History Main / CutAndPasteEnvironments

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[[folder:Film]]

* The "shops in sandbox games/{{RPG}}s all with the same interior" variety is referenced in ''Comicbook/ScottPilgrim''. The title character wanders into a Second Cup coffee shop, expecting to find there his sister, Stacey, who works in one, but is confused when he Julie attending it instead, then a caption says "Scott suddenly realized for the first time that all Second Cup exteriors do not lead to the same Second Cup interior".

[[caption-width-right:255:[[SarcasmMode Just look at the variety!]]]]

* [[CutAndPasteEnvironment/VideoGames Video Games]]

* In ''Film/SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'', toward the beginning of the movie, just after the robots attack Manhattan, Sky Captain lands at his base and drives his plane into a huge hangar. At the top of the doors of the hangar are these huge windows of 8x10 panes. In every window, some of the panes are broken. In every window, it's ''exactly the same panes'' that are broken.

* In the Literature/MontagueEgg story ''Murder in the Morning'', it's a plot point that two petrol stations were built to the same design from prefabricated parts, and operated by similar-looking brothers.

* Due to the limited flexibility in sets, most levels and rooms of starships/bases/etc are the same set lit differently or filmed from another angle.
** Very noticeable in ''Franchise/StarTrek'', especially ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' - their science/robotics/engineering labs are all the same set. They're also the sickbay with no beds and blue lighting panels instead of yellow.
*** And before that, many of those sets were rooms on the ''Enterprise''-D on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. And before that, they were rooms on the refit ''Enterprise'' in ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' and its sequels.
** There is also the fact that away missions, regardless of series or time period, seem to have an inordinate fixation on exploring familiar looking grey caves/tunnels.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' does this, but most of the time it's just recycling ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' footage.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion The Invasion]]'', the same set is used for two different offices belonging to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Tobias Vaughn]], the only difference being the view out of the window. {{Lampshaded}} by the Doctor.
** Whenever the Doctor and friends are traveling through the TARDIS's corridors (especially during the '80s era), it's the Console Room's walls rearranged.
* A lot DomCom and {{Sitcom}} shows generally has rooms designed where characters can be seen entering from a door/stairway/etc from the side (stage left/right) or from behind (up stage). Most shows rarely have characters entering from the hidden 4th wall (the down stage area where most of the cameras are fixated and lacks an actual wall) due to most of the cameras and other equipment being there and hidden from normal view. Because of all the above, many rooms tend to look similar where, in most cases, the entrance door is always on the side, the television is off camera, any form of stairs are always in the rear, etc.
* ''Series/BlackadderGoesForth'' has a French chateau being used as General Melchett's headquarters. We see a court room, a classroom for a flying school, the general's office and a dining hall. They all have the same large round painting above a wide fireplace, though oddly the fireplace frame itself appears to sometimes change colour. Furthermore, the whole set is probably a [[RecycledSet redress]] of the Prince Regent's bedroom from [[Series/BlackadderTheThird the third series]].

-->-- '''Covetous Shen''', {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing the dungeon design in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII''.

* The "shops in sandbox games/{{RPG}}s all with the same interior" variety is referenced in ''Comicbook/ScottPilgrim''. The title character wanders into a Second Cup coffee shop, expecting to find there his sister, who works in one, but is confused when he finds another person (his ex-girlfriend, kinda) attending it instead, then a caption says "Scott suddenly realized for the first time that all Second Cup exteriors do not lead to the same Second Cup interior".

** ''Series/RedDwarf'' uses this a fair bit due to the limited budget:
*** The ''Recap/RedDwarfBackToEarth'' special creates corridors by shooting in the quarters and turning the camera to the wall.
*** The quarantine quarters in the episode, erm, "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVQuarantine Quarantine]]", is the normal bunk room with green panels over the top bunk and Holly monitor.
*** The Season VIII opener, "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartI Back in the Red]]", goes out of its way to invoke this by accurately replicating the original bunk room from the first two series, right down to the awful painted wood look... for a scene that couldn't have lasted more than five minutes!
*** Several episodes feature alternate, duplicated or otherwise parallel versions of familiar locations, allowing for the same sets to be given extra dressings for what is essentially the same location. Notable examples of this are in the "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIParallelUniverse Parallel Universe]]", "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVDemonsAndAngels Demons and Angels]]" and "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIOnlyTheGood Only the Good...]]" episodes.

[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/variety.png]]
[[caption-width-right:255:[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Look at the variety!!]]]]

!!Examples:

