It's like what you used to know... but warped, and different. (Dark worlds/parallel worlds/ruined worlds in games)

[SolVanderlyn]

My favorite trope, hands down, is what was perfected by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past way back when.

You complete the first three dungeons, fight the main antagonist, and suddenly, the game doesn't end. Instead, you're thrown into a new world, a dark reflection of the world you knew.

The geography is the same. Houses and structures are often the same. But everything looks twisted, dark, unsettling and wrong. The trees have eyes and speak to you. The forest is full of skeletons of horrific creatures. The inhabitants of the world are warped into monsters, and thievery and trickery are commonplace.

Oppression, depression, and darkness are everywhere in this "Dark World." Even the names of its locations evoke feelings of fear, sadness, or isolation.

This was later used again in Ocarina of Time, when Link lies dormant for seven years, and during that time, Ganondorf conquers the world and sends it into darkness.

So I ask you, what other games do this? What games show the world fall to ruin, change over time, or have a dark parallel?

I feel like it's a somewhat rare trope to see, the world fall to ruin like that. There's something oddly appealing about seeing the world in a fallen state.

 

[kittens]

The backtracking got to be tiresome, but I really liked how Halo CE took us back through several familiar levels post Flood outbreak.

 

[5taquitos]

Final Fantasy VI thread

 

[Buckle]

Dark Souls 3 has one of my favorite versions of this.

 

[The Unsent]

Peach castle was so good in Mario Odyssey that I wanted even more. Picking up the old school star was powerful considering how long it's been. The reason is changed is because the courtyard now expands more into the mushroom kingdom with other characters running around.

 

[ClickyCal']

I know it's polarizing, but I think dark aether is great personally. It takes what is already is a pretty hostile world with Aether and just amps it up to where literally everything including the air itself is out to kill you.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I know it's polarizing, but I think dark aether is great personally. It takes what is already is a pretty hostile world with Aether and just amps it up to where literally everything including the air itself is out to kill you.

Click to shrink...

This is a good example of a concept I can appreciate on paper but was annoying as fuck to actually play. Until you got the suit that let you breathe there, anyway.

 

[ClickyCal']

This is a good example of a concept I can appreciate on paper but was annoying as fuck to actually play. Until you got the suit that let you breathe there, anyway.

Click to shrink...

That's fair, but it doesn't bother me personally because the first time through, I wanted to take the game as slow as possible anyway and let it sink in. On replays, I already know how to handle things and where to go, so it's not a big issue. Even once you get the dark suit, you can pretty much go through it fine because it's easy to find health.

 

[basic_text]

Yeah, I love the Zelda change, it stunned me as a child.

On a more recent note, I love the re-use of the Far Cry 5 map in New Dawn. The contrast between seeing it pre Far Cry 5 ending and post it is great.

 

[Raide]

WoW after that cataclysm that utterly changed all the earlier zones. Hints that this was the place you remember but massively changed.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

WoW after that cataclysm that utterly changed all the earlier zones. Hints that this was the place you remember but massively changed.

Click to shrink...

I love and hate this one for updating really outdated zones, but also gating them off from their old versions forever. Definitely gonna try out WoW Classic just to see those Vanilla versions again.

 

[Zubz]

Each level of the final world of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is basically one of the worlds from the last game, mashed into a single level, & completely taken over by the Snowmads & their Winter Wizardry. It was mildly amusing since Returns & Tropical Freeze lacked a snow level up until this point, but it also really sold the "DK Island has been taken over by vikings!" story just in time for the ending.

I also like the touch that the levels are the same order since you're still working your way from DK's treehouse to the volcano.

 

[electroaffe]

I loved it in Titanfall 2. Also how it worked as a game mechanic. I'm on mobile now but maybe someone can provide screeshots.

 

[Winston1]

The Otherworld in Silent Hill is my favorite version of this. One of my favorite moments is from the first game, when you're at the normal version of the school and you find a disturbing painting of a door hanging in one of the rooms. Than when the place switches to the Otherworld, you go back to that room and find that it now has the actual door in place of the painting.

 

[Evilisk]

One of the Dragon Quest Heroes games by Koei does this

It's not handled very well though (i.e. it's really obvious padding to the game)

 

[werezompire]

I've liked it in the Dragon Quest games.

Spoiler

Dragon Quest VI has it with the Real World & Dream World split. And Dragon Quest XI has an interesting take on it - you have the regular world in Act 1, then in Act 2, there's a time jump and the world has been destroyed, and finally in Act 3, you go back in time to prevent the apocalypse.

 

[Perzeval]

Soul Reaver is my favorite one followed by Silent Hill. The upside down castle in SoTN was awesome back in the day too. I liked God of War's changing level as well for a more recent example.

 

[TheIdiot]

The alternate dimension in Chrono Cross blew my teenage mind when it was released.

 

[CHC]

Dishonored 2's mission "A Crack in the Slab" did this miraculously, as you entered the mansion of a totally ruined madman and then swapped back and forth in real time between the present and the night that it all went to hell for him. You could even glimpse the other world simultaneously through the weird device that allows you to shift. Not the most dramatic gif but gives an idea of how seamless it was.

As with so much of Arkane's stuff, it allowed for huge player freedom. I remember getting spotted by a guard and having him aim his pistol at me, so I shifted to the ruined world, dashed to where he was standing, then shifted time again so that I popped in behind his back for a stealth kill. Arkane always gives cool tools with creative opportunities, love them for it.

 

[DaciaJC]

Discovering Untended Graves in Dark Souls III for the first time was such an awesome experience. It's one of my favorite areas in the game to visit.

"But remember, fires are known to fade in quiet ..."

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Persona 5, the thread.

 

[Jadow]

KOTOR II had you visit the old Jedi Enclave where the character from the first game trained, I always found that pretty cool as a kid