History Main / RuinsForRuinsSake

*** A large number of the ruins are old cities of the [[AbusivePrecursors Ayleids]], an extinct group of [[OurElvesAreDifferent Mer (Elves)]] who once ruled Cyrodiil. This despite the "cities" being unnecessarily maze-like, full of traps, etc. No wonder the Mer were defeated...

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* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'' has the Emeraldville Ruins, a town laid to waste during the war in ''VideoGame/SonicForces''. This is where Blaze helps Silver make a garden in the 2019 Annual, and after the [[ZombieApocalypse Metal Virus Saga]], Restoration HQ is relocated [[ElaborateUndergroundBase under the ruins]], with the tool shed in Silver's garden housing a secret elevator that acts as a backdoor entrance to the base.
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** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIArena'']] and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' have a lot of [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels randomly generated dungeons]] to visit. You can go to the ruins of some farmstead, enter a cellar door, and find yourself in some absurdly extensive cavern/dungeon complex. In fact, most dungeons are more complex than the majority of regular buildings, and this is never justified in-game.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' has a lot of [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels randomly generated dungeons]] to visit. You can go to the ruins of some farmstead, enter a cellar door, and find yourself in some absurdly extensive cavern/dungeon complex. In fact, most dungeons are more complex than the majority of regular buildings, and this is never justified in-game.

* The Palace of King Minos and other Cretan palace complexes, inspirations for the original Labyrinth of myth. While they did serve some practical functions, they do seem to be as deliberately sprawling and labyrinthine and generally RPG dungeonlike as possible.

* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' has a lot of ruins lying around, most of them attributed to the Shattering, the massive civil war the setting went through before you arrived. The rest seem to have come from Crumbling Farum Azula, a ruined floating city that lies outside of time.

*** The Farore Zonai ruins introduced in BotW, as well as the new sky ruins, are the remnants of the ancient Zonai society.

*** The Wind Temple is the Stormwind Ark, an ancient flying boat stone longship from the Rito people's past.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild]]'' combines this trope with AfterTheEnd, as Hyrule is scattered with ruins from different time periods: some, such as the Forgotten Temple, the Lomei Labyrinths, and the Zonai ruins in Farore, are from the distant past, and had been abandoned and fallen apart over time with not much explanation given as to their origins; others, such as the Great Plateau, Castle Town, and scattered town and outpost ruins, were explicitly destroyed much more recently, in the Great Calamity 100 years before the game. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom]]'' introduces more ruins, and provides explanations for ones from its predecessor:

* The origin, purpose, and use of the various and vast ruins in ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' are good for hours of fun. Zoos? Cities? Prisons? Temples? Hiding places? Not to get into a lengthy analysis, but most ruins seem built by humans, but rarely cage in the colossi, nor are they designed expressly to help kill the creatures (despite being used that way by the player). In the end, it's a mystery.

* Mostly averted in ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'': the ruins at the beginning of the game don't make much sense (*cough* bottomless pit *cough*). Everything at the island averts this completely: ruined [[spoiler:fortresses, customs houses, towns, monasteries, libraries and Nazi bases]] actually look like said things, only ruined.

** Hearst Castle in the United States achieves a similar effect but uses ''imported'' ruins. To be fair, it was made at a time when there was not a widespread appreciation for such things and Hearst bought them all from sites there were going to be demolished anyway.

* In Ancient Rome it's been discovered that several buildings were intentionally left looking uncompleted and unpainted. Why? In Greece, where Rome obviously took a lot of inspiration, cities had begun to age and many structures were starting on their path to being ruins. Some Romans thought that looked cool and copied the look back in Rome. This went unnoticed by archeologist for so long because these building eventually became genuine ruins.

** ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy XIV}}s'' Eorzea on the other hand is just lousy with ruins, most of whom aren't even connected to the main story. Justified in that the realm's history is so full of rising and falling empires that they set their timeline by them.

** Averted in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald]]'' (along with the remakes), where all ruins have a purpose. Mt. Pyre is an ancient burial ground, the Sky Pillar is a tower meant to [[spoiler:honor/summon Rayquaza (though this is more evident in the remakes)]], and the mysterious monoliths scattered throughout the region are [[spoiler:explicitly said to be built to hold the Regis within]]. The latter does involve some ridiculously unintuitive and hard to crack puzzles, but they have a purpose non the less.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'', every level except for the town is a randomly generated maze of rooms and passageways, and there are no symmetric staircases.
** True of most {{Roguelike}}s, with winding passageways leading nowhere. If you want a ''real'' ruin on any given level, let loose a dwarf or two armed with pickaxes.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' features several ruins and dungeons which are ridiculously sprawling complexes of tunnels and interconnecting rooms (you often have to go through the rooms to get to other hallways, while the hallways lead to dead ends) that are usually much larger than the cities and towns they're located in.