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[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'', about a third of the game is reused levels. (Technically, though, most such levels are reused before they're used the first time; this is also a JustifiedTrope, as typically the earliest version of the level exists to teach you the mechanic you need to use, and further iterations add extra complications and difficulty.)
* In ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', the Fate Episodes are guilty of having near-identical background arts. Why would one character stand in the very same spot that another character stood in another episode? Why do some houses have similar interiors? All of these questions came from the usage of this trope.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has been infamous for this:
** ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'':
*** The entire second half of the game is basically you going through the first half backwards. Perhaps that's why the level which marks half-way point, "The Library", is basically this trope embodied.
*** "Assault on the Control Room"; besides the outdoor portions, it's all identical rooms and bridges.
*** ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/11/28/ made light of this]].
** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'':
*** The game as a whole likes to feature many rooms exactly two times.
*** You also go through at least 3 or 4 large identical bridges.
*** "Sacred Icon", which is basically ''2''[='s=] version of "The Library".
* Pick a quest in ''VideoGame/AnarchyOnline'', ANY QUEST: 150% of the time the rooms will look dead similar, right down to the kitchen sink.
* It was a running joke among players of the MMORPG ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' that only one architect designed all the buildings in Paragon City, and he was either insane or on serious drugs. Office buildings all had the same basic room and hallway components, and in some cases they weren't even randomized; warehouse interiors were also suspiciously uniform, right down to the big multi-level room at the end of one map branch where you usually found the villain boss for the mission. Similarly, there was a large but limited number of texture maps for building exteriors.
** Issue 14, which introduced player-created content in the form of the 'Mission Architect' system, did nothing to avert this. Almost any map in the game could be chosen, including the potential for a random pick from a certain size and type, but the maps themselves could not be altered in any way; only the enemies and objectives inside could be edited.
** Oranbega, the lost city hidden beneath Paragon City, was a confusing magical labyrinth that you would visit ''frequently''. In the Rogue Isles, Oranbega didn't exist. Instead, the ruins of the lost city of Mu are located there. Predictably, ''they were exactly the same''. Some players didn't even distinguish between the two.
* DICE is infamous for reusing buildings across multiple maps in its ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' series.
* Also by DICE, ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdge'' is made of this trope. Every rooftop is made of the same elements in different combinations.
* This has been an element of both modern 3D ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games.
** Among the 2D games, ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' is a pretty big offender. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' also, to some degree.
** And of course there's the Inverted Castle in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'', which is the regular castle but upside down with different music, enemies and bosses and almost no story. However, some rooms were definitely designed to work both right side up and upside down, and some layouts are different.
*** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'' is worse about this, having a Castle A and B, with EXACTLY the same layout in both, just different graphics and enemies.
** This problem shows up most glaringly in three places in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''. The Tower of Infinity (50 levels of the same room with different {{Mooks}}, the Tower of Evermore, which is the same thing but harder, and most damningly, Dracula's Castle (which of course is required). It's also pretty obvious in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence''.
* Being a WideOpenSandbox, this is common practice in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, albeit not to the degree that it's very glaring to your average player. ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto: [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]'' however is the biggest offender with regards to interiors.
** Barber shops[[note]]Except the the barber shop near CJ's home (since according to the storyline the person running that particular one has been cutting CJ's hair for years), and another on the southeast corner of Los Santos[[/note]], fast food joints, weapons shops[[note]]most of the time; one shop is larger than the others[[/note]], and tattoo parlors are all identical and even use the same workers, so it gets a bit jarring to see a guy that sells guns in San Andreas can also pop up in every other county that sells guns.
** During the burglary missions there are also only a handful of building interiors depending on what kind of building you are breaking into.
** Even as recently as ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', platform levels of underground subway stations, fast food joints, a clothing chain, two gun stores, bowling alleys, and a multitude of apartment corridors still share common interiors.
* Happens in the SNES version of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Vol. 1''. The caves are mostly composed of a set of repeating tiles, resulting in caves looking very much the same. The forests also suffer from this.
* Games on 8-bit Nintendo systems had to fit huge worlds into tiny cartridges, and they pulled it off by repeating parts of the map.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' for NES (40 KB) uses repeating patterns three screens wide for decorative backgrounds such as hills and clouds. It also reuses about two models for castle exteriors (small and large). On top of that, 5 entire levels are reused, as well as World 4-4 and 7-4 which will actually loop if the player takes the wrong path, and they use the exact same sprite for the clouds and bushes, the only difference being the clouds are white whereas the bushes are green.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' has more unique level layouts, except for World C, which is a complete copy-and-paste of World 7.
** ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
*** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' for NES (128 KB) encodes each map screen as a list of 16 vertical columns as tall as the screen, causing some areas to look familiar. The dungeons are comprised of combinations of a very finite number of room layouts, with only the doors, enemies, treasures, and so on being different.
*** ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'':
*** There are a few room types that get reused in various palaces. One that's notable is a long room with a block structure that usually hides a key in one of the structure's indents.
*** On the way to Darunia, you're expected to go through two maps that are exactly alike, except that the second one has bubbles coming up from the bottom of the screen that are liable to knock you into the water and, predictably, kill you.
** The original ''VideoGame/Metroid1'' (128 KB) has a lot of rooms and areas that look alike, making navigation harder. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' lampshaded this by having you encounter the starting point of the original Metroid, only with slightly better graphics.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'' for Game Boy (64 KB) reuses 20 by 16 tile screens of map data mercilessly.
** ''VideoGame/AdventureIsland'' uses almost the exact same template for each level: a flatland stage, an athletic stage, a cave stage, and a boss stage. Repeat seven more times for the whole game. Most egregious is the boss stages, which are almost exact clones of each other, save for the positioning of the monsters.
*** Same for ''VideoGame/WonderBoy1'', although the SMS version has a few exclusive stages with different environments, such as a waterfall and a gauntlet of erupting volcanoes.
** ''VideoGame/DeadlyTowers'' has every dungeon room looking approximately the same, which is made worse by the dungeons being pointlessly vast.
** ''VideoGame/{{Shatterhand}}'' has a somewhat unique example: One of the levels has a part where a player rides up an elevator while avoiding gears, enemies and fire. This section is then repeated without the last two threats as a boss arena. The highest parts of these two shafts have even the same gear positions as well as a item box for you to collect.
* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' you can go into an area called the Rubicon where Modrons (beings of pure law) are trying to study dungeon crawls. [[JustifiedTrope Because they are beings of law they created a dungeon area of almost completely identical rooms]] (the only difference being which exits are open and how many creatures are present). The only unique rooms are the control center, a boss fight room and a room where you can pick up a character.
** The dungeon's pretty much a magnanimous dig at dungeon crawls in general, with the enemies being CardCarryingVillain constructs that dutifully play their role as opponents and an "Evil Wizard Construct" who spouts stereotypical bad-guy tough talk.
* ''VideoGame/SmugglersRun'' has three settings, one of which is the exact same as an earlier one, but covered in snow.
* MMORPG ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is a big user of this trope; at least with buildings. While the actual geography for most areas is unique, the buildings, caves, and "doodads" that get placed there obviously come from a standardized set of models that get a PaletteSwap from one zone to the next.
** Another interesting thing is that it reuses many of the Warcraft 3 icons for spells and actions.
** There is one specific environment copy-and-paste that deserves an honorable mention here; the Obsideon Dragon cave in the WOTLK Dragonblight zone. Yes, it's another cave, but it's not just another palette copy you'd see again and again when your roaming around Azeroth like mentioned above. This cave, is a cutout of about half of one of the games freaking DUNGEONS; specificly, ''Ragefire Chasm''. A grapics update to suit the WOTLK standard is the only major difference between the Obsideon cave and Ragefire.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is especially bad about this during Chapter 10, forcing the player to go through identical looking rooms several times, fight the first boss of the level, then go through even more identical looking rooms before reaching the second boss in the chapter.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has enormous expanses of land that re-use some assets to fill out the space, supposedly due to limitations imposed by the UsefulNotes/Playstation3. While all [=MMO=]s do this to some extent, much ado has been made about this game's usage of the trope as it sometimes recycled entire topographical features. When the game got rebooted in 2013, almost every single geographical location gotten a makeover and looks unique to each other.
** ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasyOperaOmnia'' makes this a minor plot point when various characters from different worlds are surprised at how familiar their new surroundings are. The gods Materia and Spiritus looked at all the worlds they summoned their heroes from and used those as a template for their new world so it would seem more comfortable and familiar--hence all the ruins, shiny cities, and lava caves.
* The world of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' is composed of bleak landscape after bleak landscape after bleak landscape, with biome differences (forests ARE different from deserts, after all) to tell you where you are. Every building you enter in the game has an annoying tendency to have all its rooms look alike, with some notable exceptions.
** There's a flying base and an ocean base. They not only use the exact same interior layout, but they have the same exterior model as well.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' has shifted all around this trope since its inception. To note:
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' each cover a massive area, but rely exclusively on these (going hand in hand with RandomlyGeneratedLevels) to fill out their absolutely massive game worlds.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' shifts to the opposite end of the spectrum, being entirely hand-built but also being much smaller in scale. That said, cut and pasting is still popular in the dungeons.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' leans back toward it, with areas outside of towns and ''especially'' with Oblivion Gates. (There are 90 gates to Oblivion, but only 7 distinct maps. There's slight variation in the layout of the central towers, but not enough to shake the feelings of deja vu.) The regular dungeons are also examples, though less blatant; they were [[ProceduralGeneration procedurally generated]] before release.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' skews away from it again, going back to a mostly hand-built world with hand-built (though not necessarily ''unique'') dungeons, much like ''Morrowind'' before it. For example, once you've visited one Nordic ruin, you've pretty much visited them all. Only the layout really changes.
* ''Fatal Frame III'' reuses several environments from the previous two games, including the Fish Tank room from Himuro Mansion, and the front of the Osaka house from All God's Village.
