Remixed Level

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A level in a game has been visited by the character before, either in that game or in another, and has now been radically re-done. Several of these changes are common:

  • The enemy population changes in terms of either numbers or type.
  • The stage is warped. Passages formerly open may be blocked off, or vice versa.
  • Graphical changes, in combination with at least one of the above, often connected to the plot. e.g.:
    • The environment has decayed and become dirty.
    • If the stage was a spaceship, it might have crashed.

This is different from simply revisiting a level that hasn't really changed, which is often the case for a Nostalgia Level.

Compare with Back Tracking and Dark World. See also Remilitarized Zone. Not to be confused with Mirror World, which is an "alternate" version of the level; this is the same level you've been in before, but it's been changed in some generally minor way. If the changes strain credibility, it's due to Chaos Architecture.

Examples of Remixed Level include:

Multi-Game Examples

  • Shadow Moses, where the whole of Metal Gear Solid takes place, reappears in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as a derelict, barely inhabited ruin which takes much less time to explore. In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, several regions visited on the Virtuous Mission are revisited on Operation Snake Eater.
  • Various locations in The Legend of Zelda, most often Hyrule Castle. These, however, tend to be vastly redesigned from game to game.
    • Of particular note is the hollowed-out ruin in which you find the Master Sword in Twilight Princess which you discover is actually the ruins of the Temple of Time from Ocarina of Time (and in a retroactive version of this trope, the ruins look only a few hundred years away from becoming the Sacred Grove where the Master Sword rests in A Link to The Past).
    • Skyward Sword has Silent Realms, where Link is forced to collect 15 tears scattered around the level, which has new obstacles, such as fences blocking off pathways. This is rendered difficult due to the presence of Guardians, which, if hit, will remove Link from the Silent Realm, although gathering a tear will render Link invisable for a short time. A final obstruction is 'Waking Water', which will instantly alert all Guardians to Links presence.
  • Perfect Dark brought back a number of multiplayer maps from its Spiritual Predecessor Golden Eye 1997. The Temple map was the most changed, filled with sand drifts in some areas, while the lighting was toned down to an eerie twilight.
  • The Super Smash Bros. series converts levels from other games (Zebes, Mute City, etc) into fighting arenas, keeping a lot of the environmental obstacles from the original games. Mushroomy Kingdom consists of World 1-1 and World 1-2 from Super Mario Bros. in a decayed state, and is more of a Nostalgia Level.
  • World 1-1 in Super Paper Mario begins looking identical to World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros., until Mario comes across a doorway surrounded by brick platforms and someone's house just beyond that. World 3-1 has a truncated version of Super Mario Bros.'s World 1-2, with the ability to flip into 3-D dramatically changing the way Mario proceeds through it. World 3-3 contains a swimming portion that begins much like World 2-3 in Super Mario Bros.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver/Crystal allowed you to revisit the region of Kanto from the preceding generation after you beat the Elite Four. There were some changes (The Fuchsia City gym leader is now Koga's daughter, as he had become a member of the Elite Four, while Cinnabar Island is barely habitable due to a volcanic eruption), as several years had passed since the first game, but you could even visit the original game's gyms.
    • Some of the changes were due to technical limitations as well. While Gold/Silver/Crystal's Viridian Forest was nearly cut down and Mewtwo's cave collapsed, HeartGold/SoulSilver has them intact and much the same as FireRed/LeafGreen.
  • In Super Metroid you can see the old Tourian as well as the starting location of the original Metroid. Metroid Zero Mission, being a remake of the original games obviously has similar rooms, but it also has some re-done sections from Super Metroid (or rather pre-done, as the game takes place chronologically before Super Metroid). Of particular note is a series of rooms that occupy the same location as the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid, and have textures completely unlike the other nearby rooms. It would seem to be that they are indeed a section of the Wrecked Ship, buried under the Chozo ruins. The destruction of the Pirate Mothership in the end of the game probably revealed the buried ship.
  • In Pikmin 2, the places that Olimar and Louie visit are the same places Olimar went to in the first game... with different names and different climates.
  • Final Fantasy X-2 reused a lot of areas from Final Fantasy X but with new bits accessible.
