Hub Level: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

 

If you have to spend a lot of time [[Talk to Everyone|Talking To Everyone]] in the Hub Level just to unlock the next stage, then you're looking at [[Fake Longevity]].

[[Playable Menu]] is this trope taken to the next ''(ahem)'' level.

 

{{examples}}

 

* In ''Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2'', Dark Docks serves as the hub. There are, thankfully, ducats in them, making raising the bribe money that much easier.

** In ''Lego Batman'', the Hub is the [[Elaborate Underground Base|Batcave]], where you can access settings and minigames from the Bat-Computer, and explore the [[Superhero Trophy Shelf|Trophy Room]]. Villain Mode comes with its own Hub: [[Bedlam House|Arkham Asylum]].

* The Devil's castle in ''[[Graffiti Kingdom]]''.

* ''Taz: Wanted'', a GCN game about Taz the Tazmanian Devil destroying wanted signs, has 3 hubs. One hub is for the 3 "zoo" levels, with various tutorial books. The second hub is for the 3 town level, and the third is for the 3 Wild West levels. While there is a 10th level, it hasn't a hub.

* Despite being by far the largest area of the game, Dracula's Castle in ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Portrait of Ruin]]'' is a hub of sorts, because the rest of the game is in paintings which are scattered around the map. Often you go into a painting, beat the boss of it to get an upgrade, allowing you to progress further into the castle.

* The castle in ''[[Maze of Galious]]''. Uncharacteristically for this trope, it's a labyrinthine complex bigger than some of the actual worlds, the entrances to which can be a bit hard to locate.

* Mean Street in ''[[Disney Epic Mickey]]''.

* [[Dynasty Warriors Online]] has 6 different hubs, one for each faction as well as the peach garden. Since there's not always 5 factions fighting, not all of them are always available, and you're usually not allowed to go to any more than two of them at a time.

 

* In ''Demon's Souls'' the player's souls is bound by the Nexus after dying, which is the game's hub level that connects the land of Boletaria through archstones.

* The ''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance]]'' games have many of these. Exemplifying with the first game: after saving the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, the heroes are relocated to Stark Tower, which serves as a hub until the Mandarin's Palace stage. After that, they are relocated to Sanctum Sanctorum, Dr. Strange's home. Then, after beating Mephisto's Realm, everyone heads off to Asgard (which seemingly works more like a hub than the others, since all other levels - except possibly for Niffleheim - ARE in Asgard), and from there to Attilan, when Uatu saves the heroes' bacons from Dr. Doom. After fetching the items necessary to beat him, they go back to Earth, as it is being modified by Doom, and stay at a Doom-themed Stark Tower before heading off to Latveria. In total, five hubs (or four if you count both iterations of Stark Tower as the same).

** Spiritual predecessor series ''[[X-Men Legends]]'' used the X-mansion in the first game and various temporary bases in the second.

* The village in Arcanus Cella in ''[[Cla Dun]]''.

* The original ''[[Diablo]]'' had the town of Tristram, where you were given quests and sold loot. Also, every four or five dungeon levels, a portal directly to that level would open, making backtracking easier. The sequel gave us a hub in each of the four (five with the expansion) Acts: Rogue's Camp, Lut Gholein, Kurast Docks, Pandemonium Fortress, and Harrogath. They served the same purpose as Tristram, though the portal mechanic has been enhanced with Waypoints, which allowed you to go anywhere you already visited.

 

* ''[[Myst]]'' used the titular island as a sort of hub from which the protagonist traveled to other odd locations.

** ''Myst III'': Exile also did it with J'nanin, and like Myst, it used the other ages as [[Plot Coupon]]-retrieval levels.

** Finally, in ''Uru'', any area the player reached could be quickly returned to from the hub world Relto, which in turn could be instantly reached from any area.

 

* ''[[Hexen]]'' introduced support for hub levels to the ''[[Doom]]'' FPS engine. Their presence both increased the areas players needed to search to find keys and triggers, and by ensuring the player would keep moving between them, allowed the side levels to be more strongly themed than would be the case if they were standalone levels as with the game's predecessor.

* ''[[Tek War]]'' was one of the first games to feature a Hub, in this case a subway station.

* ''[[Catacomb]] Apocalypse'' might have been one of the first games to feature this.

