, Pandora came across as this. Of all the areas visited, 95% are either desert or trash dump, and the two can and often do overlap. The first DLC and the sequel go out of their way to avert it, though, introducing swamps, glaciers, grassy highlands, jungles and tropical zones. Still sucks to live there, though.
• Civilization IV:
  • Some of the options and mods create a one-biome planet map.
  • The "Fantasy Realm" setting averts this trope as hard as possible.
• Dawn of War zigzags across the series:
  • The first game takes place on Tartarus, which seems to have a lot of lush jungle and some snowy mountains, a lot of ruined cities (you land in the middle of an ork Waaagh!) and by the end of the game, a Mordor-looking hellscape due to Sindri's ascension going Just as Planned.
  • Winter Assault takes place on Lorn V, an Ice Planet (the Imperial Guard debuted as a faction in this one, which is why Guardsmen occasionally rub themselves to keep warm or watch their breath).
  • Dark Crusade averts it completely on Kronus, which features an Earth-like climate with snowy polar regions, lush jungles, plains, cities, savannah and rocky desert.
  • Soulstorm takes place across the Kaurava system, consisting of four Single Biome Planets: Kaurava I is a City Planet, Kaurava II is all tropical jungle, Kaurava III is entirely made of ochre wasteland, and Kaurava IV has been taken over by Chaos and so looks nothing like Earth.
  • The sequel and its expansions all happen in a single subsector, which consists of Meridian (City Planet), Calderis (Desert World, but it has some verdant areas), Typhon (Jungle World, later a barren ball of lava). Aurelia returns from the Warp in Chaos Rising, where it's become an Ice World during its centuries outside of realspace.
• Deep Rock Galactic: Hoxxes IV averts the trope, but only underground. The surface is all a sun-blasted, atmosphere-thin hellpit where nothing at all survives, but the biomes inside go from lush to desertic, from infernally hot to antarctically chilled, from lively to extreme, and everything in-between. The only things in common are Glyphid presence, and the fact they're all so deadly only a dwarf-staffed mining company dares try to dig in it.
• Descent II: Quartzon=water planet, Brimspark=lava planet, Limefrost Spiral=ice planet, Baloris Prime=desert planet.
• Most worlds in the Disgaea titles manage to avert this, with each chapter taking place in a different location on the same world (barring any trips to other worlds). Disgaea 5, however, plays this incredibly straight, not only having single-biome worlds, but also distinct themes (Ex. Spirit Internment is a giant graveyard Netherworld, Scorching Flame and Icic-Hell are Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Flowerful has around the clock tornadoes, etc.)
• This is the case for the planets in Doki-Doki Universe. There's an urban planet, an ice planet, a desert planet, and more.
• Dragon Quest Monsters 2 has this: A desert world, an ocean world, an ice world, a cloud world, and Mordor. Also, all the "optional" worlds.
• Dune II. Arrakis/Dune is a Desert Planet as in the original novels. Also, the home planet of the Ordos is said to be "frigid and ice-covered" in Dune II and just "icy" in Dune 2000... i.e. an Ice Planet.
• Frequently averted in Dwarf Fortress. Each of the randomly-generated planets created have dozens if not hundreds of diverse, interconnected biomes that track everything from vegetation, to temperature, to elevation, to even individual rock layers. If one messes with the default settings for long enough, it is possible to generate a water world, however.
• Endless Space has Terran, Arid, Desert, Tundra, Arctic, Jungle, Lava, Asteroid, and three kinds of Gas Giant. The sequel adds Atoll, Forest, Ocean, Toxic, Boreal, Mediterranean, Monsoon, Savannah, Ice, Steppes, Snow, Ash, Barren and three more kinds of Gas Giant. It's an unusual example, because on top of that there's a system of "anomalies", planetary features not necessarily consistent with the planet type or star type. So while a Terran or Jungle planet can have the Garden of Eden anomaly... so can a Gas Giant. It adds a pleasing amount of variety to what would otherwise be just an expansive example of this trope. By far the silliest is when the Lava planet has the Polaris Factory (read: Santa on the north pole in space).