  • The final confrontation in Deus Ex Invisible War takes place at the same island as the first mission of first Deus Ex.
  • Banjo-Tooie has dilapidated versions of Spiral Mountain and Gruntilda's Lair, which were wrecked by the witches' minions.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II, you revisit two locations from the first game: Dantooine, which is still recovering from the Sith attack that killed or drove off the Jedi, and Korriban, which is deserted.
  • DM-Deck17 in Unreal Tournament 2004 is a remake of the popular DM-Deck16 from the previous game with a justification as to why it is now a lava pit rather than a slime pit: Deck16, now connected to Deck17, was closed for renovation. Indeed, you can see a bit of Deck16 in blackout nearby the hallway Flak Cannon.
  • You revisit the planet of Miltia several times across the three Xenosaga titles, and each time is different, both within the same episode and across episodes.
  • A few of the worlds in Kingdom Hearts are revisited in Kingdom Hearts II, but with redesigned or repositioned locales, such as Halloween Town (which now includes Christmas Town) and Agrabah. Hollow Bastion is also in both games, but the first game focuses on the castle, while the second game features the surrounding town.
  • The Pharcom Expo Center in Syphon Filter is revisited in part 2 where it is now swarming with agents (and MP's whom you can't kill), the passages are now blocked and Gabe has to get around using air vents. Has the exact same music, too.
    • At the end of 3, you confront Mara Aramov in the same subway where you fought her in the first game.
  • The Avernum games take this to a comparative extreme: the great majority of 2, and almost everywhere in 4, take place in the same caves as 1. However, the frequent cavequakes, and the unstable political situation, change both the geographical features and the habitants of each region.
  • Gradius ReBirths first stage is a clone of the original Gradiuss first stage, with a few differences: the floating island near the end of the stage no longer has laser turrets, and at the beginning of the stage are two objects that control the stage's climate; leave them alone to continue playing the stage as normal, destroy the upper object to freeze the stage (which stops the end-of-stage volcanoes and causes you to face "helicopter" enemies instead), or destroy the lower object to causes all volcanoes in the stage to go active and erupt rocks.
  • The prologue of Wonder Boy III the Dragons Trap / Dragon's Curse is a shorter reprise of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of Wonder Boy in Monster Land.
  • "Cortana" in Halo 3 is set in the Flood biomass-covered ruins of High Charity from Halo 2.
    • The final mission, at the replacement Halo's control center, is a throwback to Assault On The Control Room from the first game.
    • The multiplayer map "Rat's Nest" is a remixed version of "Crow's Nest", and "Guardian" is based on the Dummied Out "Guardian Forest" level.
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii has a multiplayer-only level that appears to be a direct remake of Super Mario Bros' 1-1...until suddenly, platforms and coins quickly rotate into view as you approach them.
  • No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle features the return of Bearhug Studios from the first game as one of Shinobu's levels, complete with a rebuilt Destroyman as the boss. The stage itself plays very differently thanks to Shinobu's ability to jump.
  • Fort Schmerzen from the first Medal of Honor is heavily reinforced by the time of Allied Assault. The theme music also recieves an awesome rearrangement.
    • Several other locations from the console games are also remixed in the Spearhead and Breakthrough expansion packs.
  • Sector 8 of Jumper Two takes place in Lab-03 from original Jumper, with rooms reconnected to keep only those levels, slightly redesigned for the sake of Ogmo's new physics engine.
  • In Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader's Imperial Academy Heist mission, you revisit the same planet where you destroyed the Imperial Construction Yards in the first Rogue Squadron, this time to steal the Shuttle Tydirium.
  • Mass Effect 2 starts off on the Normandy from Mass Effect as it's getting destroyed. One DLC also allows you to re-visit it at its crash site.
  • The asylum level of Hitman appears as the first level in Contracts explaining how 47 escaped.
  • Silent Hill: You revisit Brookhaven Hospital and Lakeside Amusement Park in Silent Hill 3, and Alchemilla Hospital and Toluca Prison in Silent Hill Homecoming.
  • In the Tomba! series, the areas cursed by the evil pigs feature various enviromental hazards and dangers making it very difficult to make it through safely. After you beat the evil pigs, the areas look completely different and will usually be easier to travel through.