* Sega employs this trope liberally for the post-millennial ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' games: ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarPortable'' and ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarZero''. ''Phantasy Star Online'' is the worst offender, tropewise: The first ''PSO'' game told an entire story, with side stories, optional missions and all, '''in the same four reused maps.''' (This isn't even counting how many of the enemies encountered were reskins that used the same character "skeleton" and animations!) The addon/sequels to ''PSO'' often included [[DittoFighter reskins of previous content]], especially [[PaletteSwap bosses and enemies]]. ''Phantasy Star Universe'' and ''Portable'' tried to add variety to layouts of the same area, but it's still based on the same concept--and despite having more content to begin with than the first ''Phantasy Star Online,'' it was more or less the same as ''PSO'' with all its add-ons (that is to say, it had a lot of reskinned areas, enemies, and bosses--just with different behavior flags).
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' re-uses the same room design for mines, and for planetary outposts. The sole variation is in the placement of crates used for cover. And even then, a lot of outposts have the crates piled in the exact same manner. Even the underground bunkers all share the same orange rock wall colour. The uncharted planets meanwhile are all made up of amazingly similar hilly terrain, the only difference being that each planet has a slightly different color scheme. This is because all the terrain is determined by the height value of points on the terrain; the look of the terrain itself is determined by how steep it is. This leaves very little opportunity to have distinctive environments.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' is better about this; most of the main story missions are in completely unique environments, except when it makes sense not to be (for instance, the two recruitment missions on Omega obviously share some architectural similarities). Sidequests received somewhat less love but are still dramatically improved, and feel like actual unique missions as opposed to "go here and shoot everyone". ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', having mostly done away with sidequests that feature environments (DLC notwithstanding), has completely unique terrain and architecture in all of its missions. Even the DLC multiplayer maps, 5 out of 7 of which share visual styles with different single-player maps, have unique layouts. (The six multiplayer maps that shipped with the game are identical to the six sidequest maps in singleplayer, but these ''are'' explicitly the same locations.)
** This is not unique to ''Franchise/MassEffect'' for Bioware games. ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' is built on this; there are innumerable room interiors that are all the same except for some minor set dressing like tables and detritus. Indeed, that's how ''NWN'' levels are built; they're like 3D tilemaps. Oddly, ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' averts this, despite using a modified version of the ''NWN'' engine. Interestingly, their earlier ''Franchise/BaldursGate'' series games are rather different, with each outdoor environment and the vast majority of the dungeon environments being ''hand-drawn'', with certain stock elements included where necessary (doors and trees in the main). Quite an achievement given the sheer size, number and detail of the maps that had to be created.
*** Oddly enough, the very end of the Omega DLC for the third game revisits the area the player first visits in Mass Effect 2, making this a cross-game example.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is top-notch when it comes to unique one-of-a-kind environments. One place in particular however that copy-and-pastes environments is Denerim when you're clearing out the city's backstreet encounters. There's quite a few backyard encounters when you roam around Denerim, but only two maps are ever used for these fights. One encounter the map will have a thief ambush waiting for your arrival. The next time you return, the map will have a special black vial lying about that summons a powerful Revenant wanting to kill you.
** ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening]]'' had something similar, but its reused environments are the world encounters which ''Origins'' beforehand is very good at. So many times in ''Awakening'' you'll be fighting your way through the same flaming forest, or clearing out the same farm overrun of Darkspawn.
* Present to an extreme level in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', where the wastelands around Lothering, the city of Kirkwall, and the final Deep Roads dungeon of Act I are the only areas with a unique map. There is literally no original environment after ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'''s Act I, the closest being Hawk's new hightown estate. Even Sebastian's ''supposedly'' unique graveyard cave for his personal Act II quest is just a retextured world mine-shaft cave if you look close enough at its map layout.
** The two pieces of post-release DownloadableContent both take steps to address this issue, as both are set outside of Kirkwall and feature entirely unique areas.
* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' and other {{Roguelike}}s are either a major subversion of this, or the purest example: the entire game is constructed out of ASCII characters. And almost every dungeon level is randomized, giving [[CombinatorialExplosion a ridiculous number of possibilities]]. You will ''not'' play the same game twice. Unless the game decides to fill your Maze of Menace with [[http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Bones bones files]].
* ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards'' does this with the layouts for the first level of Pop Star and the first level of Ripple Star. In this case, the intent is to provide BookEnds of a sort.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' plays this out with its BonusDungeon, the Chrysler Building. Although each floor, except every 10th is randomized in layout, every hall and storage room are all identical. Every single floor uses the same exact decor for the walls and floors.
* ''VideoGame/LimboOfTheLost'' offers a very literal interpretation of this trope: Nearly every single one of the game's prerendered background scenes is [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} copied straight from elsewhere]], sometimes with some tweaking to try and cover it up, or placement of props that, once again, are reused.
* In ''VideoGame/TheGodfather'', New York City only has a few different types of shops and bars and then repeats the same floor plan over and over again so even if you had never been to a building before you already knew the way around.
* ''VideoGame/HellgateLondon'' was criticised for this: with the exception of several unique levels, most of the game's randomised levels are repetitions of about 10 basic tilesets, with identical sewers/streets/dried-out riverbeds/building basements. Perhaps London really is ''that'' boring.
* The 3D ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games have all had an enormous BonusDungeon with some of the toughest battles in the game. The Gerudo's Training Ground in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' is a fairly interesting [[FinalExamBoss pastiche of other dungeons]] and their puzzles, but ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker's'' Savage Labyrinth and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' Cave of Ordeals consist of '''fifty''' nearly identical chambers packed with wave after wave of enemies (even worse, ''WW'' requires you to fight through 31 rooms for a mandatory PlotCoupon!). ''TWW'', ''TP'', and ''[=OoT=]'' also feature a number of caverns with identical chambers full of puzzles.
** Once you start to explore the Great Sea in ''Wind Waker'', the same interiors start showing up over and over again. The Savage Labyrinth at least has some effort put into it - two other plot coupons from the same quest are found in identical areas, just with a slightly different set of monsters. [[FridgeLogic And are we really expected to believe those identical ship graveyards formed naturally?]]
** Hyrule Field and other areas in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' are filled with holes that lead to identical underground caves.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''
*** The [[MiniDungeon Sheikah Shrines]]. Each and every one of the entrances is the exact same stone cave with ornamental TronLines. Furthermore, the "shrines" themselves are vast underground {{Magitek}} puzzle chambers with a minimalist angular architecture. While the layout is different in each shrine (aside from the numerous "tests of strength" which host the exact same battle against the exact same robot in the exact same arena), their walls, railings, platforms, doors, torches, and everything else look exactly alike. This is at least justified by the backstory: the Shrines were built in the distant past using highly advanced LostTechnology, so some degree of industrialized standardization was likely in effect.
*** There are a mind-boggling 900 Korok puzzles in the overworld, but they fall into a relatively small number of categories[[note]]put the apple in the empty slot, pick all but one apple from one of three trees so they match, Magnesis the block to the right spot so two arrangements of cubes match, Magnesis the iron ball into a hollow stump, stand next to the pinwheel and shoot floating targets, throw a rock into a circle of stones, place a rock into the missing slot in a stone pattern (usually just a small circle), push a big rock down a hill into a hole, look under the rock (quite a lot of rock-themed ones), melt a block of ice, jump into a circle of plants in the water, go from the stump with a leaf on it to a glowing ring before time runs out[[/note]] and many of these are identical to others in the same category. Some Koroks aren't even hidden, you just have to run up to the weird glowing thing zooming around and press A, or climb a tree to get to it. This is forgivable, though, since there are, again, '''900''' of them, and they need to be easy to recognize so that HundredPercentCompletion-types have any chance of finding them all.
* While ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'' tends to use unique backgrounds for its different regions, it still occasionally uses some recycled environments. The most glaring example is the [[spoiler:post-game dungeon Uncharted Galados]] which reuses the same assets than the Realm of the Fay.
* The Adaman Sea level towards the end of ''VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld'' is a level that is an almost literal copy-paste of a previous level with different weather conditions, people have even noted that the location of many of the enemies is the same (although the fact you have a {{BFG}} at this point at least mercifully means you can breeze through it in a few minutes).
* The [=PS2=] ''Manga/InuYasha'' RPG pushes this to its illogical limits. Travel through various areas consists of about 12-15 individual 'screens', copy-pasted around each other to create these areas, with a few "unique" screens in some areas. Underground areas and towns were mostly exempt from this, though.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' falls victim to this in Tartarus dungeon, with each area made up of a small selection of blocks placed in a randomized configuration every time you enter the area.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'': Most of the Mementos dungeon is a set of blocks of warped subway tunnels stuck together by random generation. The rest of the game however, [[spoiler:and the bottom of Mementos]], is custom made.
* ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'' has 300 side missions and a grand total of about eight or nine actual areas, reused over and over and ''over'' again.
* The ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa'' [=PS2=] Remake uses this for the Assassin's Guild; it is one big intersection in every room, and the only way to find your way around is following white gems on the floor. The south exit will take you back to the entrance no matter where you are, though.
* ''VideoGame/WarioLand'':
** In ''VideoGame/WarioLandII'', both Wario's Castle and Syrup's Castle have the same sprite design for their environments, just with different color palettes.
** ''VideoGame/WarioLandShakeIt'' uses this for the secret levels, often without even a colour change (and those that are have changes such as in one case going from having a dark blue sky to a red sky). Kind of saddening, considering ''VideoGame/WarioLand4'' used a completely different background per level.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': The subways which the player must use to navigate [[InsurmountableWaistHighFence conveniently placed piles of rubble]] suffer from this. There's also the occasional reuse of building interiors or layouts.
** Earlier titles in the series use basically the same handful of maps for all random encounters. Almost all caves share the same walls and are only distinguished by their layout.
** Both ''Fallout 3'' and ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'' suffer from this trope a lot harder than you think, although Vegas tries harder to subvert it. Almost every interior corridor is yellow/blue or white with dirt marks everywhere, the same filing cabinets and desks are probably used more than any other object, identical metal boxes with nothing in them, doors are almost always wooden with 2 glass panels or the metal lever-opened kind and the wasteland itself.
*** ''FNV'' also directly reuses a few building layouts from its predecessor, for example the Securitron Deconstruction Plant, X-2 Transmitter Array, and train tunnels in ''Old World Blues'' are near-exact copies of the Robot Repair Center, Satcomm Array NW-05a, and subway/utility tunnels, respectively, the Mysterious Cave's layout is identical to Broc Flower Cave from the ''FNV'' base game, and Hidden Valley Bunker reuses architecture from Raven Rock. In the main game, the REPCONN basement appears to copy parts of Vault 101 (such as the GOAT room) and the Jefferson Memorial basement.
* ''VideoGame/RogueGalaxy'' is a particularly painful sufferer of this - every level is about twice as long as it has any right to be, and only uses two or three kinds of texture.
* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' follows this trope to the letter. Each race has a handful of different station, stargate and planet designs. Agents assign you to a mission randomly picked from a relatively small pool. Also, several NPC factions use ships from one of the major factions, with the only difference being the paint job.
** The "Trinity" graphics upgrade made it worse. Prior to Trinity, there were 3 station interiors per race. Afterwards, there was one station interior per race.
* This is especially noticeable in the very first ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan1 Mega Man]]'', where rooms and even entire lengthy corridors are copy/pasted with reckless abandon. The worst offender by far is Wily Castle Stage 2, where barring enemy/item placement, the same exact screen layout is reused ''nine times'', and what's worse, '''''in three sets of three consecutive screens!'''''
* ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' is very guilty of this. Just about every Comp system that doesn't house a major boss or is not in the second scrap yard area will be identical regardless whether the Comp system is designed for a soda machine, a dog house, a statue, etc.
** ''Star Force 3'' is worse: all the boss areas even look the same.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork1'' is horrible about this. The whole Internet looks the same! Every area! Even the "scary" WWW-controlled areas! This makes it rather easy to walk into the Undernet without knowing it until you suddenly get curbstomped by a scary-powerful group of viruses. Later games are better about this.
* Averted in ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/EmpireAtWar''. Each planet has its own terrain, even those that sorta-kinda reuse the same tilesets have their own little quirks that make them unique.
* The ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' games manage to do what ''VideoGame/NetHack'' does except worse. The 3D sections are identical, but you never play a level with the same layout twice because the levels are randomized.
* ''VideoGame/{{Darius}}'':
** ''Every'' stage in the original ''Darius'', its UsefulNotes/PCEngine ports, and ''Darius R''.
** ''Another Chronicle''[='=]s Chronicle Mode and ''Chronicle Saviours''[='=]s CS Mode have you flying across hundreds or thousands of different star systems, but they just reuse the same 30 or so base stages over and over with occasional variations.
* Celadon Hotel in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' (and ''Yellow'') is a slightly modified Pokémon Center. You can even stand where the PC would be in a regular Pokémon Center and use it...even though it doesn't exist! Possibly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when you talk to the receptionist and she says "Pokémon? No, this is a hotel."
** {{Averted|Trope}} in ''[[VideoGameRemake FireRed/LeafGreen]]''; the hotel looks the same but the Pokémon centers have a new layout. However, this means that the receptionist's line no longer makes sense.
** If you try out level editors for the first two generations, you will discover that most houses that look the same in-game are in fact the same map with different objects; the player's house in ''Red''/''Blue''/''Yellow'' is the same map as Copycat's house.
*** FridgeBrilliance: Of course Copycat's home looks like yours. She's a master at, well, copycatting.
** Most towns have variations on a just a handful of architectures in the first two Generations, with a few buildings giving some diversity such as Silph Co and the radio towers. In ''Ruby'', ''Sapphire'' and ''Emerald'' ([[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Generation III]]), they improved on this. However, this makes the identical interiors and exteriors of Pokémon Centers and Pokémon Marts even ''more'' noticeable.
** The ''Pokémon'' series is a big offender when it comes to the buildings' interiors. Here's a list of areas that use all the same map:
*** Pokémon Centers are all identical.
*** The same goes for Poké Marts.
*** Each town has a generic map that is used as the interiors of most of its houses.
*** Guardhouses use one of two maps depending on whether they're horizontal or vertical in relation with the camera.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' follow the same formula as the previous installments... with the exception of one unique case regarding the Looker SideQuest after completing the game. To explain, Looker's side-story will eventually bring the player to returning to Lysandre Labs underneath Lumiose City, granting the player access to a secret floor of the labs... except that this floor is the ''exact'' same layout as the lab's spin-tile floor, even to the point of keeping the same side-room entrances, but blocking them off with poster boards. Why this never got a unique floor is anyone's guess.
* The first installment of ''Die Hard Trilogy'' for the [=PlayStation=]. Most of the floors, with the exception of the Garage, Reception, Ballroom, and Vault, are small variations of six basic designs: Office, Construction, Maintenance, Executive, Computer, and Rooftop.
* ''VideoGame/InfinityTheQuestForEarth'' features procedural generation of terrain. On one hand, this means no one spot on any of the billions of realistically-sized planets is perfectly identical. On the other, it means some planets are bound to look very similar to each other.
* ''VideoGame/TheConduit'' plays this trope straight. While many of the earlier levels are repetitive, the player can also use the [[SwissArmyWeapon ASE]] to show a path to the next waypoint.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d at one point in the sequel when [[PlayerCharacter Michael Ford]] starts complaining about the simularities of the corridors in a later level. [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection Prometheus]] then proceeds to note that architects [[SelfDeprecation and level designers]] [[ThisIsReality for video games]] tend to do this to save money.
* During development, one of Bungie's promotional points for ''VideoGame/{{Oni}}'' was that its buildings were designed by ''real architects'' for the player to fight through. The game ended up with a lot of Cut And Paste Environments because that's [[RealityIsUnrealistic how real architecture]] ''[[RealityIsUnrealistic works]]''.
* ''VideoGame/SimCity'' takes this to a large-scale level with its building tilesets.
** Heck, even in ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', where lots can come in different shapes and positions, you will still have the same buildings ([[MemeticMutation hence why everyone hates Wren Insurance in that game]]), in fact, it's very common to have two of the same buildings right next to each other.
** As for the games before ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', the buildings all face the same direction.
** ''VideoGame/SimCity2013'' has a somewhat limited range of building models within the same wealth/density/zone group, and buildings are likely to be clustered within those categories, but they have randomized variations in their texture selection. Consequently, it's not uncommon to see a row of houses that all look the same except for the paint, which in fairness is not uncommon in real life either. A patch added variations in the heights of skyscrapers so that they weren't all at the same level, which looked unrealistic.
* Some pseudo-random level generators used in a variety of games, from ''VideoGame/XCom'' to ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'' and even ''VideoGame/NetHack'', use Cut And Paste Level Elements - while the overall shape of the level differs each time, the maps are generated with some sections of level that are always designed in a particular manner:
** ''VideoGame/XCom'' uses massive tiles which are composites to plant houses and [=UFOs=] down, and certain sections of an Alien Base always have the same basic layout.
*** ''VideoGame/XCom Apocalypse'' plays it completely straight way with fully premade levels. For example, every UFO of a given type always crashes into the same landscape regardless of location.
*** ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' has lots of handmade levels, but they're all loosely based on North American cities, leading to things like [[UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco a large red suspension bridge]] in the middle of Birmingham, England and people using large sedans in Japan, which tends toward smaller cars.
** ''VideoGame/NetHack'' features "Special Levels", where the floor is mostly pregenerated and stored in the game's database. Most of these premade levels are either Quest Levels, part of the Sokoban {{shoutout}}, or part of the Endgame. Even then, enough random events and monsters make each experience unique.
** ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'' uses large blocks of level formations, which are slotted together and adjusted by pathfinding software to prevent/minimise [[{{Unwinnable}} inescapable]] situations where the player is forced to have bombs or rope on hand. An addition randomising routine makes little changes here and there to keep things interesting, and all items and enemies are always randomly placed, with the exception of Special Level Elements very much like Nethack's.
* The ''{{VideoGame/Diablo}}'' series prides itself for its randomly generated dungeons, and apart from a few carefully-constructed areas (boss levels, the last parts of final dungeons, towns etc.) it manages to avoid this trope completely.
** However, ''Diablo III'' constructs each dungeon from a handful of very large architectural complexes, to the point that a veteran player can see a hallway and recognize whether it leads anywhere interesting. The page quote is a {{lampshade}} on this. Also, each dungeon has its entrance and exit in the same relative locations.
* The ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' series has a large number of houses you could break into, and most of them use the exact same layout.
* The revamped version of ''VideoGame/OGame'' gives planets in different positions different {{Palette Swap}}s, but every planet in an equivalent position has the same background.
* All the ''Franchise/DotHack'' games suffer from this. By trying to simulate an MMO, the games offer you an enormous amount of key word combinations to access new areas, and they will lead you to... not a great ''variation'' of areas, mostly a change of enemies.
* ''VideoGame/ColossalCaveAdventure'': You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
* In ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'', there are two levels in which Shadow is transported to his memory in the past, The Doom and Lost Impact. Completing certain missions that don't just involve getting to the goal ring, especially in Lost Impact, is arduous as every room looks very similar and there are not quite enough distinctive features in each area.
** Central City counts as well. There are two parts that look exactly the same, in fact, even the ''landmarks'' are the same.
** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' abuses this trope not only in the fact that almost every level is part of all three hedgehogs' stories, but that the levels themselves will often reuse certain rooms within them with no changes except very minor ones in enemy placement. Sometimes immediately after you left the room it was copied from, even.
* The FirstPersonShooter ''Moon'' very noticeably uses this, but also attempts to justify it. Almost all of the game takes place in alien bases, and since they're all for the same sort of alien and the same purpose, there is no in-game reason for them to vary much. As for the rest of the levels, they're outside--on the Moon, where you can hardly expect varying scenery. One does wonder, though, why the bases have no break rooms, no living quarters, and indeed nothing other than identical machinery, identical checkposts, and the occasional storage unit.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fuel}}'' is a great offender, having objects repeated several times in a small area.
* ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'' constructs its "cave" dungeons from geomorphs. This wouldn't be so bad if most of the dungeons weren't part of a ''single ginormous world-spanning cave,'' so one wrong turn can leave you unbelievably lost.
* The tons of abandoned buildings in ''VideoGame/{{Wasteland}}''.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Mafia}}: City of Lost Heaven'', buildings repeat textures. While this is not too much distracting with bricks and such, seeing several "Pete's Restaurant" buildings is a big jarring.
* Done in ''VideoGame/CrushCrumbleAndChomp''. Due to the limitations of personal computers at the time, the game heavily reuses standard icons for most spaces (residential home, skyscraper, bridge, etc.). Even with this limitation, the game ''loosely'' attempts to duplicate real-world locations with the setup — for example, the Pentagon is a ring of five "skyscraper" tiles.
* Done even moreso in the original ''VideoGame/CastleWolfenstein'' games; all of the rooms are built from repeated use of a single "wall" tile, a "stairs" tile, and cut-and-pasted furniture.
** SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' is equally guilty, though with some more variety. There's at least three levels that are entirely made up of or otherwise reuse nearly-identical swastika-shaped mazes.
* The bonus dungeons in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' cut and paste from other dungeons in those games.
* While playing ''VideoGame/AlanWake'', you may get tired of seeing trees due to Alan having to trudge through a thick forest at night in almost every level. Yahtzee even remarked on this, saying that the game repeatedly makes up excuses for you to be doing so.