• According to the backstory of Final Fantasy IX, the planet Gaia used to be covered entirely with a big ocean more than 5,000 years before the game's present day. But the incomplete fusion with Terra resulted in Gaia gaining the continents and diverse landscapes the player explores.
• Freelancer: Many planets are themed. Pittsburgh, for example, seems to be a barren desert filled with mines, Cambridge is a planet full of blissfully green plains, Hokkaido is an Archipelago Planet, Manhattan is a Planet City, New Berlin seems to be a Snow Planet, Leeds is a Heavy Industry Planet capable of blowing out entire nebulae of smoke, and so on.
• Halo:
  • Averted on the eponymous Halo rings, where one encounters several different biomes, from swamps, to beaches, to snowy mountains.
  • The Ark both averts and plays the trope straight. It's shaped like a flower, with the massive ring production facility at its center. Each of the "petals" is a completely different biodome.
  • The Expanded Universe does contain a few examples of this trope, such as the homeworld of the Drones, a (rain)Forest Planet; and the Grunt homeworld, a swampy planet with a methane atmosphere.
  • The agricultural world of Harvest (featured in Halo: Contact Harvest), which is all farmland.
  • According to Eric Nylund (the man whose novels set much of the groundwork for the background lore) the reasons for certain planets to be devoted over to farming or mining or urban and industrial centers has more do to with economics than anything else. For example, some planets have more hours of daylight than is typical for Earth and happen to have huge tracts of very rich volcanic soil, leading to very large crop yields. Raising crops on such planets inevitably becomes very inexpensive, and it costs less on other planets to have the food imported from the farm worlds than it does to grow it locally. As the war rages on and many of the Outer Colonies where much of the farming goes on are lost, and the Cole Protocol restricts intersteller travel, many inner planets reluctantly take to growing their own food instead of having it imported.
  • As shown in Halo: Reach, Reach also averts this. There are mountains, urban areas, lakeside areas...etc.
  • Halo 5: Guardians: Kamchatka is all covered in ice and snow, and is implied to have been created that way by the Forerunners. Meridian is all glassy wasteland, but that's because it was glassed by the Covenant; it was originally quite Earth-like.
• According to the supplemental material, the planet of Kharak in Homeworld is a subversion that's gradually becoming a straight example; the huge equatorial deserts have been slowly expanding to cover more and more of the surface for tens of thousand of years at least, with the remaining temperate regions screened only by mountains. Since the planet is reaching the end of its geological activity, said mountains will eventually be eroded flat and reduce Kharak to a true Desert Planet. Except that the deranged ruler of a vast interstellar Empire orders it carpet-bombed with thermobaric weapons for no particularly sensible reason and it ends up being a Black Glass Planet instead. The extreme conditions near Kharak's equator—daytime temperatures in summer can exceed a hundred degrees Celsius—and the presence of polar seas instead of polar ice caps tend to suggest that Kharak was probably always a strong candidate for this trope, even in its distant past. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is the first game in the series to explore the hardships involved in living in such an environment in any detail.
• Imperium Galactica 2 only has single biome planets, where the type of planet influences which races can settle there effectively. (Though the surface views of such planets do sometimes show a mix of terrain.)
• Jet Force Gemini: Several planets have each a specific ecosystem that is common in their global geography. They are, in order of appearance: Goldwood, Tawfret, Cerulean, Rith Essa, Eschebone, Gem Quarry, Walkway, and Water Ruin. It's unclear if this also applies to Ichor, whose playable parts take place inside the Drones' military facility (thus being Remilitarized Zone levels), so we don't see how the rest of the planet is like (one of the last areas prior to the boss room suggests it's a blue desert like Cerulean, whose orbit happens to be close to Ichor's). The remaining levels are Eternal Engine vessels (S.S. Anubis, Sekhmet, Spawnship and Spacestation; the last one doubles as Ghost Ship), Mizar's Palace (a Temple of Doom), and Asteroid (Space Zone with some Slippy-Slidey Ice World parts; also the final level).
