Hub Level: Difference between revisions

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* 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.

* The hubs in the [[Lego Adaptation Game]]s are gradually populated with characters as they are unlocked... and you can even pick fights against them for the hell of it.

* [[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).

** [[Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure]] features a similar mechanic, rebuilding the Core of Light in the Ruins Hub Level using collected [[Plot Coupon]]s from one stage after another.

 

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

** ''Riven'' (the sequel) similarly had a hub area from which any of the other areas could be quickly accessed, but in an inversion, reaching it was one of the main goals of the game.

** 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.

 

* An interesting variant in ''[[Halo 3: ODST]]'': You start the game playing as [[The Faceless|The]] [[Featureless Protagonist|Rookie]]; during the combat-drop at the start of the game, the Rookie gets separated from the rest of the squad, and the landing knocks him unconscious for six hours. When he wakes up, he wanders the nighttime city streets (the hub) trying to find his squad. When you find a clue as to what happened to them, the game goes into a playable [[Flash Back]] where you control the squad member related to the clue you just found as the Rookie. When the flashback ends, you return to the Rookie, and go looking for another clue.

* Possibly the most surreal example is in ''[[Quake (series)|Quake]]'', where it even functions as a ''menu system'' and can be played as a ''deathmatch map''. This allowed for the hardest difficulty to be hidden ''within'' the hub. (The other three difficulties? They are the hub's ''entrances''.)

* The ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' [[Game Mod|total conversion]] ''Erodrome'' is one of the few mods of this engine to do this; it uses multiple copies of the level with different entry points. Likewise for the fan-made sequel ''Marathon Rubicon''.

 

* The Hub Level really came into its own with Princess Peach's Castle and the surrounding grounds in ''[[Super Mario 64]]''. The castle even had 15—well, nine, really, if you don't count the cap course and Bowser's world stars—stars of its own.

** ''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.

 

* [[Epic Games]]' first ''[[Jill of the Jungle]]'' game uses this between levels. At first things are linear and it seems like a gimmick, but soon the same key-collecting and powerup-collecting mechanics from the levels themselves become necessary to progress ''between'' levels, and reaching the secret level requires some backtracking in the hub. Mercifully, the hub doesn't provide any enemies or ways for you to die. The second game had a purely linear progression while the third game adopted a top-down overworld.

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

* Levels in ''[[FHBG]]'' are grouped into sets of four behind doors. After all four are completed, the player can enter an elevator to the next set of four.

 

* ''[[Portal 2]]'''s co-op mode features a hub area that connects the mode's five test courses. What you can access is determined by the farthest test chamber you or your partner have made it to, with any test courses/chambers beyond that locked and inaccessible. This effectively means that a first-time co-op player can access every test chamber from the start if their partner has completed them all, but then may find later chambers locked if they later switch to a partner who hasn't progressed as far. It also allows players to skip test chambers or even entire courses if they want. Because of this, a first-time player can literally go from the calibration course to the final test chamber and see the credits in a whopping ten minutes if they have the right partner.

** 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.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' has (after a certain point in the plot) the [[Place Beyond Time|End of Time]], where you can access all the gates you've been through, as well as where your extra party members wait for you to use them.

* 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.

 

* [[EverQuest]] originally did not have a Hub Level, and instead let characters wander the entire world on foot to get to the various dungeons and adventure areas. With the release of the ''Shadows of Luclin'' expansion a Hub Level called "The Nexus" was created that had portals to and from 4 of the 5 continents in the world and merchants that would sell to any character (and was located on the moon, essentially a sixth continent for gameplay). With the release of the next expansion, ''Planes of Power'' a new Hub Level called the "Plane of Knowledge" was created: an extraplanar city with trainers for all classes, shops selling almost everything that Player Characters would ever need to buy at a store, and portals to every single city in the game (which seriously cut down on the games [[Nintendo Hard]] travel element)

* One of the dungeons in the MMO [[Asheron's Call]] became known as the Hub because it contained within it portals to most of the games major towns and cities. As a direct result of this the large chamber at the start of the dungeon became the best place to meet other players and trade items. It ended up being the most populous place in the game.

* 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.

* Depending on the chapter, ''[[The Witcher]]'' demonstrates this in variations or averts it completely. The Epilogue has no clear Hub, the first and fourth chapters are too wide open a sandbox to identify a Hub. The second chapter has an [[Vice City|entire city district]] as a Hub, in the third chapter when the [[Capital City|range of exploration expands]], the Hub contracts to a single tower. The [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield|war-torn battlefield]] in the fifth chapter appears to be a Hub at first, but it's really the [[Bubblegloop Swamp|swamplands.]] The Epilogue is a [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom|linear rail]] of No Return.

* ''[[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]]''.

 

* Timber's Island in ''Diddy Kong Racing'' for a rare [[Driving Game]] example of a Hub Level.

 

* 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.

** ''[[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]]'' has multiple hub levels. As you complete the levels within them, weird bloody growths come out of the walls and fountains fill with blood, but you're always safe from monsters.

 

* [[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.

 

* In ''[[Yume Nikki]]'', the strange world outside your dream home serves as a Hub Level, called the Nexus. It featured a weird Aztec silhouette floating in a black background, with bizarre doors, all of which were unique, floating the in the abyss as your gateways.

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

* The ''[[X (video game)|X]]-Universe'' games starting with ''Terran Conflict'' have the "Gate Hub". It's a large [[Big Dumb Object]] that fulls the entire sector, which allows you to modify the [[Portal Network|jump gate network]]. The Hub has 3 sets of jump gates, which upon your command, will link "between" two sets of gates, allowing you to link the edges of the X-Universe together. You could for example, set the HUB to link a race's homeworld to their distant colonys, so that only one jump is needed instead of say, twenty jumps. A popular location for the [[Player Headquarters]], as the sector rarely has enemies in it (unless you link it to a [[AI Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]] or [[Space Pirate|Pirate]] sector), and is one jump away from the rest of the sectors in the universe.

 

* [[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.

 

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