  • Portal 2 revisits Aperture Science a long time after the original Portal, and the first couple of rooms are the dilapidated, vegetation-covered remnants of the first few test chambers.
    • Not to mention visiting GLaDOS's lair again. Twice.
  • The final chapter of StarTropics 2 takes you back to the first stage of the original StarTropics. At the end you fight the reanimated skeleton of the first game's giant C-Serpent. Turns out, that's the Mid Boss, as afterwards you continue deeper into the caves than previously possible...
    • The infamous fake bonus room (with instant death from Super Drowning Skills) from the first game is turned into a real bonus room instead, albeit a treacherous one lined to 99% with Spikes of Doom.
  • The Tomb of Sargeras from Warcraft.
  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood remixes the city of Monterrigoni from the second game by having it be the Breather Level Desmond can run around in between sessions in the Animus. While most of the old buildings are gone, the Villa Auditore is still there and still bears some of the scars from the Borgia attack that kicks off the main plot.
  • The entirety of Sonic Generations is this: Every area Sonic visits is taken from a previous major release in the series. Naturally, to keep things interesting, the layout is entirely different, and every stage has some feature escalated from the original. For instance, the HD version of Green Hill Zone has a gigantic Chopper enemy that chases Sonic in a cave destroying the landscape behind him, and the 3DS version of Green Hill Zone features a collapsing totem pole that Sonic barely escapes running at top speed.
  • In Thief 2, Garrett revisits the Lost City from the first game, which has been significantly altered by a Mechanist expedition to acquire Lost Technology.
  • In Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the first level is the town of Veros from Simon's Quest, set on fire, and the second level is a remake of the Entrance Hall from the original Castlevania, which was also remade in Super Castlevania IV.
  • Mega Man ZX has Area D, which is a highway bridge level designed to recall the intro stage of Mega Man X, in both layout and enemies present.
  • In the Marathon series, "Sorry Don't Make It So" from 2 is a remix of "Pfhor Your Eyes Only" from "1', and "Begging for Mercy" from 2 was remixed into "Hang Brain" for Infinity. The Infinity Vidmaster's Challenge levels are tougher versions of "Try Again" from 1, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" from 2, and "You Think You're Big Time" from Infinity itself.
  • Nearly every level in the Tenchu franchise will look and play different depending on the character you choose.
  • Hoshi Saga Dokuringo is made mostly of Remixed Levels from the previous four games (Ringo, Ringoame, Ringoen, Ringohime), except the puzzles' difficulty is set extremely high. It is said the change is due to complaints that the previous games were too easy.

Single Game Examples

  • 'Sky Troops' of Shadow the Hedgehog is the same stage as 'Glyphic Canyon' (which, on the neutral path, is only the level before last) except it's turned out to be an ancient sky ship. The buildings are exactly the same, albeit rearranged so they form a straight line with floating platforms connecting them, instead of the walkways and...rather strange transportation of the first form. Several gimmicks are also repeated. In the same game, the last stage is a mash-up of 'Black Comet' and 'Final Haunt' - Shadow probably passed through one or the other minutes before.
  • Sonic Adventure 2 has many levels which use the same geometry as other levels the character's counterpart goes through, just with different decorations and doodads. Particularly noticeable with one of Rouge and Knuckles' levels: they're supposed to be entirely different locations but have exactly the same layout.
  • The final level of Ratchet and Clank is Ratchet's homeworld, which was also the first level. The sky is darker, there are many new enemies and the stage is much longer. Also done in the third game, with the Starship Phoenix when it's attacked by enemies. To some extent, the Leviathan also counts - Dr. Nefarious crashes the vessel into Zeldrin after Ratchet confronts him, and Ratchet explores the wreckage when he visits the planet itself.
  • The third chapter of Final Fantasy V has a game world which is a hybrid of the first two.
  • The fourth world of Crash Twinsanity is essentially a cross between the first two worlds.
  • In World in Conflict, the multiplayer maps do_Riverbed and tw_Wasteland are actually one and the same location, only before and after a nuclear blast, respectively. You'd barely guess, though, unless you played the campaign, thanks to vastly different gameplay styles and palettes of the two maps.
