Foreboding Architecture

"New architectural classification: Industrial Mysterioso."

—Most Excellent Superbat, Final Crisis Aftermath: DANCE

Video game designers love tormenting players with Malevolent Architecture. But beyond filling levels with cool Death Traps, they want to find places for the monsters trying to kill you that will make their sudden attacks on the player the most thrilling.

For experienced players, this might get a bit predictable; they'll be able to guess from looking around the level areas where certain kinds of enemies are going to pop up. What they've discovered is Foreboding Architecture.

A good (though subjective) way to tell that you're playing a videogame with Foreboding Architecture is when you enter a room or passageway, and find yourself preparing to fight off enemies that somehow fail to spawn - because there aren't any of them actually placed there. If the only sign is a load of good stuff, that's Suspicious Videogame Generosity, though.

Compare Darkness Equals Death and Musical Spoiler. See also Boss Room.

Examples of Foreboding Architecture include:

In the Half-Life series, if you're in a dark enclosed space, there is usually going to be a headcrab. If it isn't that, it's a barnacle. And if you're in water, there will be either those killer shrimps or a swimming dinosaur.
- In the sequel, with such a focus on their physics engine, big fights can be pre-empted by masses of saws, exploding barrels and cinderblocks.
- According to the commentary for Episode One, beta testers will occasionly recognise the signs of a headcrab nest (dark, small room, no windows, hey what's that in the corner...) and be so pre-emptively frightened that they'll simply stand outside and use all their ammo to incinerate the room, instead of entering and killing the crab with one shot.
The Legend of Zelda games can be a weird case of this. Check the map. You're standing in front of a door leading to a round room with no other exits. Yes, the door is going to slam shut behind you and you are going to have to face a Boss Battle. On the one hand, the door slamming shut won't surprise you, but on the other hand, if you're the squeamish type, you'll be shaking in anticipation of the unknown boss fight.
- Happens in pretty much any game with a map and boss battles. If you see a large room with 1-2 exits, it's safe to assume there's a boss fight there.
- Well keep in mind that all games that give you a map tell you that THE BOSS IS HERE, usually with a skull on the 5th floor or basement.
  - Not so much, however, for the Sub Boss of nearly every dungeon.
- Also keep in mind that in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess the boss doors are maybe 15 feet high, with a lock the size of Link.
- Inverted in The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, where the area leading up to the final boss is a peaceful green field with a large tree in the middle of it. Of course, to get there you had to be eaten by the Moon, which is possibly the most foreboding thing in the entire damn series.
Similarly, the Castlevania series actually has the doors leading to boss fights look and act entirely differently from doors anywhere else.
The Metroid Prime series (hell, possibly the whole series) has the hint referenced above.
- Metroid Games love putting giant eyes over boss doors, complete with Eye Beams. Basically, if you see an eye ontop of a door shooting lasers at you, there's a boss in that room.
In Doom, dark areas usually mean that the Spectre demon will show up, as it is hard to see. Large open spaces practically mean arenas with humongous demonic armies teleporting in. Long hallways mean quickly opening monster compartments behind the walls. Large lifts (preferably with a pillar in the center) mean it's going to be a slow/long and painful way down as monsters shoot you from alcoves, or get up close and personal by teleporting in. And these are but a few...
In Time Stalkers if there's a wide open room on the map you'd better believe that it's the last dungeon level boss fight.
The Chrysler Building in Parasite Eve. All of the building is made up of narrow hallways, but when you approach a large room and the music suddenly stops, you know a boss is right there.
Generally, this trope is rarer in Role Playing Games, where boss fights are often telegraphed by lengthy conversation and battles take place in a pocket dimension. But in Baldur's Gate, one room on the third floor of a dungeon seems suspiciously large. The player slowly creeps into this too-wide and too-tall cave, anticipation mounting, when, all of a sudden, MASSIVE DRAGON OUT OF NOWHERE.
In Clive Barker's Jericho You can bet your supernatural arse that that a monster is going to jump out of a pool of gibs as soon as you get near it. Every. Single. Time.