• Killzone: Averted. The planet Vekta contains cities, beaches, swamps, jungles, snowy mountain tops and some other stuff inbetween. Also averted in Killzone 2 and 3 where Helghan has oceans and at least two biomes- arctic and desert in gameplay- and is described in canon as having predator-filled jungles.
• Kirby:
  • Kirby Super Star and its Video Game Remake: The "Milky Way Wishes" subgame, reveals Pop Star, which is Earth-like with its multiple biomes, to be in an entire solar system full of these — including three textbook examples in the form of Aquarius (Ocean Planet), Skyhigh (Cloud Planet), and Hotbeat (Volcano Planet).
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: Played with, as it makes you visit planets with connected Biomes of one general theme which subvert and avert this trope — with Rock Star (Desert Planet; has deserts, ruins, underground caves and a spaceship), Aqua Star (Ocean Planet; islands, rivers and beaches), Neo Star (jungle, canyon, mines and volcano), Shiver Star (snow, mall and city factory) except for the planet where you fight the True Final Boss.
  • Kirby Star Allies: Played straight, even moreso than Super Star, as all the planets it has are textbook examples where the tileset won't change visuals between any rooms. The Extra Planets in Far-Flung Starlight Heroes play with this, as they feature different biomes, but do so by combining the level tropes of the existing planets.
• Lost Planet. The setting of the first game is the Ice Planet EDN III. The planet gains more variety (jungles and deserts) in the second game.
• Major Stryker: Subverted. The planets are referred to as "Lava Planet", "Arctic Planet" and "Desert Planet," but all three have different biomes for different levels. Both Lava Planet and Arctic Planet feature oceans and temperate grasslands.
• Mass Effect: Usually averted: most planets have multiple biomes when viewed from orbit, but the Player Character only visits a small section of the planet.
  • Mass Effect 2:
    • The game appears to be mocking the trope with the planet Yamm, which is an ocean planet with tons of beaches. Everywhere. Sound like paradise? The planet is plagued with extremely high temperatures and nightmarish hurricanes year round, which is what happens when a planet is 90% ocean.
    • Pragia, where Jack's loyalty mission takes place, is overrun by out-of-control jungles resulting from a batarian terraforming effort Gone Horribly Right. They had intended to turn the planet into a farm world to feed their empire, but their genetically engineered food crops took to the planet too well and are projected to completely exhaust the soil across the entire planet within centuries.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Justified as every habitable planet in the game (and two that aren't) was terraformed by Benevolent Precursors whose technology is currently malfunctioning due to the Scourge, and Ryder only visits a small section anyway. Elaaden is naturally a near-lifeless desert due to tidal locking, Voeld is in an ice age due to the Scourge pulling it into a more distant orbit, and Havarl's jungles are growing out of control. And in the case of the last one, a side-mission shows Havarl does have non-jungle areas, including mountain ranges.
• Master of Orion: Most of the planets in the first two games appear to be this, although "Terran" planets are supposed to resemble earth. Of course, the only effect that environment has on gameplay is determining maximum population capacity, and preventing players of the first game from colonizing half the galaxy until they develop technology to cope with hostile environments. The third game averts this.
• Meteos is chock full of these, containing most of the examples listed above and more. There's a Canyon planet, a Windy planet, a Flower planet, a Heated-iron planet, and so on.
• Metroid: Both planets in Metroid Prime: Hunters (Alinos is fiery, Arcterra is icy), and all planets in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption except Bryyo (which has at least four biomes, similar to the ones seen in Tallon IV from Metroid Prime). Averted with the other planets in the series.
• Minecraft: The game averts it by default, as there are several biomes that generate in a complex patchwork, but certain cases play this straight:
  • Before biomes were added to the game, every game world was a vast, uniform spread of green fields dotted with trees.
  • The 1.13 update adds a new world generation mode known as Buffet mode that creates a world with only a single biome. This can range from ocean, grassland, mountain or several flavors of forest to worlds covered solely in fields of tree-sized mushrooms or tall spires of ice.
