Trapped In Another World / Video Games

Kino: I don’t think this country is on our map…
Hermes: Maybe it’s just an old map?
Kino: This place doesn’t look that new to me.
Hermes: Then maybe it’s another world or something.
Kino: What?

—DanMachi: Memoria Freese during the Kino's Journey crossover campaign Travelers and the Labyrinth Country

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• A double whammy in Aëdemphia — not only is the heroine Irzyka is sent away from the world of Estarzall and trapped in the world of Akzalfir; but according to her backstory she's from a post-apocalyptic world and ended up in the land of Estarzall after escaping said world's destruction.
• The Hero of Albion ends up trapped on another planet, when losing contact with the factory ship he came with. After he saves the world from the ship's on-board supercomputer that was programmed to destroy it, he essentially traps the crew.
• Another World: The main character is transported to a distant planet, or possibly a different dimension when lightning strikes him in his lab one evening. As seen in the sequel, Heart Of the Alien, he never makes it back.
• Arknights: The Guest Fighter characters of Rainbow Six Siege, The Legend Of Luo Xiao Hei and Monster Hunter all ended up this way after an event transported them to Terra. "Operation Originium Dust" ends with the four members of Team Rainbow setting out to find their way back home after registering themselves as associates of Rhodes Island.
• Blazblue Cross Tag Battle centers around the characters of BlazBlue, Persona 4, Under Night In-Birth and RWBY being pitted against each other by a myserious entity who trapped them in an unknown world, and told them that the first team that obtains some objects called "keystones" will be the one going back home. Subsequent updates added characters from Arcana Heart, Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf to the equation.
• In Brütal Legend, roadie Eddie Riggs winds up in a world based on Heavy Metal album covers after injuring himself and spilling blood on his belt buckle. Turns out that it's a really important belt buckle. Also, unlike other examples, he has no inclination whatsoever of going back.
• Cadence of Hyrule starts with this happening to Cadence, where she gets stuck in the world of The Legend of Zelda. She's not sure if the portal that opens up for her at the end will return her to her home or not, but doesn't mind because she's itching for a new adventure.
• The main characters of Cool Cool Toon are taken to Cool Cool Town through their TV set. They should be able to return, but Yusa's TV is broken, so they're stuck until they can get it fixed.
• Brad, the player's character in Curse of Enchantia, is boy from our dimension who has been kidnapped to a fantasy world ruled by an evil witch and now has find a way back.
• DanMachi: Memoria Freese:
  • The Kino's Journey crossover campaign Travelers and the Labyrinth Country involves Kino and Hermes(The motorcycle, not the god); Photo and Sou; and Shizu, Riku and Tifana ending up in Bell's world after getting caught in a fog.
  • In the Date A Live crossover campaign Ais Catastrophe, Shido, alongside several of his Spirit friends find themselves transported from their world into Bell's through an unknown cause. Not only does the Kaguya Yamai that came with them turn out to be an impostor, she also is revealed to have been the cause.
  • Bell and company find themselves on the receiving end of this when they end up in Goblin Slayer's world during the crossover campaign Dungeon and Goblins.
• In Date Warp, Janet and Bradley are trapped in an alternate universe where The American Revolution never happened, and the country is called Atlanta. However, it turns out it's more complicated than that.
• Right off the bat in Dark Adventure, the three player characters - Condor, Labryna and Zorlock - gets sucked into a chest leading to a medieval fantasy world, and they must find their way out by confronting and defeating the Devil King.
• Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Gun goes with Greed without thinking why a demon has appeared in the school, but once he gets teleported to Kamael he quickly decides to seek a way back. Despite getting used to being a hunter, he still prefers to return to the conveniences of modern civilization.
• The Dig involves a group of astronauts who get transported to an alien world.