*** The orphanage may be justified. The Veil (what separates the real world from the [[EldritchLocation Fade]]) is thin there, and that has been known to do really strange things to a place. See [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Kirkwall]].

* Zigzagged in the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' series. On the one hand, there is lore, even if it isn't immediately obvious, on who built the various ruins you crawl around inside, such as the Iron Keep and Lost Izalith. However, it never explains how the hell people were supposed to live in places like this even ''before'' the world went to hell.
** On the other hand, settings such as the Undead Burg and the palace of Anor Londo are fully furnished, and would have probably have fared very well had their inhabitants not gone batshit crazy.

** Some of the games had explanations. Some dungeons were mines, others were prisons. Like other elements of Ultima continuity, the oddness started when these explanations ''[[ChaosArchitecture changed]]'' from game to game.
* The first series of dungeons in ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' are supposed to be located under a tiny village church, and are a randomly-generated maze of passageways, tombs, and other rooms that go on for several sub-levels with no overall plan. One wonders what madman designed their church's undercroft, or how the people ever held services there.
** This was {{Handwave}}d in the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]]. The catacombs were built explicitly to be a maze that would safeguard the SealedEvilInACan... that has broken loose and made the deeper levels even more convoluted and filled the place with monsters and death traps.
** It ''was'' a normal catacomb with a normal cave underneath where Diablo's soulstone was hidden. It changed slightly after Diablo awakened and connected it to Hell.

** It's not all that strange, considering that several of the alien species are older than mankind, and the gillmen are even [[{{Ultraterrestrials}} a terrestrial species which developed intelligence around the time of the dinosaurs]].

** The Blackrock Depths are a bizarre blend of worked and rough stone leading off in all directions, full of dead ends. As it is partially a mine, this would be understandable if the areas of dead ends and the rough stone corresponded at all. Then again, the Blackrock Depths is one of the few "evil cities" that we invade as dungeons that actually has taverns, prisons, coliseums, forges and whatnot and looks vaguely usable as an underground city. Also, they aren't exactly ruins because ''the people who built them are still living there.'' Not that they will be for very long, given the [=PCs=] intentions in going there. It is more a case when an active city has a confusing layout. Blackrock Spire (inhabited, but bigger and in disrepair) has it worse.
*** To explain the layout (partially): the mountain is entered from one of two fairly understandable (if massive) gates, which lead to a circular pathway. Rather than take a door (like the gates that lead to Blackrock Spire) into the city, one must walk along a chain, through a tomb suspended above a pit of lava, down another chain, then through a small hallway, a stone quarry, a masonry, and a prison (all rough stone, except for a few prison areas). To get to the worked stone section, one has to go through a twisted hallway, and enter through the arena. To be fair, there is a better-placed main gate that you can not use further in. The entire mountain used to be under their control. The more habitable upper reaches were stolen by the Black Dragonflight, forcing the Dark Iron to carve a new home in the Depths and spread out into the surrounding countryside.

* Since ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games have included some ruins somewhere in the game world, complete with an AdventurerArchaeologist or two puzzling over them, ancient meaningless secrets for the player to unlock, and the Unown, twenty-eight variations of the same living LampshadeHanging of a [[{{Mon}} Pokemon]].

* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'' is an interesting case: You can talk to Elika where she will explain, in detail, what every single area was supposed to be. However, there's very little actually linking these explanations to the portions of the ruins you actually have to traverse except in very specific circumstances.
** All the ruins were functional buildings, cities, and laboratories until mere minutes before the player traverses them. Each had been strategically demolished by the BigBad in order to lose any possible usefulness, and to be as challenging and dangerous as possible for the heroes to travel through.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' has ruined structures in the bits of game you travel in between cities. Ostensibly the game takes place somewhere in the Israel-Syrian area in 1193, so most likely these are meant to be Greek/Roman ruins specifically, but their purpose, especially given the odd location for some (mostly serving as either travel impediments or useful cover for enemy archers) is rather puzzling.