  • Call of Juarez manages to pull this off without significantly changing the level. When you first play through a level as Billy, you must mostly use stealth, so enemies are few and far in-between. When Ray reaches the same level, the number of enemies increases exponentially and he must blast his way through them.
  • Metroid series examples:
    • In Metroid Prime, the first "tutorial" level takes place on a frigate over Tallon IV, which goes into unplanned reentry by the time you're through. You later revisit its flooded, monster-infested wreckage (which has some of the most beautifully atmospheric music ever used in a video game).
    • Also, like Super Metroid above, you can go back through the ruins of Tourian after the bomb goes off in Zero Mission.
    • In Metroid Fusion, the BSL you're on gradually changes as you unlock sectors, and X parasites infest them, causing monsters to gradually run the place into ruins, breaking down walls, doors, cooling systems...
  • Call of Duty's Carentan map was popular enough to appear in the first game, its expansion, and its sequel. For a Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare map pack, a level called Chinatown was introduced, which had a nigh-identical layout, just different textures and decorations - for example a video store instead of a wine cellar.
    • Call of Duty Black Ops has two examples: The first one, a level that remixes itself by being shown from two different POVs, starts off with one character sneaking into the enemy base using stealth, and the other character rolling in with a convoy of Awesome Personnel Carriers. The second example is related to The Reveal: The Framing Story takes place in the same level as the one where you visit the Pentagon.
  • The first level of Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards has more or the same layout as the first level of the final area.
  • In the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, Scrap Brain Act 3 was basically just another act of the earlier Labyrinth Zone with different colors. As such, many consider the aptly named "Final Zone" (which is just the final boss battle) to be the actual Scrap Brain Act 3.
  • In Cave Story, late in the game you are directed to return to the Egg Corridor, which was the second zone you were able to enter. You find that it has been ravaged by a massive explosion, and most of the eggs have hatched.
  • Eternal Darkness uses this a lot - you end up returning to the same four or five locations a couple of times, though usually centuries apart. As a result, they have significantly decayed between the visits.
  • After you beat the eight robot masters in Mega Man 3, you have to revisit four of the levels to fight Doc Robot.
  • In Portal, during the last level, as you wander through the inner workings of the Enrichment Center you eventually come across one of the earlier chambers which you get to beat again in a completely different manner.
    • In Portal 2, this is subverted, with you having to solve one puzzle twice in a row before you can continue.
  • Averted (possibly averted intentionally for a bit of comic relief) in Shadow of the Colossus. The route to the final Colossus seems to lead to a rematch with the first one. However, upon reaching the first Colossus it becomes clear that it's still down, and the route to the last one requires a bit of navigation.
  • In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, after defeating the boss of Rice Beach, returning to some of that area's levels reveals that they have become flooded with water, and all the quicksand is gone.
    • Also, Mount Teapot has a level located at the peak, but once you hit a switch in a later level a levitating landmass slams down to change the topology of that mountaintop level, turning it into the boss level.
    • A third example: After you drain the lake in Parsley Woods, the first level in that zone (which takes place in said lake) is dramatically different from before, for obvious reasons.
    • On that note, there are many levels which change dramatically after hitting switches or finishing certain levels. There is a lot of backtracking involved if you want to find all collectibles in this game.
  • In Knytt Stories: The Machine, after you turn off the Machine, all the enemies disappear and the barren landscape bursts back into bloom and color.
  • Doom seems to take you back to the first level of Episode 3 for its secret level, and it plays out much the same...that is, until you enter the exit teleport and the walls come down revealing a Tower of Babel-esque arena -- complete with a pissed off Cyberdemon! And that's only the beginning...
  • At the end of Mega Man X 2, Sigma hides out in Magna Centipede's stage. Other than the hidden items being missing and the level cutting off early for bosses, it's exactly the same stage.
    • It also plays the first stage's music instead of its normal theme.
    • No really, it's exactly the same stage. Selecting Magna Centipede's stage instead of Sigma's base at the end of the game will take you to the final confrontation with Sigma, as if you'd selected Sigma's base. Possibly an inadvertent example of The Dev Team Thinks of Everything
    • Then, X7 brings you back to the Central Highway stage from the first game in 3D, with the only playable characters being Zero and the newly introduced Axl.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl also features a remix of this type. The Subspace Emissary mode concludes with The Great Maze, a Metroidvania-style labyrinth made up of parts of all the previous levels which had been blown up with Subspace bombs.
