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Invisible Wall: Difference between revisions
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Not to be confused with the Gametrailers podcast/show of the same name.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
* Used with and without explanation in ''[[City of Heroes]]''
** Every outdoor area also has an Invisible Ceiling: you can only fly/teleport/etc. so high.
** There are standard-issue invisible walls in the
** The Praetorian zones, which first appeared in the ''Going Rogue'' expansion, handle the "invisible wall" problem much better -- approaching any such wall (which are genuinely invisible) between the zones simply triggers a transition between them. And because of the defenses against the Devouring Earth encircling Praetoria, you can't actually get anywhere close to the outer boundaries of the playable area -- you are disabled and transported to a hospital if you try.
* ''[[X
* In one episode of the game review show ''Reviews On The Run'', Tommy Tallarico memorably breaks into a long rant about the invisible walls in ''Bomberman Jetters''.
** In the past, Victor Lucas has shown [[Berserk Button|immense displeasure toward invisible walls]].
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** Some of the later games introduce another variant: You can't go into areas you're not supposed to go to at the moment, and your character will remind you that it's not the right way.
*** However, the ultimate example is probably the first area in The End of the World. It is literally an entire invisible MAZE. As in, it is a huge empty area full of invisible walls. Your only clue of how to navigate it is that the walls tend to intersect at the random bits of rock, which you are not actually told, you have to figure it out by trial-and-error. Also, certain parts of this maze will feature equally invisible battles that you can't run from. Some treasure chests are booby-trapped and sometimes an odd orb of darkness will hit you even if you don't open any chests. Some of these battles are even against the mini-boss that accompanies the game's difficulty spike, the Behemoth.
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' IV Oblivion; should you come to the edge of the map, a caption will come on the screen telling you that you can go no further, which by then is perfectly obvious. Given you literally cannot go any further. Nevermind that the land and/or water continues, and you can see the terrain continuing into the distance, often with locations that would give you a strategic advantage over the enemies, or some rare plants with precious alchemy components just out of your reach.
** Within the game world, invisible walls are sometimes used to make certain obstacles, such as burning houses and steep mountainsides truly insurmountable, which becomes obvious when the player is buffed to superhuman skill levels far beyond what is achievable through normal means. Even though the player should be able to leap low buildings (even burning ones) in a single bound, they are stopped in mid-leap - ostensibly by an obstacle that, the 3rd person view shows, doesn't even touch them.
*** While passing most invisible walls only results in a glimpse of every layer of the art framework until its sudden end, crossing the invisible walls in certain places, such as in the painted realm, will eternally trap the character on the wrong side.
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** The mod "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul" does away with the invisible walls that form the world's boundary. There's nothing interesting on the other side, though; only an endless ocean or grassland.
** ''Skyrim'' continues this trend, although there is usually a wall of mountains blocking access anyway. There are a few paths that lead into other provinces but are blocked by invisible walls.
* The key challenge of ''[[Super Monkey Ball]]'' and its sequels is the ''lack'' of an
* ''[[Motocross Madness]]'' has both a visible wall (in the form of [[Gravity Barrier|high cliffs]] surrounding the arena) and an invisible ''cannon''. Should you manage to scale the cliffs, you see an endless flat expanse, but driving more than a few feet into it gets you a free trip into the sky...for a few seconds. (Then you crater back into the arena)
* In ''[[Halo]] 2'', horizontal instant-kill barriers prevent the player from taking a shortcut from the top to the bottom of certain areas (for example, the elevator shaft on The Oracle), despite there being no fall damage in the rest of the game. Vertical "death walls" are also used, in addition to nonlethal invisible walls. They apparently forgot to patch up the holes in some places, though, eg some seemingly insurmountable hills can be climbed, leading to major [[Sequence Breaking]].
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** In ''[[Rise of Nations]]'', the edge of the map is ''literally'' the edge of a map.
** ''[[Europa Universalis]]'' has a variation of this: The map is spherical (but you can't travel to the poles) but certain areas are designated as "Permanent Terra Incognita" and cannot be explored (includes the interiors of Africa, Australia and the Americas.)
* In ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star
* ''[[Super Mario 64]]'' tells you about them with a sign, saying that's where the paintings end. Seeing as all of Mario 64's worlds are in paintings, it ....kind of works.
** Still, [http://speeddemosarchive.com/Mario64.html#SS100p some gamers] have encountered invisible walls in random, unexplained places not related to the edge of a world.
* ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'' for the Nintendo 64 had a very noticeable example where you could barely get off the beach into the ocean before you hit it.
* ''[[Family Guy]]: The Game'' lampshades this, with an unobstructed street where a mime is moving back and forth along an invisible wall. Trying to go around the mime prompts Peter to say "Stupid mimes and their invisible walls..."
* In the N64 game ''[[Snowboard Kids]]'', you could do a jump and veer off to the side of the track, then hit an invisible wall in the middle of the sky and slide right back down.
* The action scenes in ''[[Metal Gear]] Solid 2'' often have these to prevent you from running past the enemies you're supposed to shoot, or punching out an [[Immune to Bullets]] boss.