** Then again, [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest Washington]] is very thickly forested in places, especially the western half, and opening shots establish Bright Falls as nestled deep in the mountains.
** Only in the first three levels. The last three involve fighting through clinic grounds, a large farm, urban terrain, a power plant, and a series of highways, junkyards, and mills.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' you go through the same town square at least three times. First time it's normal, second time it's covered in lava, third time it's floating in space. The final boss also uses palette-swapped versions of the same terrain for it's fire and ice forms.
* ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' largely avoided this trope. While some building interiors and exteriors were re-used, the environments for the different zones were largely unique. To the point that the snowy mountain environment in the Blue Mountains was distinct from the snowy mountain environment of the Misty Mountains. The wide variety of terrain made exploring the different areas more worthwhile.
* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptunia'' definitely abuses this trope. You'll see backgrounds from ''VideoGame/RecordOfAgarestWar'', and ''VideoGame/TrinityUniverse'' and almost every single enemy came from even beyond those series. Luckily, [[VideoGame/{{Neptunia}} later games]] actually have a ''budget'', due to somehow outselling the aforementioned games by far.
* MMORPG ''VideoGame/{{Vindictus}}'' does this, but in a fairly creative way. All combat is in instanced dungeons, known as "missions," set in specific regions. Each region has a limited number of landscape/room/landmark features. Each time a dungeon is generated, it uses a semi-random selection of available features. Certain missions will invariably have certain features every time, and the boss rooms are always the same for each mission; but there will also be a few randomly-generated features as well. Particularly egregious with The Labyrinth.
** There are also entire cut-and-paste regions. For example, the Ruins of Sanctity are little more than a PaletteSwap of the Perilous Ruins with a few features added. Nearly all higher-level regions are PaletteSwap versions of lower-level ones. The only truly unique regions are Ainle, The Sewers, and Ortel Castle.
* ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'' has the entire final "dungeon" as this. It's pretty obvious they ran out of time or ideas at the end, and just lopped the same room/hallway combo for the end. There's even the same branching hallways into the same big empty rooms with nothing. Very odd, as the doors to these empty rooms are big and imposing.
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' does this for its various shops. Taken to an extreme in ''The Third'', where there are about three unique clothing shops in Steelport - ''every other one in the city'' is a Planet Saints.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' did a decent job avoiding this for most of its run with largely unique zones. However, in ''Eye of the North'' dungeon design bested their development team. Rooms were often copied in several dungeons with only a few remaining unique to a single dungeon.
* [[VideoGame/GoldBox SSI Gold Box]] RPG ''Secret of the Silver Blades'' uses this extensively, along with some engine tricks, to create huge, sprawling areas; within a few minutes of exploration a player will see the same basic room layouts over and over again.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has Goldleaf Galaxy, which has a main planet simply being a color-swapped, mirrored Honeyhive Galaxy.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles'' has the train and mansion chapters ported directly from the games they appeared in (namely ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' and the 2002 version of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil''), as well as portions of Raccoon City from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak''.
* In ''[[VideoGame/WithFriends Stampede Run]]'', there are several set arrangements of obstacles that are frequently reused.
* ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'' is this in the way that Haven City shares almost all of the layout, landmarks, models and textures to its appearance in ''Jak II'', except for the added destruction. Justifiable for the sake of continuity, and doing so makes an actual emotional impact on players as they see a place they are so familiar with in ruins.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has the finale of The Sacrifice campaign looking ''exactly'' like the finale map used in The Passing campaign for ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' with some of the back alleys and streets being blocked off in the former.
* ''VideoGame/{{PAYDAY 2}}'' reuses some maps and/or its assets many times. The bank heist has ''five'' levels dedicated to it and they all use the exact same layout. The Ukrainian Job is a copied version of Jewelry Store with different assets used to make the level slightly different.
** The developers responded to the criticisms about the trope being used and are improving on it slowly. Day 1 of Big Oil was just a copy and paste of map used in day 1 of Rats, but it was later changed to have a different outdoor area and the house itself was expanded upon. The Armored Heist has five different levels dedicated to it and they all use assets and areas already present in the game, but they are laid out in a way that makes the levels look and feel like new maps.
** A peek in the game's files reveal that almost every asset used in the first game is present in the second game, implying that the sequel would have had a LOT more recycled content. While the sequel does reuse some assets from the first game, the majority of the assets are DummiedOut. However, some of the textures used as reflections on certain objects are reflections from levels used in the first game, making them stand out completely.
* Utilized in ''VideoGame/MassiveChalice''. Most maps only have a few unique pieces with liberal use of rotation, size variation and combination to give the impression of different pieces. One map only has two "hero" pieces, i.e big set pieces making up the border/pants of the level.
* ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'' isn't too bad but the team do visit an awful lot of similar looking farms on the side missions for some high contrived reasons (a nuclear missile hidden under a farm comes to mind). Also the alien environments look very similar.
* ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'' frequently reuses room layouts, with the only differences being the placement of objects; this can possibly be explained by way of about half or more of the game taking place in an office building. ''F.E.A.R. 2'' in turn reuses only-slightly-modified subway areas from ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'', while the SCU headquarters in one level of ''VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot'' bears more than a passing resemblance to the aforementioned Armacham offices.
* ''VideoGame/{{Something}} Else'': The fourth part of the Space Hideout is based on Forest of Illusion 2, but the enemies are replaced with Thwomps and the water physics have been removed.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}'' has two levels entitled "Symmetry (pt. 1)" and "Symmetry (pt. 2)". As the names might suggest, they are the exact same level, with the second flipped symmetrically. And not only that, but "Symmetry (pt. 2)" requires the player to complete the exact same series of puzzles as in "Symmetry (pt. 1)" all over again.
* The original ''Videogame/PlanetSide'' had only a few base types at release, most of which were visually very similar except for the layout of rooms. At most, the only difference between a base on one continent and the same type of base across the continent or on an entirely different continent is the placement of defensive pillboxes outside and the courtyard's ground texture. Tactics for taking a base almost never varied unless it is in a special position, such as Cyssor's Gunuku Dropship Center, which is isolated on a small island. The ExpansionPack added Ancient Vanu facilities in the caverns which, while limited to only three base designs, had significantly more variety due to the chaotic terrain of the Caverns. [[ScrappyLevel Too bad nobody played there]].
** The same issue returns in ''[=PlanetSide=] 2'', particularly at release; all bases were copy-pasted and there were only about 5 base types and with less than a half dozen independent building designs. Later updates made bases more unique and with unique rooms, such as the underground bases on Amerish, though surface facilities still frequently suffer from having identical buildings.
* The Valhalla Plains and the Treant Forest from ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' are constructed from a limited selection of maps that are interconnected to form bigger mazes. Treant Forest in particular has a lake with the same shape appearing in five different locations.
* ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'' (at least the original SFC version) has only two designs for its ports, one that faces west and one that faces east (with Sylvalant port looking like every other east-facing port but with snowfall). A better example is the Seven Star Ruins BonusDungeon, which is 30 floors of descending through mostly the same caverns with only differences being in puzzles and treasure.
* ''Videogame/{{Warframe}}'' uses tile-based randomly generated levels (with about a dozen tilesets). It can lead to oddities like walking through what appears to be the same room half a dozen times. Corpus tilesets are the biggest offender; the Corpus Ship and Corpus Outpost tilesets share many identical tiles. Considering the Corpus rely heavily on mass-manufacturing, it does seem to make a certain amount of sense.
* ''[[Videogame/{{Elite}} Elite Dangerous]]'' suffers from the only functional differences between solar systems being the type of government and the number of space stations and asteroid belts there are; you have 400 billion ProceduralGeneration, realistic star systems that are almost all ''completely identical''. However, planetary landing (planned for an ExpansionPack) should avert this, with different planets having different environments and resources.
* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' takes advantage of this for the secret level of its third episode. When you enter it, by all means it appears to be an exact copy of the first level of the episode, up until you hit the original exit switch and the walls lower to reveal an open area with a Cyberdemon. [[RemixedLevel You then have to go back through to the start of the level]], with walls lowered to reveal new monsters in every room, to find a new hallway in the beginning room leading to the key to exit the level.
* ''VideoGame/QuakeII'' reuses every single of their SP levels for multiplayer. This was before the Deathmatch-specific levels even came in. The same deal with ''VideoGame/{{Quake|I}}''. By the time of ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena'', the focus was entirely on multiplayer, with no SP to talk about, and ''VideoGame/QuakeIV'' directly averts this by separating the SP and MP components into completely separated games.
* Many free, open-source FPS take advantage of the already [=GPLed=][[note]]GPL stands for ''General Public License'', it's a license which allows free, open-source software to be freely used, freely distributed, freely modifiable and requires that any modifications be made freely distributable as well.[[/note]] maps:
** ''Aggressor'', a GPL map originally made for ''VideoGame/{{Quake|I}}''. It can be found in games such as ''VideoGame/OpenArena'', ''VideoGame/{{Nexuiz}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Xonotic}}''.
** Thanks to Creator/IdSoftware's release in 2006 of the map sources for all of the original Quake's maps, the aforementioned games and some more use them as multiplayer maps. OA uses all of the Deathmatch maps, including the DummiedOut ''dm7'', while Nexuiz uses only ''dm6''.
** Other examples of GPL maps used in games are ''cbctf1'' (originally for ''Nexuiz'', later used by ''[=OpenArena=]''); ''dm4ish'' and ''dm6ish'' (both third-party maps for ''Quake'', ported to OA); ''hydronex'' (originally for Nexuiz, also used in OA); ''kaos'', ''spirit3'' and ''oa_rpg3dm2'' (originally for ''Quake III'', used in ''OA''), ''pvomit'', ''shine'' and, ''shouse'' (originally for ''Quake III'', later added to ''OA'' via a mappack by their authors and then [[AscendedFanon made official]]).
* Done on purpose in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney''. Sector Grus is built out of parts of the first four sectors: Antlia, Bootes, Carina, and Delphinus. This is because Maya, the ruler of the sector, is deliberately forcing the team to revisit their worst moments and deepest fears... and since they've spent the entire game in a DeathWorld, those all revolve around the previous areas.
* This is one common complaint about ''VideoGame/MightyNo9''. Many of the levels have the same "industrial" trappings, with some flavor dashed on top of them (such as fire or water sections).
* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' often uses these for its VisualNovel-esque cutscenes' backgrounds and battle backgrounds. Why yes, that exact same hallway architecture from 15th-century France also existed in the 1st-century Roman Empire.
* In ''VideoGame/RavenswordShadowlands'', there's quite a few buildings in the game, but only a couple interior designs, meaning that you'll be seeing the same locations a lot when entering buildings (right down to the furniture ''and the items on them'' being in the exact same spots).
* ''VideoGame/PhantomDoctrine:'' Storyline missions (e.g. the raid on the restaurant in Hong Kong) have unique building models, but non-story missions take place in a relatively small number of buildings, with minor variations in enemy and loot placement.
* ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'' features five acts in each zone unlike how other ''Sonic'' games have two or three. Nearly every act in a zone features the same general structure, with few changes in layout and object design. For example, you'll always find the hidden corridors in Botanic Base and the miniboss in Amazing Arena in the same region of each act; and Titanic Tower's whole point is that every level is the same building under construction. Add to that the lack of interesting setpieces, gadgets, and hazards to play around with and the result is a game often criticized for being repetitive. Of note is that the level order is decided on a roulette, in an attempt to mask this trope.
[[/folder]]

