History Main / DoorToBefore

-->-- '''Thomas Savage''', in the notes for ''Webcomic/{{Concerned}} [[http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17 #172]]''

* The ''Pokémon'' games have those ubiquitous ledges. You can hop down them, but not up, and they're often used as one-way shortcuts. Also, the one-way teleporter on the 7th gym in VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire''/''Emerald'', Tate and Liza's gym. After a rather annoying puzzle where you have to ride one-way floor panels and flip switches to get to the gym leaders, they leave you a teleporter pad that leads to the front. A similar thing happens in Sabrina's gym, but it is full of teleport pads - and the only different one in Sabrina's chamber leads back to the gym's entrance.

** [[Borderlands2 the sequel]] adds one-way Fast Travel stations, often placed right before a boss, these let you skip the long dungeon run you just made to get at the boss and just teleport back to sanctuary, and pick up more quests.

* In ''TonyHawksUnderground2'', there is a door to before at the end of Downhill Jam. In the original version of the level in TonyHawksProSkater, it instead leads to you ending the level early. The same is true of The Mall in TonyHawksAmericanWasteland, where jumping through the boxes takes you back to the start of the level, not ending it like in the original TonyHawksProSkater. The reason is that both these levels were originally designed as racing levels with a definite beginning and end, and the ends were left in as the programmers forgot to take them out.

* There's an example of this in the WIP GenderSwapped novella in Chapter 3. Jess notices Tess leaning against a door which was noted didn't have a doorknob. Later, after a couple hours, an elevator ride, a Monty Python skit, and several other random events that take place BehindTheScenes of the hotel. The two eventually end up on the other side of the door.

These are a favorite of {{Speedrun}}ners, as it's quite common for games to have glitches that make it possible to open the one-way doors from the wrong way, skipping minutes to hours of gameplay.

* In TonyHawksUnderground2, there is a door to before at the end of Downhill Jam. In the original version of the level in TonyHawksProSkater, it instead leads to you ending the level early. The same is true of The Mall in TonyHawksAmericanWasteland, where jumping through the boxes takes you back to the start of the level, not ending it like in the original TonyHawksProSkater. The reason is that both these levels were originally designed as racing levels with a definite beginning and end, and the ends were left in as the programmers forgot to take them out.

** Other examples include the Dunwich Building, the National Guard Depot, the National Archives (if you pass Button Gwinett's Speech challenge), the Statesman Hotel, the Chryslus Building basement, and the Germantown Police Station in ''Fallout 3'', Olney Powerworks in ''Broken Steel'', the Sea Cave in ''Point Lookout'', and the REPCONN Test Site in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In some (but not all) cases, the door can be opened by picking a lock or hacking a termnal, or an upper floor can be reached with precise jumping, [[SequenceBreaking allowing you to bypass the entire 'dungeon']]. Subverted by the Bomb Storage in Fort Constantine, where the outer doors can be picked, but the inner door is unpickable, and can only be unlocked with Tara's key, which to reach, you have to get Dukov's, Dave's, and Ted Strayer's special keys during "Shoot 'Em in the Head" to enter the bunker from the other side.

** Other examples include the Dunwich Building, the National Guard Depot, the National Archives (if you pass Button Gwinett's Speech challenge), the Statesman Hotel, the Chryslus Building basement, and the Germantown Police Station in ''Fallout 3'', the Sea Cave in ''Point Lookout'', and the REPCONN Test Site in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In some (but not all) cases, the door can be opened by picking a lock or hacking a termnal, or an upper floor can be reached with precise jumping, [[SequenceBreaking allowing you to bypass the entire 'dungeon']]. Subverted by the Bomb Storage in Fort Constantine, where the outer doors can be picked, but the inner door is unpickable, and can only be unlocked with Tara's key, which to reach, you have to get Dukov's, Dave's, and Ted Strayer's special keys during "Shoot 'Em in the Head" to enter the bunker from the other side.