    • On top of that, the Halberd segment isn't ripped from the previous Halberd stage, but rather, it's based off the elevator portion from the original Revenge of Meta Knight game in Kirby Super Star.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus has this, for you must enter eight mirrors leading to one of the previous worlds and complete them to open the door to the final boss. Thankfully, they are much shorter. The catch? They are now corrupted as a good deal of the scenery, walls and floors are missing, revealing that they have been literally Recycled in Space (Iriya and Dokuro had it best as their worlds were left completely intact except for now being floating cosmic continents. On the other extreme, Haruka Nogizaka's world has been reduced to a single measly path with some pretty trees floating in a void of stars and almost nothing else. How the hell do you go from a Big Fancy House to that?).
  • Like the Knights of the Old Republic II example above, The Force Unleashed featured several levels where you returned to previously visited planets after their Imperial makeover, taking a different route through the stages each time and, in the case of Kashyyyk, playing as a completely different character.
  • Two Guild Wars examples:
    • In Prophecies, the first few missions take place in the ruins of the tutorial area.
    • In Nightfall, after Varesh completes her work in Vabbi, the Garden of Sebhorin takes on the landscape and enemy groups of the Realm of Torment, becoming the Nightfallen Garden. After you finish the game, it returns to its normal state. Also, the first explorable area within the Realm of Torment is a Torment version of an area in Kourna.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil has four over the course of the story. The titular character returns to Volk City, La-Lakoosha, Sea of Tears, and Ishras Ark as Volkan Inferno, Noxious La-Lakoosha, Dark Sea of Tears, and The Ark Revisited, respectively. The Ark Revisited has something of a reversal of the classic level change; Ishras Ark when Klonoa first visits is run-down and nearly inoperable, but it's in pristine condition and running smoothly when he comes back. As for the others... well... it's probably obvious what's changed.
  • Castlevania: Chronicles of Sorrow does this for Chaos's realm.
  • The True Shrine of the Mother in La-Mulana, where giant organic tentacles radiating from the boss room have blocked off many pathways, destroying some structures like moving platforms and spikes.
  • The Transformers Armada-based PlayStation 2 Transformers game features this; one level has you fighting your way through a starship. It then crashes, and you have to go all the way back through the same level, but vertically.
  • The first level in Star FOX Command. Every time you enter the area, the enemy population increases.
  • Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception has quite a few of these depending on the path choices you take. The mission types can be quite different. For example, 9A is a sort of-Stealth-Based Mission where you need to weave between Instant Death Radius radar coverage circles, while 9B is a particularly annoying Escort Mission. Plus, The Law of Conservation of Detail can add twists to a level; for example in 14A, one of your allies notes the presence of a cave large enough to fly a plane in. Guess what you need to do in 14B?
  • The entirety of the Interactive Fiction game A Mind Forever Voyaging. You play as an AI in a simulation of Rockvil, South Dakota, exploring it in successive 10-year intervals to chart the progress of a proposed economic stimulus bill.
  • The last three levels of Halo are remixes of the fifth, third, and first levels, respectively, but with Flood and Sentinels.
    • In Halo 2, High Charity is a remix of Gravemind, but with Flood.
    • In Halo 3, Floodgate is a remix of The Storm, but with Flood.
    • In Halo: Reach, The Package is a remix of ONI: Sword Base. Bungie obviously likes this trope. Why? Because they love their fans a lot and try and do all sorts of cool things with their games, and sorta kinda forget to make campaign until they don't have enough time to. How do you squeeze more hours out of less work? Make them run it twice with superficial changes! Yay!
      • Like the other games, Reach remixes several of its campaign levels as multiplayer arenas, such as Sword Base and the power plant from Nightfall.
  • The first chapter, "Anomalous Materials", in Half-Life. First you walk through it when it's still a pristine environment. After the accident, it turns into a deathtrap and monster-filled ruin.
    • City 17 in Half-Life 2. You start out here in the very first chapter. Fast-forward through most of the game, and a rebellion has started in the city. Most of the architecture has been blown to pieces, and there's a lot more Combine around.