* The "shops in sandbox games/RPG's all with the same interior" variety is referenced in ''Comicbook/ScottPilgrim''. The title character wanders into a Second Cup coffee shop, expecting to find there his sister, who works in one, but is confused when he finds another person (his ex-girlfriend, kinda) attending it instead, then a caption says "Scott suddenly realized for the first time that all Second Cup exteriors do not lead to the same Second Cup interior".

** Whenever the Doctor and friends are traveling through the TARDIS' corridors (especially during the '80s era), it's the Console Room's walls rearranged.

* More recentlly built subdivisions can tend to look like this, often having only 2 or 3 house designs repeated throughout the entire area.

* Russian city districts built in the Soviet period, from the Khruschev times onwards, often look like this, showing little to no variation even between different cities. This is because they were built according to standardized plans out of the same identical cheap, mass-produced panels made on the same state-owned factories. From TheNineties onwards, new Russian buildings feature increasingly more variety in architecture.

[[/folder]]
----

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' for NES (128 KB) encodes each map screen as a list of 16 vertical columns as tall as the screen, causing some areas to look familiar. The dungeons are comprised of combinations of a very finite number of room layouts, with only the doors, enemies, treasures, and so on being different.
** The original ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'' (128 KB) has a lot of rooms and areas that look alike, making navigation hell.
*** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' lampshaded this by having you encounter the starting point of the original Metroid, only with slightly better graphics.