 

** ''Super Mario 64'' was so successful it can most likely be seen as the [[Trope Codifier]].

* Averted in ''[[Super Mario 3D Land]]''. It's the first 3D Mario game not to have a hub.

 

* ''[[Kirby]]'s Adventure'' may be the first game that used the same engine in the "between levels" segments as in the stages themselves.

** ''Kirby and the Amazing Mirror'' had a MASSIVE hub level that had more and more accessible areas as you hit switches in the levels.

* Whoopie World in ''Rocket: Robot on Wheels''.

** ''[[Sonic Advance Trilogy|Sonic Advance 3]]'' features hubs for all seven zones.

* Various [[The Theme Park Version|Theme Park Versions]] of real-world locations in the ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' series.

** Only the first game actually played this straight. The second and third game actually made the locations itself the main stages of the missions. There will be some few "mini-areas" in it, but generally a lot of the missions take place in the hub itself.

* The Gallery of Shame in ''Stretch Panic''.

** The Collective Unconscious serves as a mini-Hub of sorts, allowing you to access people's brains even when they are not present in the actual Hub.

* Many ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' and ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' games have a Hub to connect their different levels.

*** And then they topped that again with Showdown Town in Nuts & Bolts. Rare claims it is the largest hub level it has ever created. It's only the size of a small city, apparently.

* DK Isle in ''[[Donkey Kong 64]]''.

* ''Chakan: The Forever Man'' on the Genesis/Mega Drive.

** It's justified anyway, in ''Fusion'' and ''Other M'' you're inside a space station so a hub is understandable, and in ''Echoes'' the Luminoth specifically built the great temple at the center of their other three dwelling areas on Aether, hence, the hub area.

* The ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'' series has the three incarnations of the [[La Résistance]] Base as a hub for missions: one is set in a city deep underground (1st game), the second is more elaborate with a harbor and turrets (2nd and 3rd), while the last is a two-truck trailer, with [[New Eden|Area Zero]] just next door.

* The Outback in ''[[Ty the Tasmanian Tiger]] 2: Bush Rescue.'' However, instead of walking around it normally, you drive around it in a four-by-four. It's faster than walking, thankfully, because the outback is pretty big...

** Rainbow Cliffs, in the first game.

* ''Lode Runner 2'' had one, aptly titled ''World Hub''. It was rather nice to look at, partially because one of the coolest of the game's seven tilesets (called ''Jump Station'') was dedicated to it exclusively. You couldn't even use it with the in-game [[Level Editor]] unless you hacked your level files.

* [[Jett Rocket]]'s ship is a tiny version, with switches that lead to the level maps.

* ''[[Spelunky]]'' features the hub in which you unlock shortcuts to deeper levels by paying increasingly exorbitant prices which you will have to pay for within ''at least'' three playthroughs.

** ''Jak II'' has [[Vice City|Haven City]], which has several gates scattered throughout that provide access to outlying areas which act more as levels in the traditional sense. However, unlike the first game's hub worlds, the vast majority of the game's plot occurs in Haven City, and the city itself houses quite a few of the game's missions as well.

*** While ''[[Gaiden Game|Daxter]]'' also features Haven City as a hub world, in this game it's only a small section of the city, and it's a hub world in a much more traditional sense than the ''Jak II'' version.

 

** In a rare example, you can literally kill your robot off by jumping into the [[Bottomless Pit]] below while in the hub, which GLaDOS proceeds to mock you or even be confused at how you died in an area that wasn't a part of the test. Since your robot always respawns after death with no ill repercussions, this example is most likely [[Played for Laughs]].

 

* ''Makaitoushi [[SaGa]]/Final Fantasy Legend'' had The Tower, which fits this trope in spades.

* Firelink Shrine in ''[[Dark Souls]]'', with most of the trainers and relatively quick and easy access to most of the rest of Lordran after you unlock the shortcuts.

 

** Partially why people have begun to avoid the system. Everybody uses it as a hub and now it just kills them with lag.

** Also it just kills them in general. Undocking in a hauler? Enjoy getting suicide ganked for your cargo.

* ''[[Toontown Online]]'' has not one, but ''six'' hubs: the Playground in each of the six neighborhoods. These areas are Cog-free and slowly restore your HP. The central area of each Cog HQ could also qualify, as they lead to more areas within the HQ, but they are treated more like the streets are: if you lose your HP, you return to the last Playground you set foot in.