  • Crash Bandicoot usually avoids this, but did it once in Wrath of Cortex. 'The Gauntlet' and 'Knight Time' are pretty much identical levels except for two differences: the second one is dark and you play as Coco.
  • Most of the levels in the second half of Transformers: Convoy no Nazo, except for the Guide Dang It maze level, are rehashes of levels from the first half.
  • Mass Effect's climax takes place in the Citadel's burning Tower and Presidium after the station has been attacked by Sovereign. The VI you can speak to earlier in the game malfunctions heavily as it tells you what exactly has happened to the station.
  • The second act of Resident Evil Code: Veronica is pretty much a remix of the first act, with you playing (mostly) as Chris. On Rockfort Island, many paths are blocked off due to the Self-Destruct Mechanism, forcing you to take longer routes around the base. The Antarctic Base is filled with frozen water, which allows you to reach previously inaccessable rooms.
  • Golden Eye 1997 for the Nintendo 64 has several:
    • Surface: The first time you visit, it is day; the second time, it is night, the original exit has been blocked off, the enemies are different and the cameras have been moved.
    • Bunker (which comes directly after Surface both times): The first time you visit, it is under construction; the second time it is complete.
    • Some of the passages accessible in single player are closed off in the Multiplayer versions of Facility, Bunker, Archives, Water Caverns, and Egyptian.
  • Perfect Dark has three missions inside the main portion of the DataDyne building, and a subversion in that the Carrington Institute (where Joanna does her training) becomes a level later in the game when she has to defend it from being attacked by the Skedar.
    • The bonus levels "Mr. Blonde's Revenge", "Maian SOS" and "War!" are just "dataDyne: Defection", "Area 51: Rescue" and "Skedar Ruins" in a different order and with new enemies.
  • In the original Super Mario Bros, several levels reappear with increased difficulty:
    • 1-3 reappears as 5-3 with Bullet Bills coming from offscreen and smaller platforms.
    • 1-4 resurfaces as 6-4 with more fire bars and the first hammer-throwing Bowser.
    • 2-2 is played again as 7-2 with more enemies.
    • 2-3 is replayed as 7-3 with Koopas.
    • 2-4 repeats as 5-4 with more fire bars (including the game's only long one and fast one).
    • In The Lost Levels, World C is a remix of World 7.
  • Super Mario Galaxy's Gold Leaf Galaxy appears to be a vertically mirrored Honeyhive Galaxy set in the autumn. However, the former is a late-game galaxy while the latter is an early-game galaxy for a reason, as the Gold Leaf Galaxy requires Mario to traverse dangerous areas that are unnecessary or inaccessible in Honeyhive. In addition, the two galaxies have entirely different planets that surround them, and the Queen Bee is present only in Honeyhive.
  • In Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, New York and Duke's base are remixed in the Post-Apocalypse era.
  • The Cataclysm did this in a large way to the whole of Azeroth, but near the end of the previous expansion, phasing had started to change individual zones this way. Show up the first time and one area is filled with hostile monsters. Do a few quests, and they're now friendly, and the usual town services such as mailboxes and flight paths are available. People who are not at your point in the questlines will not see you, and vice versa.
  • Marathon Infinity has several variations of "Aye Mak Sicur", its final stage; three of these are "bad endings", and one is a multiplayer level. AMS was itself a remix of the third-party multiplayer map "Pfhactory". In 2, "No Disintegrations" is a multiplayer version of "Nuke and Pave". Also common in third-party scenarios, for example, Fell does this with at least four of its levels.
  • Champions Online does this repeatedly. On first exposure to many zones, you enter a "Crisis" level, where some significant crisis must be overcome; once the crisis level has been completed, you can then enter and leave that zone as normal. The Crisis zones are usually different in some noticeable way than their regular counterparts, but the most significantly different is the Vibora Bay Apocalypse zone. At the end of that zone, there's pretty much no way to stop the end of the world, so you go back in time before the whole mess started hoping to prevent it.