* In the first ''[[Return Fire]]'' game you could pilot the helicopter off the main play area (always an island) and away in the distance. However, if you overdid it, a sub would surface right under you and shoot you with a homing missile that was absolutely impossible to evade and would kill you in one hit.
* The ''[[Gundam vs. Series]]'' added these in ''[[Gundam Seed]]: Alliance vs. ZAFT'', and for once it's actually a good thing. Past iterations of the series had the outer limits of the stage be a line that, if crossed, forced your [[Humongous Mecha]] to auto-pilot itself back into the stage, which was time-consuming, left you open to attack, and lead to a [[Most Annoying Sound]] ("You've left the mission area, please return!"). The use of
* This is justified in ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' - the Reapers make the Reaper's Game more interesting by blocking off sections of Shibuya, forcing you to run as they want you to. Some of the walls are lowered by completing tasks assigned by Support Reapers - everything from defeating Noise in a certain fashion to bringing them food to answering a [[Pop Quiz]].
** And if you run into one, it briefly becomes a [[Beehive Barrier]].
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** It's done for a reason though. Basically, the trigger for the cutscene is below, and if you get past the wall (easiest with lightning shield) the boss screws up and can't attack, and you can still damage him. Not to mention that killing off a machine before Robotnik has even went in is a bit silly.
*** It's possible to fly behind it with Tails while it's rising up, slip in behind him, and kill him there.
** In Carnival Night Zone, when Knuckles appears to turn off the lights. Sonic just ''stops'', inches away from the smirking echidna...held back by an
** When you're taken into the past by a lens flare in ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'', you may see these little structures that are basically a roof and four supports at the corners. You can't go under them. Perhaps this is because it's easier to define an object as being simply this high, that wide, and that long rather than defining all the details of the shape of that object, especially when there's no reason to do so. It's still a little strange.
** ''[[Sonic Colors]]'' uses Invisible Walls in spades. They get annoying in 2D as they prohibit backtracking in some areas, but in 3D, they're really for the best: they line the stage so that the player doesn't fall into the [[Bottomless Pits]] unfairly.
*** As has been pointed out on several fansites, the levels are actually one mass. They are then divided into "acts" with goal rings and invisible walls. Its possible to get beyond them in some areas and see parts of other acts or blank objects.
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' has these for battles. You are confined to a small portion of the room you are in for fights.
* Parodied in an ad for ''[[Tony Hawks American Wasteland]]'', in which the titular skater runs into one of these. In live action.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' completely averts this with its two main maps, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. However, this trope kicks in full force in instances, Outland, and the draenei and blood elf starting zones. In instances, each of which is its own isolated mini-map, you aren't actually supposed to run into invisible walls, but they're often there as a backup, just in case you manage to actually surmount the [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence]]. Outland has invisible walls and an invisible ceiling for flying mounts. The new ''Burning Crusade'' starting areas are actually implemented as parts of the Outland map overlapping the old world; this is not visible to players if they access them conventionally (using teleportation, the Thalassian Pass, or the Auberdine-Azuremyst boat), but players trying to swim out of these zones will hit the plain old
** There are certain instances that literally have an invisible wall, notably those featured in the Caverns of Time. These contain a replica of a present-day zone as it was at some point in the past. If you leave the standard play area, a mist forms around you, essentially warning that you can't go much farther. And then you hit the invisible wall, forcing you to turn around.
** There are also some invisible walls in the two main maps, but you really have to be exploring places you shouldn't be in at all in order to hit them.
** These were almost completely done away with in ''Cataclysm'', with flying mounts now allowed anywhere, the only invisible walls you'll ever hit are an invisible ceiling if you fly straight up, and if you fly too far out into the sea (where even if you do find the wall, you'll be garunteed to die of fatigue damage seconds later.) The invisible wall over the mountain range dividing the eastern plaguelands (Eastern kingdoms zone) with Ghostlands (Burning crusade zone) are still there, simply because it would take up too much data to make the entire mountain range into an instance portal to take you there.
* Like ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' and other "free roam" [[
* The ''[[Thief]]'' games have occasional invisible walls, but all in areas the player isn't supposed to reach (such as the roofs of buildings). However, these are notable in that they are apparently made of invisible wood, and as such the player can smash them aside with their sword and continue.
* Al of the [[Star Wars]] ''[[Rogue Squadron]]'' games will turn your ship around if you go too far outside the mission area. Sometimes it's explained (getting too far from the action), on others (like the infinite featureless plane of the Death Star endurance level) it feels a little limiting.
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** The City Trail mode has an odd one, though. Though there are the normal invisible walls around the sides of the map, if you go at them from a high altitude you'll go through them. However, all you can do outside of the invisible walls is ride around on water, and if you continue going away from the city you'll reach another set of invisible walls which can't be bypassed. What's odd about the invisible wall system, though, is that in some places there are small ramps outside of the first invisible wall which will bring you back into the map instead of getting stuck at a wall, meaning the developers [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|anticipated]] people bypassing the walls.