*** Dead Money has the Puesta del Sol Service Route, which is key-locked, and the key is in a ruined apartment near the switching station where you leave Christine. Once unlocked, it can be used as a shortcut when escorting Dean to Puesta del Sol South. Another shortcut back is through a ruined store reached by jumping down to a ledge from where you drop off Dean.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' has very dungeons ''designed'' like this (one of very few examples is Sotha Sil -- where you get a ring that allows you to teleport to and from Sotha Sil at the end -- and that's mainly because you are teleported in, so you couldn't leave by backtracking anyway). However, the presence of Mark/Recall (mark a location with Mark, then teleport to that location with Recall), Divine Intervention (teleport to the nearest Imperial Cult shrine) and Almsivi Intervention (teleport to the nearest Tribunal Temple temple) allows the player to quickly get out of a dungeon without having to backtrack, and some quests encourages this behaviour (hilariously, one of them is a search-and-rescue mission -- you get handed a couple of Divine Intervention scrolls, and are told to infiltrate a high-security Temple prison and break out a specific person. She uses one of the scrolls to get away, and says you should use the other, since not only will it get you out without having to go through the guards again, but the city you'll arrive in is the one you need to go to next anyway).

*** Dead Money has the Puesta del Sol Service Route, which is key-locked, and the key is in a ruined apartment near the switching station where you leave Christine. Once unlocked, it can be used as a shortcut when escorting Dean to Puesta del Sol South.

*** Dead Money has the Puesta del Sol Service Route, which is key-locked, and the key is near the switching station where you leave Christine. Once unlocked, it can be used as a shortcut when escorting Dean to Puesta del Sol South.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' sort of has this; shortly after Chell escapes being dropped into a horrible pit made of fire, she slides through a tube into a test chamber she had already completed somewhat early on in the game and must go through it again to move on.

More often than not, you may even recognize the door as a LockedDoor from before, which would be very convenient if you had a way to open it from the other side ''before'' you went the long route, saving you all the trouble. Of course, it's initially always {{i|nsurmountableWaistHighFence}}mpossible even with a {{BFG}} in your arsenal, but once you easily open the door from the other side, it will usually remain open, giving you quick access to the area that once used to be so hard to reach. If a bug allows you to open a DoorToBefore from the "wrong" side, it can lead to SequenceBreaking.

** In ''The Book of Secrets'' - [[spoiler: After barely surviving the booby-trapped and decaying corridors leading to the treasure, complete with three complicated counterweight devices, the group leaves by a corridor that's only a few yards from the surface. The explanation here is that the corridor allows the temple to be flooded and drained at will]].

*** it's implied that link walks out of the lightworld dungeons, as the door opens when you grab the pendant. he instead uses the mirror in the dark world because the doors stay closed when he grabs the crystals.

*** Also, many of the boss chambers were accessed from a room fairly close to the entrance: much of the level revolved around acquiring either the key or the {{MacGuffin}} that allowed you access to the boss chamber.

*** You can use Ooccoo's even creepier son to teleport back to the room you used Ooccoo in, which means that you don't have to traipse all the way back through the dungeon.
*** And then there's the elevator down from Gor Coron's chamber. If you plan on going straight into the Mines and never returning to the chamber after you beat Fyrus, you'll never need it, but hey, there's the option.

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', the beating of a boss usually send you outside automatically, but not so with the defeat of Cortez. However, the room before the ship then has a convenient way back to the shore of Keelhaul Key, if only you can get past that newly-cracked wall...
** Same for the first game, although convenient switches to other characters hide how exactly Mario got out, on his own or by help of the newly rescued Star Spirit.
*** With the exception of Chapter 5 (same as the Cortez example, oddly), which shows Misstar airlifting Mario and company out the top of Mt. Lavalava, OutrunTheFireball-style.

*** Actually happened even earlier than that in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' with the Teleport spell, that ''only works in dungeons''!!! Oh, except the final dungeon.

*** In the first game, there's a door on the second floor of Nowhere that leads back to the first floor, with no visible descent in between. This door is required after you shut off the power.

* When you need to get back to the surface of the asteroid in ''AlphaPrime'', you go through the mining station's living quarters, only to [[AirVentPassageway pop out of a vent]] back at the beginning of the game, and thus the surface of the asteroid.

* ''VideoGame/{{ICO}}'' employs the DoorToBefore trope extensively. It starts out deep within a castle's catacombs, then works its way into an EscortMission that takes [[KidHero Ico]] and [[FallenPrincess Yorda]] through a game-long flight across a full-scale island fortress. They navigate [[BrokenBridge inconveniently gaping chasms]], [[DeathTrap death-rigged rooms]], [[BlockPuzzle puzzle-based chambers]] and basically tour the whole building - ramparts, gardens, cemeteries - to [[LockedDoor unlock the one escape door]]. When you finally open the doors, ''[[spoiler: [[SavethePrincess she gets kidnapped]]]]'', so you have to climb your way ''back'' to where you started out at the catacombs for [[FinalBoss one last fight]].