• In Dragon Quest III, the Hero falls into the world of Alefgard, the setting of the first two Dragon Quest games. Once they defeat Zoma, the hole between Alefgard and the Hero's world closes, sealing them in Alefgard forever where they become known as the hero "Erdrick"/"Loto".
  • The Dragon Quest Monsters series has former party members Terry and Kiefer being transported to alternate worlds in the first game and Caravan Hearts respectively while the rest star new characters who have always lived in their respective worlds.
• In East Tower, Sakuya Morita is given a chance to try the latest virtual game attraction, East Tower, which enables the player to transform into whatever they want to, but then a sudden accident happens and she and the other four participants end up trapped in the virtual world.
• In Epic Mickey, it's Mickey Mouse who's on the receiving end of this trope. He's been trapped in the Cartoon Wasteland, a twisted recreation of Disneyland where all cartoon characters go once they've been forgotten, and the main goal of his quest is to return home.
• In Eversoul, the main character is a young man from modern Earth who was suddenly summoned to the distant future, in a Fictional Earth now called Eden. There, he was summoned to be the "Savior" of the Souls, magical beings that now live on this revitalized world, from mysterious monsters coming out of otherworldly portals named Gates, and by doing so, he'll be able to go back home. There are What If? Love Story endings where he's abruptly sent back without finishing his job though, like in Mephistopheles's Bad and Normal Endings.
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 both use this as the main plot for the player character, but handle it in different ways. Advance has the main character wanting to go back to the real world because running away from life's problems is not healthy. A2 has the main character wanting to go home so he doesn't worry his aunt, but is in no rush to go home and tries to enjoy the time spent in the fantasy world.
• Final Fantasy X. Main character Tidus is a sports star from the great city of Zanarkand, who one day finds himself transplanted in the world of Spira, and his city was apparently annihilated... one thousand years ago. It's revealed that Tidus's world, and Tidus himself aren't real to begin with.
• Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers has the Player Character whisked away to The First, an alternate plane of reality that makes up Hydaelyn's Multiverse. The "Trapped" part of the trope is downplayed, as a means for the player to travel freely between The First and the main game world, The Source, is quickly established. The player's allies from The Source, on the other hand, are very much trapped in The First due to the Crystal Exarch botching his first attempts to summon the player.
• Genshin Impact:
  • A particularly interesting variant as your player character is posited as being a veteran other-world traveler, and the world upon which Teyvat rests was just one stop of many you and your sibling were making. You ran afoul of the "unknown god" while transiting, however, and ended up robbed of your powers of world-travel and with your sibling seemingly kidnapped. The nature of the player's homeworld has not yet been addressed; their voice-over entries occasionally hints about what existed in their homeworld.
  • Another character (Fischl) claims to hail from an otherworld as well; this claim is somewhat more questionable, however.
  • Crossover character Aloy fits the bill as well, being trapped on Teyvat from her homeworld in Horizon Zero Dawn
• This is how Granblue Fantasy justifies its crossovers with various properties like Cardcaptor Sakura, THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls, and Sakura Wars as something magical drags the characters into the world of Granblue Fantasy. The crossover with THE iDOLM@STER: SideM adds another layer to the trope where the cast was filming a Granblue movie, only to find out the world was Real After All once they transported.
• The Graveyard Keeper of his eponymous game is some random shmuck from the modern day killed in a car accident, then transported to a dark, magical Medieval world. The entire game is spent trying to find a way to get back home.
• In Half-Life, Gordon Freeman is trapped in a hellish alien dimension until he can take down the Nihilanth.
• Harukanaru Toki no Naka de has the main character and her two friends summoned into a place that looks quite like Kyoto in the Heian period.
• The player in Heroes of Jin Yong, who wakes up and finds himself somewhere in ancient China after a night-long video game binge. It turns out he's inexplicably stuck in the works of Jin Yong, and must Win to Exit by forming alliances with the characters of various novels. There's a spinoff called Heroes of the Three Kingdoms that repeats the premise, except the player is stuck in the world of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
• The eponymous Hidden City is a realm that exists on a separate plane of reality from our world, and would, from time to time, open up a portal and drag unfortunate people into the place. Those who are brought into the City are granted a special "gift" to fulfill specific purposes, although the player's character has a particularly deep connection to the City itself and is considered The Chosen One.