• Mortal Kombat: Deception fits this trope. Even Earthrealm is single-biome in Konquest mode. Most of the other realms fit the Mordor pattern, though Seido (Orderrealm) is a cloud world, and Edenia is marked by a lot of waterfalls. Much less so in Armageddon.
• Myst IV: Revelation: Both played straight and spectacularly averted. Spire is revealed to be a literal Cloud World, a series of floating towers apparently orbiting a cometlike body; while Haven has seacoast, jungle, savanna, and swamp within a few minutes' walk of each other.
• No Man's Sky has every last one of the different biomes sans city—even Cloud Worlds show up, though rarely.
• Phantasy Star: The Algol star system has a few examples. Palma is a temperate Earth-like planet in Phantasy Star I, but gets blown up in Phantasy Star II. Motavia was a desert world in I, is terraformed into a farm world by II, and is in the process of reverting back into a desert world in IV due to the failing climate control systems. Dezoris remains an ice world through the entire series. Rykros is a crystal world due to having a comet-like elliptical orbit, only nearing its star once every thousand years. It turns out the entire solar system was created by a godlike entity known as the Great Light as the seal on the dimensional prison of its enemy, the Profound Darkness.
• Populous goes nuts: There are plains worlds, desert worlds, ice worlds, volcano worlds, computer worlds, alien worlds, worlds made of cake, worlds where everyone's a pig, worlds where everyone's French, worlds where everyone's Japanese...The architecture reflects this, as do the inhabitants, but on plains, desert, ice, and volcano worlds, they'll always be toga-clad humans who are promoted to medieval knights, with the religious center being either an ankh or a skull.
• Ratchet & Clank does this with nearly all of the planets, with what you see in the small slice the level being representative of the entire world. Averted however with Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, which takes place almost entirely on one planet and features forest, polar and ruined city environments, among others.
• Ristar is made of this trope. Every level is such a planet. It gets especially ridiculous on Planet Sonata, which is made entirely of musical instruments.
• Rodina: All of the planets have variation on terrain, but no variation in climate. Jarilo and Perun are both desert worlds, and Morena is a frozen ball of ice.
• Rogue Galaxy has several of these, from the desert planet of Rosa, to the jungle planet of Juraika. The US release added an ocean planet to the mix.
• Shadow Master have it's levels based on planetary worlds, each of them having a single biome. The first level in Planet Silvan is a jungle world, followed by the mountainous Planet Halyos, and there's also a few appropriately-named worlds like the ice-covered Planet Glasys and the ocean-filled Planet Ocella.
• Sigma Star Saga had a Forest Planet, a Fire Planet, an Ice Planet, a Sand Planet, a Ghost Planet, and an Ocean Planet. the Ocean Planet is Earth
• Sins of a Solar Empire: There are four kinds of planets — Terran Planets (like Earth), Ice Planets, Volcanic Planets, and Desert Planets. Averted impressively by the planet textures, however. Some of the desert planets feature large seas, for example, and greenery can be found on peninsulas extending into the oceans. The expansion pack for Rebellion adds another seven planet types.
• Skies of Arcadia: Both played straight and averted, which takes place on a Cloud Planet whose various floating continents contain the standard range of climates.
• Space Quest has a few of these.
  • Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter: Planet Kerona is apparently all desert.
  • Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge: Planet Labion is a jungle world.
  • Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon: Planet Ortega is all volcanoes and lava.
  • Space Quest V: The Next Mutation: Planet Thrakus is nothing but giant, toxic fungus.
• Speed Kills: The planets of Angkor and Void XIII are implied to be a jungle world and an ice world, respectively. This has no actual impact on the races which occur there, however.
• Spore: All planets are either freezing cold, scorching hot, plagued by eternal storms, constantly bombarded by space debris, some combination of the previously listed four, or varying levels of temperate and capable of supporting life, in which case they're covered pole-to-pole in lightly forested, temperate plains with clear skies, shallow beaches where the land meets the water and the occasional bit of rain. Downplayed in the Space Stage and Galactic Adventures, where players can use props and the tools to mimic more biome variety.