* ''VideoGame/{{ICO}}'' is an entire DoorToBefore moment. It starts out deep within a castle's catacombs, then works its way into an EscortMission that takes [[KidHero Ico]] and [[FallenPrincess Yorda]] through a game-long flight across a full-scale island fortress. They navigate [[BrokenBridge inconveniently gaping chasms]], [[DeathTrap death-rigged rooms]], [[BlockPuzzle tedious puzzle-based chambers]] and basically tour the whole building - ramparts, gardens, cemeteries - to [[LockedDoor unlock the one escape door]]. When you finally open the doors, ''[[spoiler: [[SavethePrincess she gets kidnapped]]]]'', so you have to climb your way ''back'' to where you started out at the catacombs for [[FinalBoss one last fight]].

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' is ''full'' of these.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' games absolutely THRIVE on this trope. In the ''Prime'' sub-series, especially, it's common for players to traverse the same area 4 or 5 different times, with new paths to/from it available to them each time.
** Example: In ''Super Metroid'', the escape sequence takes you behind Mother Brain's room and through the rest of Tourian as it's exploding, then give you a nice flat path to run down and inadvertently charge up your speed booster. Then they put some speed booster blocks in your way, which you charge through without knowing it--leading you right back to [[spoiler:the escape shaft from ''Metroid 1'', which you came back down through at the beginning of Super, just to enter the former location of the Tourian base from the wrong side]]. No, you can't shinespark your way through these blocks from the right; it's literally impossible without cheating.
** Another random example in ''[[MetroidPrime Echoes]]'' - After going up an elevator in the Ing Hive and transporting back to Sanctuary Fortress you go through this dynamo area, which you can save at (thank god). You continue onward to the temple, then backtrack slightly and go a different way. Then you fight the Spider Guardian, and once you've beaten it, you find there is another exit at the top of the battle arena, which leads to a morph ball tube which suddenly ends and drops you - right back at the room just after that first elevator. And you don't have to use the portals to get back either, as you have the Spider Ball, which the lack of made you go into Dark Aether in the first place!

->"''I have noticed some consistancies with all the VideoGame/{{Half-Life}} games: you always have to go through incredible odds of alien monsters and potent deathtraps and evil soldiers and treacherous jumps and taxing challenges just to get to the other side of a locked wooden door.''"
-->-'''Thomas Savage''', in the notes for ''Webcomic/{{Concerned}} [[http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17 #172]]''

->"Oh my god, this is ''where I just came from!'' Am I going in circles?"
--> '''Gordon Freeman,''' ''Machinima/FreemansMind''

** Other examples include the Dunwich Building, the National Guard Depot, the National Archives (if you pass Button Gwinett's Speech challenge), the Statesman Hotel, and the Germantown Police Station in ''Fallout 3'', the Sea Cave in ''Point Lookout'', and the REPCONN Test Site in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In some (but not all) cases, the door can be opened by picking a lock or hacking a termnal, or an upper floor can be reached with precise jumping, [[SequenceBreaking allowing you to bypass the entire 'dungeon']]. Subverted by the Bomb Storage in Fort Constantine, where the outer doors can be picked, but the inner door is unpickable, and can only be unlocked with Tara's key, which to reach, you have to get Dukov's, Dave's, and Ted Strayer's special keys during "Shoot 'Em in the Head" to enter the bunker from the other side.

* In ''ChronoTrigger'', when you finish most boss battles, there is an easy way back to the start of the dungeon.

* In ''VideoGame/MySimsAgents'', there are two cabins in the Mid-Mountain Slopes area. The first one you'll see is locked. The one you can enter from the outside can only be accessed once you provide Rosalyn with documentation that convinces her to let you use the key to the gate. This, in turn, requires you to boost the satellite's signal. Once in ''that'' cabin, you have to go through a maze of a mine, which ends... in the first cabin you saw, where [[spoiler:a bit of evidence]] is. Now you can unlock the door.

* The ''Pokémon'' games have those ubiquitous ledges. You can hop down them, but not up, and they're often used as one-way shortcuts. Also, the one-way teleporter on the 7th gym in VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire''/''Emerald'', Tate and Lisa's gym. After a rather annoying puzzle where you have to ride one-way floor panels and flip switches to get to the gym leaders, they leave you a teleporter pad that leads to the front. A similar thing happens in Sabrina's gym, but it is full of teleport pads - and the only different one in Sabrina's chamber leads back to the gym's entrance.