* ''[[Magical Battle Arena]]'' marks the boundaries of the battlefield with a literal invisible wall: a pink grid-like magical barrier that only becomes visible when you touch it (or try to blow it up), and only that specific spot that you touch. It's visible on the HUD minimap, though.
* Every combat map in ''[[Mount
* ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' tries to avert this by having the military launch air strikes at you if you try to leave the quarantined island, but it's fairly easy to dodge them on foot while running across a bridge, which lets you reach an invisible wall. The camera moves to an overhead view to stop you from seeing any further, but strangely, you can still target enemies beyond the wall - you just can't attack them.
** There's also a flashback segment where you're recalling what happened before the quarantine came into effect. If you try to leave the island, no military air strike happens, but the invisible wall still keeps you from leaving. Way to tax [[Suspension of Disbelief]], guys!
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** It is quite possible to encounter invisible walls while playing as the survivors, but you would rarely find them. They are a bit more common in Left 4 Dead 2 and are in places such as over a fence or on top of a wrecked bus. This is to prevent players from exploiting the maps by being tossed in the air when knocked over by a Charger.
* ''[[Motorcross Madness]]'' had a [[Gravity Barrier]]...that could be scaled with enough effort. If you try to drive off into the distance, you'll face the ''second'' safeguard - the Invisible ''Cannon''. No, seriously. You and your bike will be sent flying back onto the field and crashing to the ground. It's practically a reward for getting past the first safeguard, though, because it's ''awesome''.
* In ''[[American McGee's Alice]]'', there are several invisible walls. But they also use giant slimy tentacles as walls. You can jump on just about anything, but you can't jump on those tentacles - you have to find a way around them.
* ''James Cameron's [[Avatar (film)|Avatar]] The Game'' usually makes a reasonable use of solid walls and only occasionally abuses a Gentle Slope of Unclimbability, but once you start riding a banshee or flying a helicopter, the invisible walls become your ultimate menace as they appear in the middle of the most obvious route, enemies just beyond range of your gun safely shoot at you from the other side, and your vehicle takes damage as you crash into them.
* In ''[[Black and White]]'', land 1, before you build the temple or get your Creature, if you try going near the Aztec village or beyond the gates, you get blocked by an invisible wall. It lights up white if you crash into it, but if you don't it's invisible.
* ''[[
* ''ATV Offroad Fury 2'' has an extreme case of this. In Freestyle mode, if you go too far, you not only crash into an invisible wall, but also fly a bajillion times farther than you would upon hitting a normal obstacle.
* One of the most egregious examples was ''Vampire Rain'' for the X-Box 360. You're a stealth operative on the street trying to sneak around the city and avoid all detection, because most of the people in the city are vampires who will rip you in half the moment they see you. Most of the city is rendered at any given time but there are invisible walls all over the place to keep you focused on your next objective, and you likely won't even realize it until you try to cross a street to avoid a vampire and BZZT! "Mission Boundary!" So annoying.
* In ''[[Fable]] II'' whenever you try to swim too far away from the land mass, the game gives you an
* ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' had lazy invisible walls during the whole prologue Level. You try to go over a cliff or jump? Nonono, young Padawan! You are allowed to do this first in level 2...it probably has something to do with you being unable to die in this level, even when your lifebar is nonexistent but they could have just taken the level deeper into the forest, where there are no descents.
* ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'' has one in the middle of the ocean which not only keeps you from going out too far, but also from sequence breaking by selecting a mission in one area and then swimming directly to another.
* Quite gratuitously used in ''[[Painkiller]]'', though for the most part they're in context.
* Averted in [[Big Rigs Over the Road Racing]], one can climb over the slopes (no matter how steep) where the walls would be and continue to drive into the white void.
* [[Greg Egan]] uses this in a rare non-video game example in [[Permutation City]]. The simulated city introduced right at the beginning contains a 3D model of a single apartment and enough of the rest of the city to accurately reproduce what you can see out of the window. However, get out of the apartment and the many limitations of the simulation become apparent very quickly, including that a couple of blocks out an invisible wall prevents you from proceeding further. Egan even wrote this specifically as an "edge of the universe" where any attempt to move outward is simply cancelled, rather than mere wall with a surface.
* ''[[An Untitled Story]]'' has these on the edges of game world, [[Metroidvania|in a genre]] where world borders are usually closed with walls. They also appear during several boss fights as well as in the form of invisible ceiling in CloudRun and MountSide.
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* Most racing games have these when you get your car airbourne and attempt to jump over a wall or barrier of some sort.
** ''Forza Motorsport 4'' rather pointlessly has on on the ''Top Gear'' test track. If you go backwards over the hump on Gambon corner fast enough, you hit an Invisible Wall coming up from a wall that seems to be about a foot high.
* ''[[Champions Online]]'' has an
* [[F.E.A.R.|FEAR]] 3 has many, many places you should be able to get though, boxes you should be able to jump on and surfaces you should be able to climb, only for you to bounce off mid air if you attempt to.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Invisibility Index]]
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