* This ended up happening ''inadvertently'' in ''[[World of Warcraft]] Wrath of the Lich King''. There was already Dalaran, a city with portals to all the other cities. Then that was combined with the ability to enter a queue for nearly any dungeon (within your level range) or PVP area in the entire game from the UI. It led to people never going out into the world for ''anything'' once they hit level cap except for the occasional raid (dungeons using a large number of people) or grinding professions. Blizzard has attempted to fix this, but now they've added a way to queue for raids from anywhere alongside the system for dungeons and PVP, which is [[What an Idiot!|kind of the opposite of solving the issue]].

* ''[[Vindictus]]'' has the town of Colhen and the city of Rocheste, from where you travel to instances that make up the majority of the game's action.

* The Republic and Imperial Fleets in [[The Old Republic]] are the Hubs for players instead of the capital planets Coruscant and Dromund Kaas, surprisingly. The fleets contains shops for everything you need in the game, skill trainers for class/crew and also the entrances to dungeon raids (Flashpoints and Operations) via shuttles.

 

* In ''[[Ultima Underworld]]'' II, Britannia acts as something of a hub for the various worlds you must visit.

** ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' gave you the ''Ebon Hawk'', a [[Cool Starship]] where you always returned before traveling to another world. ''KotOR II'' recycled the ''Ebon Hawk'', despite replacing most of the main cast including the protagonist. Additionally, it serves as the residence of the party members who are not on your current strike team.

** The SSV ''Normandy'' plays the same role in ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'' and is [[So Last Season|replaced with]] ''Normandy'' SR-2 in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''.

* ''[[Dungeon Siege]]'' had a teleporter system in its Utraen Peninsula multiplayer maps. The actual central location was just a small platform floating in blackness with a fountain and a bunch of teleport pads. It was called the "Helios Utrae Basilicus," or "H.U.B." for short.

 

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' takes place in the city of [[Vice City|Santa Destroy]], which may seem like a [[Wide Open Sandbox]] to the untrained eye, but is practically more of an extremely elaborate hubworld where the player can take menial part-time jobs and low-paying assassination gigs between tackling the game's boss levels.

 

* The guild and the surrounding town in the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' games.

* Your home base in ''[[Zettai Hero Project]]''.

 

 

* A trope in horror games is to have the hub level become less safe every time you return to it. Since the hub level is usually a safe area, it can be a good way of invading the player's sense of security.

** The Roivas Mansion in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]: Sanity's Requiem'' was one of the first to do this.

** It may have been perfected in ''[[Silent Hill 4]]: The Room'', in which the titular room was the Hub {{spoiler|until the Hub ''itself'' begins attacking you.}}

 

* [[Nippon Ichi]] strategy games frequently use these:

** The ''[[Disgaea]]'' games have relatively small hubs with a gate and a "Dimensional Guide" to help you through to each of the levels. In the first game, it's the Overlord's Castle. In the second game, it's Adell's hometown. The third's is the lobby of Maritsu Evil Academy, and the fourth's is the lobby of the Hades prison facility (Though it can later be any map that you've cleared/made).

** ''[[Zettai Hero Project]]'' uses the main character's secret base. You can even customize the facilities.

 

* Your home planet/colonies in the Space phase of Spore.

 

* [[Disney Theme Parks]]: Central Plaza, located at the end of Main Street, USA in both Disneyland and Disneyworld, connects directly to the four major themed "lands"--[[Jungle Japes|Adventureland]], [[The Wild West|Frontierland]], [[Magicant|Fantasyland]], and [[Tomorrowland]], as well as Mickey's Toontown Fair. It is even has The Hub as an alternate name.

** The novel ''Utopia'' has the titular theme park being very similar to this.

* In the same Vein as the Disneyland Example, the Port of Entry at Islands of Adventure, (part of [[Universal Studios|Universal Orlando Resort]]) originally functioned as a Hub of sorts. Seuss Landing and Marvel Superhero Island were easily accessed, while the other islands could be accessed quickly by boat. The boat service is now defunct, however.

** Citywalk, also at Universal Orlando, is a straight example, connecting all the hotels, parks, and attractions. It even features scenery shifts when someone is approaching one of the theme parks. The area closer to Islands of Adventure begins to resemble the Port of Entry, while the entrance for ''Universal Studios'' contains it's iconic globe fountain and giant arc entrance.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Settings]]