  • In Mega Man Zero 2, after you defeat the first four bosses, there's an intermission level where the rebels attack Neo Arcadia and are pretty much massacred horribly. At the end of that stage, after a trio of rather weak minibosses, you learn that a bomber is heading straight for the rebel base. In the next stage you deal with it, but one of the next level choices is the crashed remains of the bomber and the caves it crashed into.
  • Hitman 2 has the second level of the game (St. Petersburg Stakeout) pulled out again as the penultimate level (St. Petersburg Revisited). Things start out the same: go to the same apartment building and take out the target in the very same Pushkin Building with the same snipe rifle. There's no military this time around but a savvy player could notice something isn't right when you're not allowed to take any weapons into the mission. This intuition is right: the level is a trap specifically set up for 47 with the target being replaced by a paper mache, the sniper rifle being loaded with blanks and a counter-sniper standing by. Killing the sniper results in a cutscene where Sergei notifies 47 that he has Vittorio. The last level (Redemption at Gontranno) is also the remix of the interlude level (The Gontranno Sanctuary) but this time it's night and the place is chock-full of enemies while 47 starts a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Just as the events of the game kicked off with 47 entering the confession booth, Sergei is holed up in the very same booth with Vittorio.
  • Many tracks in racing games have multiple arrangements or "ribbons". The early Ridge Racer games are famous for all the tracks sharing the same starting area.
  • Deadly Creatures takes place in the same area of desert for the whole game, with the player alternating between a scorpion and spider. The radically different playing styles between the two result in the player tackling the same object twice in wildly different ways.
  • In the penultimate level of The World Is Not Enough(N64), you board a submarine. In the final level, said submarine is sinking, and you have to swim and climb vertically through it.
  • Near the end of Epic Mickey, Mickey finds himself in the Mad Doctor's Lab, the very first area the player gets to control Mickey. The difference here is that Thinner, highly toxic to Mickey, has flooded the lab and Mickey can now use his magic paintbrush. In addition, the doorway where Mickey had left the lab before has been blocked off, forcing Mickey to take another way out.
  • Heavy Weapon has the first 9 levels, which you have to revisit after a Your Princess Is in Another Castle scene. The difference is that you have to face off much stronger enemies the second time round.
  • Dragon Age has several examples: the Return to Ostagar DLC lets you revisit an area from the early game after it's been overrun by monsters, the Circle Tower area will be familiar to a mage PC (only with a lot more abominations, demons, and wrecked bookshelves), and the Very Definitely Final Dungeon is the capital city of Denerim after being invaded by darkspawn and the Archdemon.
  • Deus Ex has you visit UNATCO Headquarters after each completed mission, where you get to know people who you are working with. The last time, however, you are an enemy who is about to break out.
  • Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear has two stealth based missions whose maps are later reused for action missions.
    • Likewise, Raven Shield's second act remixes four of the levels from the first act: Falcon Hour=>Talon Steel, Pearl Castle=>Briar Gate, Crimson Hook=>Broken Stone, and Stone Cannon=>Steel Rose.
  • The first level of the original Syphon Filter has you infiltrate a subway to attempt to stop a bomb. The second level has you escaping from the subway after the bomb goes off. Same for stealthily infiltrating and then escaping Rhoemer's military base.
    • Rhoemer's base tunnels (cutting the power causes the place to implode and you had to go the rest of the way using night vision), Aljir prison and the Agency bio-lab (first half is stealth, the other is run-and-gun).
    • In Omega Strain, the fourth level (Carthage Mall) is a remixed version of the first (Quarantine Zone).
  • In Bonk's Revenge, the Fireball Field and Orange Waterfall are fiery versions of Flower Field and Waterfall, respectively.
  • Park Area in the fourth Mega Man Battle Network must be cleared in various scenarios. Each of them presents some annoying gimmick, such as inverted controls and stealth sequences. Mess up and you get sent to the beginning of the area.
  • Ninfestation, the second trip to the Piraty Princess Ship in The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 3, gets overrun by ninjas. Its then-current captain points out how Fancy Pants Man needs to defeat the ninjas, as pirates hate (or fear, in the captain's case) them.
  • Civil War Generals II includes alternate versions of historical battles from the American Civil War. Some of these are intended to be more balanced for multiplayer, while others seek to explore alternate deployments that didn't actually happen for one reason or another.