History FTL / VideoGames

** For humans, it is nowhere near instantaneous, as their tech can only muster a pathetic 2.6 light-years per day, and is quite inaccurate, as ships can wind up hundreds of kilometers away from their target. In 2525, it took weeks for a human vessel to travel from one system to another, and months to cross the breadth of human-controlled space, limited to the Orion spur of the Milky Way galaxy. Additionally, the humans lack the abstract science to initiate a slipstream jump near any substantial gravity well - i.e. a planet - without destroying their vehicle in the process. In ExpandedUniverse media set early in the Covenant War, cruisers fly from system to system with the information stored on them, described as being the 26th century FictionalCounterpart to the Pony Express.
** Covenant craft however are ''much'' more accurate and ''much'' faster, achieving 912 light-years per day and being able initiate a slipstream jump ''inside'' a planetary atmosphere - much to the great distress of the puny humans. Even more impressive is their [[{{FTLRadio}} BattleNET]], allowing instantaneous - if unsecured - superluminal communications across stellar distances. However, when they exit slipspace, Covenant vessels experience a brief period of time where they are bereft of shields and weapons - the only time they are truly vulnerable to the humans in space combat.

** The [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]] had fabricated an even more refined system of slipstream travel. In addition to the staggering 2,300 light-years per day during transit, the Forerunners maintained a galaxy-wide network of slipstream portals, streamlining space travel; for example, the portal connecting Earth to The Ark is a 234,144-lightyear journey made in only 24 days, working out to approx. ''9700'' light-years per day. They also used slipstream for other purposes besides space travel, such as storing a full-sized dyson sphere measuring 2 AU - three hundred million kilometers, twice the distance of the Sun from the Earth - in a quantum slipstream bubble barely a few centimeters across, itself buried in the heart of ''another'' dyson sphere.

** What is known is that a critical piece (the "Singularity Core") looks [[ShoutOut suspiciously like]] a [[Film/BackToTheFuture Flux Capacitor]], and that it can be [[VideoGame/HaloReach turned into a bomb]].

* VideoGame/{{Ixion}}'s VOHLE jumps allows your ship to do this. [[spoiler: At least, they do once you replace your ship's faulty VOHLE engine with the prototype [[TitleDrop IXION-class]] version.]]

*** A late game megsstructure called a Quantum Catapult can be built that allows for another form of FTL. The Catapult can instantly launch fleets of ships form its location to any point within its radius (roughly half the galaxy)... the issue is that the further it launches them, the more inaccurate it gets. Also, it's a one way trip, and those ships must rely on other FTL methods after they arrive.

* Largely averted in ''VideoGame/RimWorld''. Interstellar travel across the Rim involves [[HumanPopsicle Cryptosleep]], and sublight engines, which are slowly guided across space by sophisticated computers. However, pawns are able to instantly teleport across the world using psychic powers, which would allow a group of pawns to move at speeds in excess of the speed of light.

* ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' has the Frame Shift Drive, which can instantaneous launch a ship [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace through witchspace]] to nearby stars of sufficient mass. ''Videogame/EliteDangerous'' adds a free-flight "Supercruise" mode for superluminal inter-planetary travel that is affected by the current gravity gradient; stray too close to a massive body at high speed and your drive will ''violently'' disengage, ripping you back into realspace and sending you into a wild spin in the process.

* ''VideoGame/ImprobableIsland'': According to an aside in the "Laughably Impractical Burger" encounter, all teleportation on the island takes place at exactly c plus 1 m/s. It is hypothesized that the Drive is doing it like that to show off, "presumably simply because it goddamn can".

* The Nomai of ''VideoGame/OuterWilds'' use warp drives for FTL travel. The warp drive creates a wormhole, through which the Vessel is able to travel. A smaller version of these wormholes are also used to operate teleporter gates, which will transport the traveller over seemingly any distance, provided that there is a corresponding landing pad. [[spoiler:They can also be considered FTL by virtue of the fact that the Nomai wormhole teleporters cause the traveller to arrive shortly before they depart, effectively time-travelling a little bit in the past whenever they teleport]].

** There are actually ''two'' such devices. One is, basically, an instantaneous version of the stalane drive that sends the ship equipped with it through either a normal starlane or a red link without "starlane drag", which the game explains is what prevents instantaneous FTL travel. The device burns out after one use, though. The other device works on any ship currently in a given starlane (including enemy heading for your system).

* ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'': ''Descent: FreeSpace'' and ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'' had a system of "jump nodes" between star systems. Inter-system jump drives are almost exclusive to larger (cruiser/corvette/destroyer/superdestroyer) ships, although you do get to pilot fighters with them once or twice. All spaceworthy vessels (including fighters) can make in-system jumps, which are used to return to base at the end of each mission. The intersystem jump nodes are mostly fixed and immutable, although at the end of Freespace it is discovered that a large explosion within subspace will collapse the link, making it impossible to travel through it again. [[spoiler:At the end of Freespace, the only jump node in the Sol system is thusly collapsed, isolating Earth from the rest of the galaxy and giving the game a DownerEnding.]] In Freespace 2, an ancient device which can artificially [[strike:create]] stabilize jump nodes is discovered; the ending cutscene implies [[spoiler:that this technology is eventually used to restore the collapsed Sol jump node]].