* It is a running joke among players of the MMORPG ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' that only one architect designed all the buildings in Paragon City, and he was either insane or on serious drugs. Office buildings all have the same basic room and hallway components, and in some cases they aren't even randomized; warehouse interiors are also suspiciously uniform, right down to the big multi-level room at the end of one map branch where you usually find the villain boss for the mission. Similarly, there is a large but limited number of texture maps for building exteriors.
** Issue 14, which introduced player-created content in the form of the 'Mission Architect' system, does nothing to avert this. Almost any map currently in the game can be chosen, including the potential for a random pick from a certain size and type, but the maps themselves cannot be altered in any way; only the enemies and objectives inside can be edited.
** Oranbega, the lost city hidden beneath Paragon City, is a confusing magical labyrinth you will be visiting ''frequently''. In the Rogue Isles, Oranbega doesn't exist. Instead, the ruins of the lost city of Mu are located there. Predictably, ''they're exactly the same''. Some players don't even distinguish between the two.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' for NES (40 KB) used repeating patterns three screens wide for decorative backgrounds such as hills and clouds. It also reused about two models for castle exteriors (small and large). On top of that, 5 entire levels were reused, as well as World 4-4 and 7-4 which would actually loop if the player takes the wrong path, and they used the exact same sprite for the clouds and bushes the only difference being the clouds were white where as the bushes were green.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' had more unique level layouts, except for World C, which was a complete copy-and-paste of World 7.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' for NES (128 KB) encoded each map screen as a list of 16 vertical columns as tall as the screen, causing some areas to look familiar. The dungeons were comprised of combinations of a very finite number of room layouts, with only the doors, enemies, treasures, and so on being different.
** The original ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'' (128 KB) had a lot of rooms and areas that looked alike, making navigation hell. Interestingly, this was more to make use of limited cartridge space than lazy level design.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'' for Game Boy (64 KB) reused 20 by 16 meter screens of map data mercilessly.
** ''VideoGame/AdventureIsland'' used almost the exact same template for each level: a flatland stage, an athletic stage, a cave stage, and a boss stage. Repeat seven more times for the whole game. Most egregious is the boss stages, which are almost exact clones of each other, save for the positioning of the monsters.
*** Same for ''VideoGame/WonderBoy1'', although the SMS version had a few exclusive stages with different environments, such as a waterfall and a gauntlet of erupting volcanoes.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' was especially bad about this during Chapter 10, forcing the player to go through identical looking rooms several times, fight the first boss of the level, then go through even more identical looking rooms before reaching the second boss in the chapter.

* Fatal Frame III reused several environments from the previous two games, including the Fish Tank room from Himuro Mansion, and the front of the Osaka house from All God's Village.
* Sega employs this trope liberally for the post-millennial ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' games: ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse,'' ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarPortable'' and ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarZero''. Phantasy Star Online is the worst offender, tropewise: The first PSO game told an entire story, with side stories, optional missions and all, '''in the same four reused maps.''' (This isn't even counting how many of the enemies encountered were reskins that used the same character "skeleton" and animations!) The addon/sequels to PSO often included [[DittoFighter reskins of previous content]], especially [[PaletteSwap bosses and enemies]]. ''Phantasy Star Universe'' and ''Portable'' tried to add variety to layouts of the same area, but it's still based on the same concept--and despite having more content to begin with than the first ''Phantasy Star Online,'' it was more or less the same as PSO with all its add-ons (that is to say, it's got a lot of reskinned areas, enemies, and bosses--just with different behavior flags).
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' re-uses the same room design for mines, and for planetary outposts. The sole variation is in the placement of crates used for cover. And even then, a lot of outposts have the crates piled in the exact same manner. Even the underground bunkers all share the same orange rock wall colour. The uncharted planets meanwhile are all made up of amazingly similar hilly terrain, the only difference being that each planet had a slightly different color scheme. This is because all the terrain is determined by the height value of points on the terrain; the look of the terrain itself is determined by how steep it is. This leaves very little oppurtunity to have distinctive environments.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' was better about this; most of the main story missions were in completely unique environments, except when it made sense not to be (for instance, the two recruitment missions on Omega obviously share some architectural similarities). Sidequests received somewhat less love but were still dramatically improved, and felt like actual unique missions as opposed to "go here and shoot everyone". ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', having mostly done away with sidequests that feature environments (DLC notwithstanding), has completely unique terrain and architecture in all of its missions. Even the DLC multiplayer maps, 5 out of 7 of which share visual styles with different single-player maps, have unique layouts. (The six multiplayer maps that shipped with the game are identical to the six sidequest maps in singleplayer, but these ''are'' explicitly the same locations.)
** This is not unique to ''Franchise/MassEffect'' for Bioware games. ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' was built on this; there were innumerable room interiors that were all the same except for some minor set dressing like tables and detritus. Indeed, that's how NWN levels are built; they're like 3D tilemaps. Oddly, ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' averted this, despite using a modified version of the NWN engine. Interestingly, their earlier ''Franchise/BaldursGate'' series games were rather different, with each outdoor environment and the vast majority of the dungeon environments being ''hand-drawn'', with certain stock elements included where necessary (doors and trees in the main). Quite an achievement given the sheer size, number and detail of the maps that had to be created.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' was top-notch when it came to unique one-of-a-kind environments. One place in particular however that copy-and-pasted environments was Denerim when you're clearing out the city's backstreet encounters. There's quite a few backyard encounters when you roam around Denerim, but only two maps are ever used for these fights. One encounter the map will have a thief ambush waiting for your arrival. The next time you return, the map will have a special black vial lying about that summons a powerful Revenant wanting to kill you.
** ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening]]'' had something similar, but it's reused environments was the world encounters which ''Origins'' beforehand was very good at. So many times in ''Awakening'' you'll be fighting your way through the same flaming forest, or clearing out the same farm overrun of Darkspawn.
* Present to an extreme level in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', where the wastelands around Lothering, the city of Kirkwall, and the final Deep Roads dungeon of Act I are the only areas with a unique map. There was literally no original environment after VideoGame/DragonAgeII's Act I, the closest being Hawk's new hightown estate. Even Sebastian's ''supposedly'' unique graveyard cave for his personal Act II quest is just a retextured world mine-shaft cave if you look close enough at it's map layout.

* ''VideoGame/HellgateLondon'' was criticised for this: with the exception of several unique levels, most of the game's randomised levels were repetitions of about 10 basic tilesets, with identical sewers/streets/dried-out riverbeds/building basements. Perhaps London really is ''that'' boring.
* The 3D ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games have all had an enormous BonusDungeon with some of the toughest battles in the game. The Gerudo's Training Ground in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' was a fairly interesting [[FinalExamBoss pastiche of other dungeons]] and their puzzles, but ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker's'' Savage Labyrinth and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' Cave of Ordeals consist of '''fifty''' nearly identical chambers packed with wave after wave of enemies (even worse, ''WW'' required you to fight through 31 rooms for a mandatory PlotCoupon!). ''TWW'', ''TP'', and ''[=OoT=]'' also feature a number of caverns with identical chambers full of puzzles.
** Once you start to explore the Great Sea in Wind Waker, the same interiors start showing up over and over again. The Savage Labyrinth at least had some effort put into it - Two other plot coupons from the same quest are found in identical areas, just with a slightly different set of monsters. [[FridgeLogic And are we really expected to believe those identical ship graveyards formed naturally?]]
** The Hyrule Field and other areas in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' are filled holes that lead to identical underground caves.

*** There are a mind-boggling 900 Korok puzzles in the overworld, but they fall into a relatively small number of categories[[note]]put the apple in the empty slot, pick all but 1 apple from one of 3 trees so they match, Magnesis the block to the right spot so two arrangements of cubes match, Magnesis the iron ball into a hollow stump, stand next to the pinwheel and shoot floating targets, throw a rock into a circle of stones, place a rock into the missing slot in a stone pattern (usually just a small circle), push a big rock down a hill into a hole, look under the rock (quite a lot of rock-themed ones), melt a block of ice, jump into a circle of plants in the water, go from the stump with a leaf on it to a glowing ring before time runs out[[/note]] and many of these are identical to others in the same category. Some Koroks aren't even hidden, you just have to run up to the weird glowing thing zooming around and press A, or climb a tree to get to it. This is forgivable, though, since there are, again, '''900''' of them, and they need to be easy to recognize so that HundredPercentCompletion-types have any chance of finding them all.

