Respawning Enemies: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Infinite bad guys from a small door. Way to rip off the clown car."''|'''Comic Book Guy''', ''[[The Simpsons Game]]''.}}

 

 

May even happen in games where levels aren't based on rooms, but set in one big area; in this case, the enemies respawn in a set position after a set period of time. Or possibly as soon as you move out of sight/attack range.

* ''[[Halo: Combat Evolved]]'' approaches this, especially in the Library, especially on Legendary difficulty level. The Flood will eventually stop respawning but in some areas it takes a ''really'' long time and killing them all can take more ammo than you have available.

** In the sequel, the [[That One Boss|Prophet of Regret]] and Tartarus both have respawning reinforcements.

* The Nightmare difficulty in the ''[[Doom]]'' games has this as part of what makes it so hard, where ''any'' enemy that leaves a corpse would get back up after a random interval that could be anywhere from eight seconds to five minutes (usually closer to the former).

* ''Syphon Filter'' games have this with specific opponents, which are known as "Magic Guards" to the fans.

* ''[[Star Fox Adventures]]'' did this ridiculously often, usually only a few seconds after you'd defeated the enemies in the first place.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' averts it though, no enemy will ever respawn while the players are still in the instance, and the entire game is instanced.

* ''[[Xenosaga]]'' did this as well, though in varying amounts over the different games.

* The normal monsters in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'' will respawn immediately if you warp to a different area, reload a save, or allow a large amount of time to pass. The stronger unique monsters can respawn in the same ways, but it's random, as opposed to guaranteed.

** The Game Boy Color version of the same game did the same thing, but also sported [[Random Encounters]]. Since there are also no melee attacks and no way to flee monster battles, running out of ammunition during a fight renders the game [[Unwinnable]].

* ''[[Call of Duty]] 1'' and ''2'' did this to a ridiculous degree, sometimes with odds as lopsided as ten-to-one, particularly during defense missions (i.e. guard this crossroads). The expectation is that the player will have to be aggressive in completing objectives. Turtling, or being pushed to the defensive, will always result in a stalemate at best, or being eventually overrun at worst.

** ''Call of Duty: United Offensive'', widely regarded as the best pre-''[[Modern Warfare]]'' game in the series, is criticized for using this system.

* ''[[Metroid]]'' does it immediately after leaving the room. Such mechanics may be referred to as "Metroid-style" when appearing in other games.

** In the ''Prime'' series, at least, they don't respawn until you've moved at least two rooms away, and in some rooms will spawn in different places depending on which way you come in, as it would suck to have [[Goddamned Bats|Shriekbats]] in your face as soon as the door opens.

** ''Metroid Fusion'' put a little explanation into this game mechanic, in that the bodies of dead enemies keep getting reposessed by more [[The Virus|X-Parasites]]. In fact, if you don't gather the X-Parasite left behind after killing an enemy, it will do just that without waiting for you to leave.

* ''Freedom Fighters'' will send in an armored car or transport helicopter to [[Mook Maker|bring in new troops]] in some levels. [[Defied Trope|They can be stopped by blowing up the bridge they travel across or their refueling pad.]]

** There is one particular area in ''Bioshock'' where Spider Splicers keep respawning right after you kill one. They climb out of a dark hole in the ceiling that's inaccessible to the player.

** In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: During a cutscene in the first part of the game, Otacon informs you that there are a little over twenty enemies on the tanker. No matter how many dozens or even hundreds of the bad guys you chew through and dump overboard, however, there are always more to take their place. Later in the game there's a similar situation where the enemy's forces are supposed to be low, and yet no matter how many you blow up, stab, or otherwise obliterate there are always replacement guards.

** It should be noted, however, that Otacon is refering to the normal crew of the ship before it's attacked by the terrorists. Still, they seem to be too many soldiers for the takeover of a normal tanker.

* In ''Aliens vs Predator'' for the PC, human and xenomorph enemies continuously respawn throughout the level, making it impossible to clear an area, and forcing the player to always be on alert for attack from all sides.

* [[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]] ''Assault'' handwaves it with generators that will teleport in enemy reinforcements, and actually makes a point about airborne enemy presence being possibly overwhelming for your teammates due to this, so if you take too long, you'll have to take to the skies and shoot down baddies for a while. Unfortunately, a large number of generators can only be reached by foot or tank, making these levels a prime example of how the game didn't have enough air combat for the series.