• In Holy Umbrella, the adventure begins as the protagonist picks up a mysterious umbrella and is instantly transported into the fantasy world of Margence.
  "Hold on! You don't mean I've ended up in another world, like in a cartoon or a game?!"
• Jak and Daxter are sent through a rift gate to Haven City at the beginning of Jak 2 and lack any means to leave. Subverted in that it's actually the same place, just hundreds of years in the future, and Jak was originally from there anyway.
• The central plot of Kirby and the Forgotten Land sees Kirby and the rest of the Dream Landers getting sucked into a wormhole, transporting all of them to an unknown world. Along the way, Kirby befriends a big eared chinchilla-like creature called Elfilin and they team up to rescue the Waddle Dees from the nefarious Beast Pack.
• In Kyle & Lucy: Wonderworld, the eponymous Kyle and Lucy are trapped in a Magical Land known as Sunova, the game centers around them trying to secure a way out.
• League of Legends has a set of "Arcade" and "Battle Boss" character skins that developed into its own noncanon, but official Alternate Continuity, following several champions after they were sucked into the "Arcade World", an amalgamation of several retro arcade games brought together by the code-ripping Final Boss Veigar, who seeks to Take Over the World with his army of "Battle Bosses". Fortunately, said champions are speedrunners and Challenge Gamers and are joined by their gaming heroes, so he's probably made a big mistake.
• In Love Nikki - Dress Up Queen, Nikki and her talking cat Momo are transported to the world of Miraland, where conflicts are resolved via Fashion Shows, and have to save the world before they can return home.
• The plot of The Longest Journey and its sequel Dreamfall. The main character April Ryan ends up traveling between two worlds, Stark and Arcadia, and ends up as of the second game choosing to live permanently in Arcadia.
• In Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, Dekar is thrown into a hellish otherworld through a Heroic Sacrifice. He fights his way out, blows up the entire dimension behind him, and gets back to the party in time to save the day.
• Magical Girl Critical: A wizard from another world summons Momoka to his world for help in unsealing a vault holding a magic sword since her specific magic signature is needed. Unfortunately for both of them, Momoka ended up very far from her destination and had to proceed there on foot once Nyaggard points the way to the summoner.
• Miku Monogatari : Yume to Taisetsu na Mono: Miku is dragged in into the various worlds inside a storybook when she noticed a glowing spot on its page.
• Monster Hunter: World has seen this happen three times, involving an Intercontinuity Crossover:
  • First was the Final Fantasy XIV event, where a portal from Eorzea has carried a moogle to Astera. However, he's not the one actually trapped, since he can leave any time he wants but wants to help with the creature that is. Behemoth.
  • Second was The Witcher event, with Geralt getting pulled in and looking for a way back. However, he decides to stay at least for a short while to take care of the Leshen that's rooted itself in the Ancient Forest, disrupting the balance of nature. He ends up finding a portal at the end though he's not completely sure where it will send him.
  • Third was an event for the Monster Hunter (2020) movie, which sees Artemis thrust into the MH world, not unlike what happens in the film.
• This is the premise of Myst, in which the player stumbles across a mysterious series of worlds after accidentally using a Linking Book. Actually, even if you win the game, you don't get to go home. In the opening of the sequel, Riven, Atrus promises that, if all goes well, he might be able to send the player home. Subverted in Myst III and IV, where the player willfully returns to visit Atrus. It's implied at the end of Riven that when Atrus drops his D'ni Linking Book into the Star Fissure, he's leaving the player with both a way home and a means to visit him. This was before D'ni turned out to be Earth All Along.
• Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream begins with the heroine, Porch, being accidentally claimed by a novice grim reaper, leaving her trapped in Napple World, a realm between life and death. She must collect pieces of herself that escaped when she crossed over in order to return home. Despite sounding pretty dire, Napple World is an adventure friendly place - and it's just about as quirky-cute as Porch is herself.
• Nox, with the protagonist's character class affecting (among other things) whether or not he returns from the titular fantasy world back to present-day Earth, or stays there.
• The roguelike Omega's "play as yourself" mode starts with the player running the mysterious "omega" program without permission, and it somehow transporting them into Omega's world.
• One Shot has Niko waking up in a dark world, designated as the world's messiah. Unfortunately, while everyone seems to know what Niko is there for, they aren't so sure how to get them home — a process that ends up being rather difficult.
• In the first Persona game, the party ends up spending a good deal of the game in an alternate version of their city. It eventually becomes a non-subversion: they were actually trapped in Maki's mind (they've just defeated Kandori in the real world when they learn this). Now, Maki herself has been acting strangely since the whole crisis began, and told the group she was from the Alternate Universe they were in — oh, crap.
  • Persona 4 has a series of murders that were revealed to be caused by trapping people in the TV world.
  • Persona 5 has the protagonist and Ryuji being locked up in Kamoshida's palace (which is a part of the game's cognitive world) before eventually escaping.
  • While the Persona franchise is no stranger to the characters traveling to cognitive worlds, Persona Q is the only one aside from the first game where the heroes are trapped until the end of the game.
• Pokémon
  • Salon Maiden Anabel, one of the Frontier Brains from Pokémon Emerald, fell into the Alternate Universe of the 3D games through an Ultra Wormhole and lost her memories. She then became an Interpol Special Agent alongside Looker.
  • In Pokémon Legends: Arceus the Player Character is a teenager from another world who's pulled into Meiji-era Sinnoh through a rift in spacetime by Arceus, who tasks them with catching every Pokémon and working their way up to challenge it. Aside from them, Ingo from Unova also got transported though unlike them he didn't keep his memories.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games combine this with your character being a human stranded in a world full of other talking Pokemon, transformed into a Pokemon themselves. Except in Explorers, where they were from the future.
• Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop: Meena is unable to bring anyone out of the Dream World due to borrowing her power from somebody else, and it becomes the game's premise for Amitie, Ringo, and Arle to go find who is giving her the power so they can stop it.
• This is the premise of Rakenzarn Tales. The main character, Kyuu, is an ordinary student who's sent in the Constructed World of Rakenzarn by the local Interdimensional Travel Device. Rakenzarn is a fantasy world with everything you would expect from a fantasy world in a RPG (guns, swordfights, magic, monsters and of course the local Big Bad trying to take over the world...). So, Kyuu has to learn and train in order to adapt to this new world and to survive. In Chapter 5, after being sent back to his own world, he has the choice to return to Rakenzarn, this time willingly.
• In Scaler, Scaler gets trapped in a world filled with Lizard Folk, when escaping from a torture session. We later learn that his father, Leon, is also is trapped there. The rest of game is then spent with Scaler trying to get his claws on a 'Portal Beacon', that can get him and Leon home.
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV, this is what happens once the Yamato Perpetual Reactor is turned on. The three Samurai are desperate to go home, but the only way back is turning on the Reactor again in the parallel worlds. This is a trap engineered by the White, to show the Crapsack Worlds that could arise from choosing pure Law or pure Chaos, in an effort to have The Hero Mercy Kill the multiverse by overloading the reactor and creating a massive black hole to "return all to nothing".