• Starbound features these. Not only do you have your typical planetary biomes sans city, you have asteroid belts, water worlds, toxic poison worlds, dark worlds and, before they were removed in the full release, even tentacle planets (though these are explained in-universe as being worlds where a mutated monster found its way into the planet's core and ate everything). However, while every planet have a specific "primary biome", most have multiple other biomes as well; a frozen ice planet can have forests, grassy fields and mountains, while a mutated alien world can branch into jungles or twisted fields of flesh. You can also find completely different biomes a short distance below the surface, if you care to dig a little.
• StarCraft:
  • Aiur is a lush jungle world over its whole surface, Korhal is a blasted post-atomic wasteland, Mar Sara is a desert planet, Shakuras is an ice planet, and so on. The only planet in the whole first game with varying surface features is Tarsonis, the Confederate capital, and even that is only discernible in the rendered cinematics, not in-game.
  • Starcraft II covers most of these categories with some world or other.
    • Desert: Xil. Meinhoff and Mar Sara also lean in this direction. Wherever the Umojan research station is in Heart of the Swarm.
    • Jungle: Bel'shir, Aiur. Heart of the Swarm adds Zerus.
    • Forest: Endion, a forest moon in Legacy of the Void.
    • Dark: Shakuras, several nameless worlds seen in the Zeratul missions. Legacy of the void adds Slayn.
    • Volcano: Char, Redstone
    • City: Korhal, New Fulsom seems to be a planet sized prison.
    • Farm: Agria's name suggests it is one of these, and the terrain does indeed have numerous farms.
    • Garbage: Deadma's port. Slayn might be one, with a screwed up environment and lots of terrazine around.
    • Ice: Kaldir in Heart of the Swarm. Borea in Covert Ops.
    • Cloud: Skygeirr in Heart of the Swarm.
• Star Fox: Frequently played straight:
  • Star Fox portrays Fortuna as being very Earth-like, complete with plant-filled plains and expanses of water. It is also home to big-ass creatures. Fortuna is portrayed similarly in Star Fox: Assault. The reason it looks different in Star Fox 64 is due to a writer error: the Lylat System's resident Ice Planet is actually called "Fichina".
  • Star Fox 64:
    • Justified with Aquas. It used to be a perfectly normal planet, but after one of Andross's bio-weapons shattered the ice caps, it flooded over and became a pure ocean world.
    • Justified with Zoness. Whatever it was like originally, Andross has been using it to dump all his toxic waste. This has completely screwed up the planet, and turned it into a big waste site. The battle is over an ocean, but it in unclear whether the entire planet is supposed to be an ocean.
  • The series can't seem to decide on what exactly Solar is. In Star Fox 64 it appears to be a red dwarf star but in Star Fox Command it is referred to as "the red-hot planet".
  • Star Fox Adventures plays with the trope. The four satellital areas of Sauria (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City and Dragon Rock), while all single-biome, are actually parts of the planet that were separated from it when General Scales removed the Spellstones from the two Force Point Temples, and they return to their original locations during the game's ending. Sauria itself, meanwhile, has a variety of biomes even without the missing pieces, so it simply averts the trope.
• Star Sector: Every planet is defined by a specific type, such as barren, ice, desert, tundra or terran. However, the textures and descriptions avert this. Desert worlds can have small bodies of water for example, and terran worlds are just Earth-like, meaning there's all the biomes you find on Earth present.
• Stellaris:
  • Playable species originate on planets with one of three climates, each of which has three more specific biomes: Wet (Continental, Ocean, Tropical), Cold (Alpine, Arctic, Tundra), and Hot (Arid, Desert, Savanna). Species by default have a 100% habitability rating on their homeworld, 80% on other planets of the same biome, 60% on planets of a different biome of the same climate, and 20% on all other "normal" inhabitable planets. There are also a number of uninhabitable planet types such as Frozen, Molten and Toxic, which are only useful for hosting mining or research stations in orbit if it has resources. However, there are techs that increase habitability ratings and planets can be terraformed to different biomes (uninhabitable planets also sometimes turn out to be Terraforming Candidates) or Genetic Adaptation can change the preferred biome of a planet's population. Robots also have 100% habitability on any planet that isn't outright inhospitable.