In Cave Story, all of the sand pits in the Outer Wall contain Sand Crocs. So, don't step in the sand.
- In general, after the Sand Zone, players are a lot more cautious about sand.
Uncharted Drakes Fortune. You know there're going to be baddies up ahead if you encounter conveniently placed objects that serve as cover, usually low stone walls or crates.
- The same applies to most cover-based games, such as Gears of War and Mass Effect- contrary to what most players will be used to, if you're in a wide open arena you're probably safe. If you see lots of waist-high obstructions, expect trouble.
  - From Zero Punctuation: "Another thing that characterizes the Gears of War universe is chest-high walls. The two opposing armies have both realized that chest-high walls are the key to victory. Every single battleground is littered with chest-high walls, everyone's bombs seem specifically designed to reduce buildings to chest-high walls, the Locusts have developed technology to make chest-high walls rise out of the ground, and if all else fails Mother Nature herself will step in and make rocks fall from the ceiling forming chest-high walls!"
Several bosses in La-Mulana can be found in dead-ends with unique-looking architecture that seem pretty useless...that is until you've fulfilled some obscure requirements and have at least one Ankh Jewel, at which point an Ankh will appear in that room and the music will change.
Monsters love to crash through windows in the Resident Evil series. In RE 2, when you are forced to enter the suspect-side of a one-way mirrored interrogation room, everyone knew what was coming next. When Capcom released the Gamecube Remake of Resident Evil, one of the more effective scares was triggering the zombie dogs to crash through the windows much later in the game, when people had become complacent.
Practically every narrow ledge in Banjo-Tooie requiring the Grip Grab to traverse will have a Snapdragon leap out and attack you.
In The Dark Spire, the appearance of the surrounding area will drastically change a few steps before the Final Boss assuming you're using the Modern display mode.
The combat system of Anachronox requires that most battles take place in large, squarish, completely empty regions of floor which stand out against the generally narrow hallways, making these plazas as foreboding as the space monsters invariably hanging out in the middle of them. Subverted in one area, with a tentacled monster waiting for you in just such a plaza. Turns out he's a vegetarian, and he just wants to swap recipes.
Although Thief: Deadly Shadows is pretty much completely filled with foreboding architecture (and music) I think we all knew, as soon as we started Robbing the Cradle, that this was going to be unpleasant. (Though we could not have anticipated how scary it really was.)
Small alcoves in Serious Sam are usually a sign of an incoming marsh hopper wave.
- Wide, open space with a few powerups in the middle? Yeah, you're in trouble.
You are playing Mass Effect 2. You have just walked through a winding hallway and are about to enter a very large room with plenty of chest-high walls. What do you do? If your answer isn't send your squad to hiding position and start hitting any preparatory powers before taking a storm-speed dash for the closest wall, you've not been playing for very long.
- Though it's subverted with the Collector Vessel mission. The ship is filled to the brim with conveniently-placed chest-high walls...but there are no enemies. It's far creepier than it seems. The enemies don't come out until after you try to leave.
The original Wolfenstein 3D is the GRANDDADDY of of Foreboding Architecture... Between Hitler and other Nazi themed wall panels there was always a hideout or treasure trove nearby, or behind.
Young Merlin on the SNES. In the final portion of the game, you will arrive at certain rooms containing bosses connected by a ridiculous minecart...boarding section. Not only do the doors look different, but the some of the rooms themselves contain large black flags with red bleeding eye symbols painted on them. Not foreboding in the slightest!
Played with in Left 4 Dead. The enemies are randomized, so you're basically hoping and praying that a Tank doesn't show up when you're in a tight area, or a Charger when you're on a high area with no guard railings.
All of the Bowser levels from Super Mario Galaxy end with green checkered stairs that get smashed away by meteorites before the boss battle against Bowser.
- The original Super Mario Bros has Bowser's fire flying past you to show that you are almost near a (fake, or in the final level's case, real) Bowser at the end.