* Most monsters in the ''[[Klonoa]]'' series respawn extremely quickly. It sometimes takes only a second or less for a portal to drop off another enemy after you've destroyed the last one. This also serves as a handy [[Puzzle Reset]], as you use enemies in jumping puzzles; it is possible, and occasionally required, to continuously grab and jump off a single constantly respawning enemy.

* The first ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' game had some areas with enemies respawning wherever the [[Fog of War]] was. While this might have been plausible in some games, ''BG'' had the player controlling a party of up to six characters, which allowed you to fully encircle one spot and then watch as fresh [[The Goomba|monsters]] seemed to appear out of thin air atop the corpses of their kin every time you brought a character back in range of the spawnpoint. Thankfully toned down quite a bit in the sequel.

* In the original Turok game, enemies (even dinosaurs) would be teleported right in front of you without any explanation.

** In the sequel, enemies respawn when you die and respawn or return from a save portal.

* [[Left 4 Dead]] does this, with the only enemy that doesn't respawn being witches (being close to [[Demonic Spiders]] themselves due to using a 1-hit-KO attack on the survivor that alerts them).

* Most maps of ''[[Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings]]'' have this. This mostly just keeps it from being overly easy, but there are a few times where you can have difficulty killing them faster than they spawn.

** You can also kill enemies and drag their bodies to a location that their enemies spawn, allowing for massive cross faction battles every time you re-enter that area.

** Some animals and Feral Ghouls respawn after a few days in New Vegas.

* ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]'' had every foe respawning, save bosses. This was both a blessing and a curse compared to the previous game, as you had to deal with the mostly 1-hit-kill foes again and again, but it also meant Honeycombs were unlimited, unlike the prequel with limited foes on each stage and therefore limited life.

* In ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'', rid the area of Mooks, leave, and return.

* The Antlions are the only enemy in the ''[[Half Life]]'' series that do this. It gets to be an asset once they're on your side, especially since you may have [[Goddamned Bats|developed such twitch reflexes by then]] that you wind up killing several anyway.

* (possibly) [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[STALKER]]'' when people talk about ruins they keep clearing of bandits, who keep coming back. Also a similar clearance quest involving dogs.

{{quote|"[[Modern Warfare|Fifty thousand people used to live here]], now it's an infinitely respawning bandit town."}}

* Generally ''[[Fur Fighters]]'' is quite good at avoiding this trope but one level, which was based in hell so it gets away with it, had Elite Mooks spawn all over the place while you avoid cannon fire from tanks and then destroy said tanks.

* On the hardest difficulty of ''[[Duke Nukem 3D]]'' enemies will constantly respawn. The [[Starship Troopers]] [[Game Mod]] of it uses enemies that respawn on all difficulties.

* Non-boss enemies in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' eventually respawn, as do outdoor raid bosses. For normal outdoor enemies the speed is dependent on the number of players in the region, and in extreme cases can lead to people being assailed by the enemy they killed seconds earlier. Respawns used to be a major annoyance in dungeons after a wipe, but now the shortened length of dungeons has made it less problematic. Maruadon in particular had people get lost in there, die, then get lost again because with enemies respawning they could no longer tell where they'd already been. Rare spawn enemies operate on their own timers, which in the case of the much sought after and aptly named ''Time-Lost'' Proto Drake is erratic but very long.

* Enemies in ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' would respawn after your party moved two screens away. Nice if you need to backtrack a short distance after entering a [[Empty Room Psych|dead-end room.]]

* ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' does this understandably as the in-game Manhattan [[Space Compression|very much downsized]], therefore you'd run out of things to kill very quickly with your obscenely powerful abilities. Most of the entity regeneration occurs off-camera.

* In the Wii version of ''[[A Boy and His Blob]]'', enemies that are important puzzle elements respawn shortly after being killed.

* In ''[[Diablo II]]'', enemies respawn when leaving the game and coming back. In online games, the map will also change. Both online and offline, what enemies appear in which area can change. Also of note is that bosses also reappear like normal enemies.

* The ''[[Descent]]'' series has the purple-veined walls that spawn a wave of enemies when triggered by an [[Event Flag]]. On most difficulties, they stop producing after three or so waves, but on Insane starting with the second game, they can generate indefinitely.

* In "collect the chips" levels of ''[[FHBG]]'', the enemies respawn in a set order. This can be exploited to keep easier enemies on the screen.

 

* In ''[[The Hunger Games]]'', {{spoiler|the dead tributes are returned as half-human, half-wolf "muttations" to attack the surviving players (Or they are simply modified to look like them, it is never truly explained).}} In ''Catching Fire'', the Quarter Quell course sends fresh monsters at the tributes for one specific hour per day.