  • There are also a few special types. Gaia worlds are a rare biome that is miraculously 100% habitable to all species, though there's usually some complication preventing colonization, such as Holy Guardians declaring them sacred. You can also eventually terraform planets into Gaia worlds. Tomb Worlds are the opposite, being a planet whose former inhabitants bombed themselves into oblivion, and the remaining irradiated wasteland is 0% inhabitable to everything except robots and species with the "Tomb World Preference" trait (which makes them unable to live anywhere else). Depending on whether you're playing an individualist species, a biological Hive Mind or a Machine Intelligence, you can also turn your planets into an Ecumonopolis, Hive World, or Machine World respectively, which can no longer produce basic resources like food and minerals but gain huge bonuses to producing everything else. Finally there are Relic Worlds, former Ecumonopoli which were destroyed similarly to Tomb Worlds (or possibly just left to starve with no food coming in from outside); these are 80% habitable to most species and can be restored to full Ecumonopolis status without the need for the normal Ascension Perk.
• Streetpass Mii Plaza: The planets visited by the Mii Force veer towards this: Leisura is a beach world and Aquatis an ocean planet. Roohin and Amyuzia are far more peculiar, being a ruins planet and a carnival planet respectively.
• Subnautica's Planet 4546B is almost entirely ocean, save for a few mountainous islands and an arctic landmass. However, much like Earth's oceans, 4546B's ocean is full of a massive amount of biodiversity and numerous different biomes. From volcanic sea floor vents to lush coral reefs and kelp forests, it really goes a long way towards giving the trope the finger. The standalone expansion Below Zero brings the player to the arctic zone and again subverts the "ocean planet" trope, showing numerous vibrant biomes both above and below the ice. Unlike most Ocean Planets in sci fi, the game also addresses the issues of global climate and weather systems; you can find logs from a previous group of survivors, also marooned on 4546B, who were driven underwater by intense hurricanes after trying to set up base on an island.
• Super Mario Galaxy has plenty of Single Biome bodies, in single biome galaxies. You've got the Good Egg Galaxy, which has a planet of each elemental type, Melty Molten Galaxy which is all lava planets, Beach Bowl/Drip Drop/Bonefin Galaxy which is all water planets and quite a few more strange single biome ones including a haunted house galaxy (Ghostly Galaxy), Hailfire Peaks (Freezeflame Galaxy), two battlestation themed galaxies/planets (Battlerock and Dreadnought Galaxies), a Level Ate galaxy (Sweet Sweet Galaxy), and one where all the planets are autumn themed. This also applies to the levels of Super Mario Galaxy 2, of which there are even more per world.
• Thunder Force often has each stage a separate single biome planet. Sole exception is V where it take place on Earth.
• Trove averts and plays it straight. The aversion comes from each of the Prime Worlds having several biomes (which are randomly generated as to their placement and location relative to one another). Two of the Elemental Worlds, Water and Wind also have some varying biomes to house their dungeons. The straight example is the Fire world, which has lava galore interspersed with a few motes of land. Then there's the Geode location, which appears to be an endless desert, and the Shadow worlds look desolate, bleak, and downright depressing. Of course, according to the backstory, the world was shattered into pieces...
• Warframe: It's unclear how much of each planet we actually see, but several planets are explicitly single-biome. Venus is an ice world with one small spot that is slowly being terraformed (it's still very cold, but at least you don't need heat lamps to survive), and Europa and Pluto are also ice worlds. Earth was terraformed into a planet-wide forest to keep anyone from doing anything useful with it, though there are a handful of clear spots. Jupiter and Saturn, being gas giants, don't really have biomes, just cities in the clouds.
• Xain'd Sleena has this in spades: Cleemalt Soa is an airless world orbiting a Saturn-like planet, Lagto Soa is a jungle planet, Cleedos Soa a desert planet, Guwld Soa a volcanic planet, and finally Kworal Soa an ocean planet.
• Z: The star system around which the game is set has a desert planet, a volcanic planet, an arctic planet, a jungle planet, and a city planet.

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