* ''[[VideoGame/FreeSpace Descent: FreeSpace]]'' and ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'' had a system of "jump nodes" between star systems. Inter-system jump drives are almost exclusive to larger (cruiser/corvette/destroyer/superdestroyer) ships, although you do get to pilot fighters with them once or twice. All spaceworthy vessels (including fighters) can make in-system jumps, which are used to return to base at the end of each mission. The intersystem jump nodes are mostly fixed and immutable, although at the end of Freespace it is discovered that a large explosion within subspace will collapse the link, making it impossible to travel through it again. [[spoiler:At the end of Freespace, the only jump node in the Sol system is thusly collapsed, isolating Earth from the rest of the galaxy and giving the game a DownerEnding.]] In Freespace 2, an ancient device which can artificially [[strike:create]] stabilize jump nodes is discovered; the ending cutscene implies [[spoiler:that this technology is eventually used to restore the collapsed Sol jump node]].

** The Humans rely on natural Node Drive, a form of jump drive between randomly connected stars via stable preset connections through [[SubspaceOrHyperspace "Nodespace"]], which can be very fast but having to follow the paths means travel time between physically-nearby systems can take longer than they should if there is no direct path. The [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Zuul]] also use Nodes, but they make their own artificial connections, which have a drawback of being unstable and deteriorating over time. Their drives are also slower than the Humans'. Additionally, both races can incur the wrath of some EnergyBeings that live in Nodespace, who aren't too happy about uninvited visitors (especially the Zuul, who literally tear their way through the dimension). They usually show up during battles in Nodespace, but can also enter normal space to attack planets.

* Prior of update 2.0 of ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' all three options were available at the beginning of the game, but a species could only use one.
** Warp is direct and omnidirectional but slow, expensive in terms of costs and energy and can only be done from the edge of solar systems to prevent... accidents.
** "Jumps" exist as wormholes that can be created from [[OurWormholesAreDifferent "wormhole stations"]] in systems to any other system in range, but the stations are expensive, vulnerable and have significant recharge times.
** Hyperdrives use existing connections "[[HyperspaceLanes Hyperlanes]]" between systems and are much faster than warp, but they must abide by the paths already present, forming networks that may easily be cut off, if vital systems with few connecting lanes are occupied. Due to game balance issues the developers eliminated the other starting FTL methods in 2.0, hyperdrive was retained because it allowed players to create choke points.
** A fourth version not available to playable species until late in the game is a Jump Drive that takes the ship into an alternate universe where they can travel 20 times faster than conventional drives, but has the risk of accidentally tearing open a portal to the universe where the [[GalacticConqueror Unbidden]] reside.
** Post-2.0 one can discover unstable natural [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]] that can be stabilized with mid-game technology to create a permanent "shortcut" between two systems on opposite sides of the galaxy, or {{Precursor|s}} [[PortalNetwork gateways]] that can be reactivated and link to other reactivated gates.

* The world of ''VideoGame/AnalogueAHateStory'' is strongly implied to have this, but the spaceship you're investigating was built before FTL travel was available. Therefore, it was designed to accommodate a colony of humans for the hundreds of years it would take to reach their destination.

** Post-2.0 one can discover unstable natural [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]] that can be stabilized with mid-game technology to create a permanent "shortcut" between two systems on opposite sides of the galaxy, or {{Precursor}} [[PortalNetwork gateways]] that can be reactivated and link to other reactivated gates.

* All combat in ''VideoGames/NextJumpSHMUPTactics'' takes place during hyperspace jumps, which cover one parsec per use. It combines the jump drive and hyperdrive concepts, travelling a fixed length per activation but using an InterdimensionalShortcut that can be interacted with.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' takes the concept of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter negative mass]] and runs with it. Ships are equipped with Mass Effect drives, that reduce the mass of the ship and manipulate gravity around the ship, so that the ship "falls" through space at FTL speeds. This is used for "short range" (0-20 Light year) movement - enough to scoot around a cluster of stars. However, the game takes place on a ''galactic'' scale - to travel over distances further than a few nearby stars, ships utilise "Mass Relays", gigantic, free-floating [[{{Precursors}} Prothean]] [[spoiler: actually [[AbusivePrecursors Reaper]]]] [[LostTechnology relics]] which can project kiloparsec-long negative-mass highways. Even larger distances require two even larger relays [[PortalNetwork linked together]].

* In ''VideoGame/TheCrystalKey'', you are sent off in an experimental hypership to investigate a DistressCall from the Arkonians, though it's not explained how the ship works. Later in the game, you also get to hijack an alien ship that also has FTL abilities, and land it on the same planet.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'': In the Grand Finale, Asura [[spoiler:in his massively huge, larger then a planet destructor form]] can fly so fast he passes by ''entire solar systems'' in a manner of '''mere seconds''' on his way to the final boss, without needing any sort of warp drive.