* The [=PS2=] ''Manga/InuYasha'' RPG pushed this to its illogical limits. Travel through various areas consisted of about 12-15 individual 'screens', copy-pasted around each other to create these areas, with a few "unique" screens in some areas. Underground areas and towns were mostly exempt from this, though.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' fell victim to this in Tartarus dungeon, with each area made up of a small selection of blocks placed in a randomized configuration every time you enter the area.

* The ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa'' [=PS2=] Remake used this for the Assassin's Guild, it is one big intersection in every room, and the only way to find your way around is following white gems on the floor, the south exit will take you back to the entrance no matter where you are though.

** ''VideoGame/WarioLandShakeIt'' used this for the secret levels, often without even a colour change (and those that were had changes such as in one case going from having a dark blue sky to a red sky). Kind of saddening, considering ''VideoGame/WarioLand4'' used a completely different background per level.

** Earlier titles in the series used basically the same handful of maps for all random encounters. Almost all caves shared the same walls and were only distinguished by their layout.

** ''Star Force 3'' was worse: all the boss areas even looked the same.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork1'' was horrible about this. The whole Internet looked the same! Every area! Even the "scary" WWW-controlled areas! This made it rather easy to walk into the Undernet without knowing it until you suddenly get curbstomped by a scary-powerful group of viruses. Later games were better about this.

* The ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' games manage to do what ''VideoGame/NetHack'' did except less well. The 3D sections are identical, but you never play a level with the same layout twice because the levels are randomized.

** ''Another Chronicle''[='=]s Chronicle Mode and ''Chronicle Saviours''[='=]s CS Mode have you flying across hundreds or thousands of different star systems, however they just reuse the same 30 or so base stages over and over with occasional variations.

** If you try out level editors for the first two generations, you will discover that most houses that look the same in-game, are in fact the same map with different objects; the player's house in ''Red''/''Blue''/''Yellow'' is the same map as Copycat's house.

** Most towns have variations on a just a handful of architectures in the first two Generations, with a few buildings giving some diversity such as Silph Co and the radio towers. In ''Ruby'', ''Sapphire'' and ''Emerald'' ([[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Generation III]]), they improved on this. However, this made the identical interiors and exteriors of Pokémon Centers and Pokémon Marts even ''more'' noticeable.
** The Pokémon series is a big offender when it comes to the buildings' interiors. Here's a list of areas that use all the same map:
*** Pokémon Centers are all identical
*** The same goes for Poké Marts
*** Each town has a generic map that is used as the interiors of most of its houses
*** Guardhouses use one of two maps depending on whether they're horizontal or vertical in relation with the camera
** The X and Y games from Generation VI follows the same formula as the previous installments...with the exception of one unique case regarding the Looker SideQuest after completing the game. To explain, Looker's side-story would eventually bring the player to returning to Lysandre's Labs underneath Lumiose City; granting the player access to a secret floor of the labs...except that this floor is the ''exact'' same layout as the lab's spin-tile floor, even to the point of keeping the same side-room entrances, but blocking them off with poster boards. Why this never got a unique floor is anyone's guess.

* ''VideoGame/SimCity'' takes this to a large scale level with it's building tilesets.
** Heck, even in ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', where lots could come in different shapes and positions, you will still have the same buildings ([[MemeticMutation hence why everyone hates Wren Insurance in that game]]), in fact, it's very common to have two of the same buildings right next to each other.
** As for the games before ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', the buildings all faced the same direction.
** The 2013 edition has a somewhat limited range of building models within the same wealth/density/zone group, and buildings are likely to be clustered within those categories, but they have randomized variations in their texture selection. Consequently, it's not uncommon to see a row of houses that all look the same except for the paint, which in fairness is not uncommon in real life either. A patch added variations in the heights of skyscrapers so that they weren't all at the same level, which looked unrealistic.

* The ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' series had a large number of houses you could break into. And most of them used the exact same layout...
* The revamped version of ''VideoGame/OGame'' gives planets in different positions different {{Palette Swap}}s but every planet in an equivalent position has the same background.

* [[VideoGame/{{Zork}} You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' largely avoids this trope. While some building interiors and exteriors are re-used, the environments for the different zones are largely unique. To the point that the snowy mountain environment in the Blue Mountains is distinct from the snowy mountain environment of the Misty Mountains. The wide variety of terrain makes exploring the different areas more worthwhile.
* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptunia'' definitely abused this trope. You'll see backgrounds from ''VideoGame/RecordOfAgarestWar'', and ''VideoGame/TrinityUniverse'' and almost every single enemy came from even beyond those series. Luckily, [[VideoGame/{{Neptunia}} later games]] actually had a ''budget'', due to somehow outselling the aforementioned games by far.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has Goldleaf Galaxy, which has a main planet simply being a color swap and invert of Honeyhive Galaxy.

* ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'' could be considered this in the way that Haven City shares almost all of the layout, landmarks, models and textures to its appearance in Jak II, except for the added destruction. Justifiable for the sake of continuity, and doing so made an actual emotional impact on players as they saw a place they were so familiar with in ruins.

* Literately utilized in ''VideoGame/MassiveChalice'' to save money. Most maps only have a few unique pieces with liberal use of rotation, size variation and combination to give the impression of different pieces. One map only had two "hero" pieces, i.e big set pieces making up the boarder/pants of the level.

* The original ''Videogame/PlanetSide'' had only a few base types at release, most of which were visually very similar except for the layout of rooms. At most, the only difference between a base on one continent and the same type of base across the continent or on an entirely different continent was the placement of defensive pillboxes outside and the courtyard's ground texture. Tactics for taking a base almost never varied unless it was in a special position, such as Cyssor's Gunuku Dropship Center, which was isolated on a small island. The ExpansionPack added Ancient Vanu facilities in the caverns which, while limited to only three base designs, had significantly more variety due to the chaotic terrain of the Caverns. [[ScrappyLevel Too bad nobody played there]].

* ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'' features five acts in each zone unlike how other ''Sonic'' games have 2 or three. Nearly every act in a zone features the same general structure, with few changes in layout and object design. For example, you'll always find the hidden corridors in Botanic Base and the miniboss in Amazing Arena in the same region of each act; and Titanic Tower's whole point is that every level is the same building under construction. Add to that the lack of interesting setpieces, gadgets, and hazards to play around with and the result is a game often criticized for being repetitive. Of note is that the level order is decided on a roulette, in an attempt to mask this trope.

* The "shops in sandbox games/RPG's all with the same interior" variety is referenced in ''Comicbook/ScottPilgrim''. The title character wanders into a Second Cup coffee shop, expecting to find there his sister, who works in one, but is confused when he finds another person (his ex-girlfriend, kinda) attending it instead, then a caption says "Scott suddenly realized for the first time, that all Second Cup exteriors do not lead to the same Second Cup interior".

* Done in ''Film/{{Cube}}''. Justified since the film took place in a labyrinth of identical cubes, but the filmmakers only had the budget to build one set with five out of the six surfaces. The only difference between each room is the colour and varying traps.

** Very noticeable in ''Franchise/StarTrek'', especially ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' - their science/robotics/engineering labs all look the same, and they are. They are also the sickbay with no beds and blue lighting panels instead of yellow.

** ''Series/RedDwarf'' used this a fair bit due to the limited budget:
*** The ''Recap/RedDwarfBackToEarth'' special created corridors by shooting in the quarters and turning the camera to the wall.

*** Several episodes featured alternate, duplicated or otherwise parallel versions of familiar locations, allowing for the same sets to be given extra dressings for what is essentially the same location. Notable examples of this are in the "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIParallelUniverse Parallel Universe]]", "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVDemonsAndAngels Demons and Angels]]" and "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIOnlyTheGood Only the Good...]]" episodes.

* Speaking of ''Franchise/SuperSentai'', many locations across different seasons are reused and some appear in ''Franchise/KamenRider''. This includes the park scenes that are filmed in Hikarigoaka Park. Mountain Iwafune's mountains and valleys surrounded by green forests are used for the large location action scenes, and with gouges so the multiple actions scenes and explosions can be utilized more, although ''Super Sentai'' uses it far more than ''Kamen Rider'', especially in their team-up specials. Saitama Super Arena's interior and exterior was frequently used in ''Kamen Rider'' productions, mostly notably in ''Series/KamenRiderDouble''[='=]s first episode, and in the two part beginning of ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki''.