• The protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei V is isekai'd into Da'at along with Yuzuru and Dazai when exploring a tunnel shortcut after a mysterious death at the train station blocks off civilian access. All three are stuck there - and subjected to different nonlethal fates - until they find a Terminal that allows them to return to Tokyo. Shit gets freaky later on in the game, as it turns out the entire plot is a reverse isekai - the God of Law created the Shekinah Glory copy of Tokyo for humans to inhabit during Armageddon to keep them out of the conflict while angel and demon alike tore the real Tokyo asunder. Unfortunately, with the God of Law killed by Lucifer, the Shekinah Glory is crumbling and will eventually disappear with everyone there unless someone takes the now-empty Throne of Creation for themselves.
• Happens in all of the video games in the Silent Hill series, with the protagonists trapped in one or more alternate dimensions centered around the titular town and its surrounding environs. Overlaps with Closed Circle, since the alternate version of the town is also physically cut off from the rest of the world.
• Luigi is accidentally summoned to the Bears' World in Something Else because they wanted his brother, Mario.
• In Soulcalibur VI, Geralt's Guest Fighter appearance is canon, at least to the Soul series world; he gets pulled through a portal, and his storyline is about him trying to get back home.
• The "Broken Shackles" empire origin in Stellaris revolves around this. You're in command of a group of slaves from varying species who were abducted from your pre-Faster-Than-Light Travel homeworlds by an intergalactic MegaCorp, and instigate a slave revolt that sees you taking control of a transport ship and crashlanding on an alien planet. Now you have to survive on an unfamiliar planet in a hostile galaxy by reverse-engineering their tech to level the playing field before it's too late, and your old masters are still out there.
• The old American backstory of the Super Mario Bros. franchise states that Mario and Luigi are actually from Brooklyn, and accidentally ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom. As of 1995's Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Mario and Luigi were, instead, established to be from the Mushroom Kingdom since birth, and the "Brooklyn" thing was mostly swept under the rug. Mostly.
• A recurring theme of Super Robot Wars since Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden, since it's the easiest way to put shows that have totally contrasting worlds and backgrounds together.
• In Super Robot Wars BX, the ruins on Austral Island somehow sends the protagonist's group to Arst, leaving them stranded on an alien world for a few scenarios.
• Sword of Paladin RE: The final chapter reveals the existence of several parallel worlds to Gaiastir, a Medieval European Fantasy world. After a battle with Berienstahl, Zash ends up trapped in a world that resembles Earth, but with technology instead of magic. In order to adapt to fighting aliens, Zash learns to use the world's technology to supplement his spearsmanship. Fortunately, Nade's party and Brigid manage to find him and bring him back to his home world.
• Some of the supplemental material for Touhou states that people quite frequently fall into Gensokyo from our world. Apparently, the Great Hakurei Border is not absolutely impermeable.
• You help two people with this problem in The Trail Of Anguish. But it eventually turns out that they may not be the only ones trapped somewhere unknown...
• The protagonist of Twisted Wonderland, Yuu, is transported to the setting of the game through the Night Raven College's mirror and find themselves unable to return to their original world, and enrolls in the college as a student until the headmaster, Dire Crowley, finds a way to send them home.
• The Avatar of the later games of the Ultima series (from IV onward) is explicitly stated to be a normal human from Earth before he or she is summoned over. According to a Word of God Retcon, this is true of the first three games as well.
• Wario Land 3 starts with Wario finding a music box in a cave, which suck him into another world. A mysterious voice promises to return Wario home if he can find the five music boxes. It’s eventually revealed this voice is a Monster Clown named Rudy who turned everyone in the world into monsters. After his defeat, the people are restored to normal.
• Inverted in Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Every character inhabits a world that is an amalgamation of two other worlds (long story). This means that they’re only half-trapped in a different world. Since time doesn’t flow properly and people do not have natural life cycles in this world, the main heroes are trying to separate the worlds so that the people can experience normal lives.
• ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal is a subversion: its protagonist Amy is tricked into traveling to another world (which she is supposed to save) but among the first things she finds there is a magical rune that teleports her back to London. Not that she wants to, since her home is a very dull place, constituting one bleak location among hundreds found in the game.

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