History Main / RuinsForRuinsSake

* ''VideoGame/{{Kirby 64|TheCrystalShards}}'''s Rock Star planet. Also The final level was built by StarfishAliens, so it does not have to make sense, but the other ruins count.
* In ''GuildWars'' there are ruins of very large structures and gigantic monuments on the Crystal Desert and the Desolation, the lore mentions that those ruins stand as crumbling celebrations of the short-lived triumph over that harsh environment, [[FridgeLogic one wonders]] what was the reason someone would want to settle in an inhospitable desert and invest all the resources and labor into those constructions in the first place.

* In ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', all dungeons are guilty of this but Rixis is justified; it's only so hard to navigate because of the huge craters everywhere. As for Glacia; [[FridgeBrilliance You came into through the visitor's entrance; all the buildings hang from the ceiling; and you're on a walkway that's halfway down, giving you an ideal view of the entire city. The walkway is the tour route.]]

** To explain the layout (partially): the mountain is entered from on 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, ones 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.

* ''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 bottom of the well ''was'' holding an EldritchAbomination before you [[NiceJobBreakingItHero break things]] and is where the Eye of Truth is stored. Besides that, the prison cells and [[FridgeHorror crucifix directly above a hole]] seem to suggest it was a torture complex, jail, execution room or some combination thereof related to the Sheikah and their Shadow Temple. Considering the inscription in the Shadow Temple is "Here lies Hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred"...Yeah, a real messed up place is probably the best description we can get without an M rating.

* According to the notes accompanying the paper edition of ''{{Erfworld}}'' Book 1, "ruins" are a terrain type that occurs in the world's RPGMechanicsVerse. The presence or ruins does not imply the previous existence of an [[ThrivingGhostTown Erfworld city]].

** In ''TheBelgariad'', [[HonorBeforeReason Arendia]] is described as being littered with ruins as the result of a millennia-long CivilWar. After being razed by their neighbours, the ghost-haunted valley of Maragor only contains enigmatic ruins. The city of Ulgo actually lies in the mountain beneath the ruins of the original city. Nyissa contains ruins partly as the result of being invaded several times and partly because they are often soo spaced out that they are really bad at actually finishing a job.

* Lampshaded in ''LegendOfKay'' by one of the archaeologists you meet in the dungeon.

**** They're the catacombs of the abandoned cities - there's generally the remains of some suitably monumental building sat on top of them which was probably the Alyeid temple.
*** Also, the Imperial Legion has seen fit to allow every fort in the province to fall into disrepair and serve as shelter for all manner of monsters and villains. Some of these forts are built dangerously close to major roads, including one built ''directly on top of the road'' now ''infested with goblins''. In addition there isn't a single working mine in the province, they're all described as "deserted", "forgotten" or "haunted". All Alyeid cities only ever make sense if you take 'city' to mean 'necropolis', because burying people and treasures is all they do. They also suffer from BlatantItemPlacement in that you find Third Era Imperial currency ostensibly from the First Era Ayleid empire.

**** They're the catacombs of the abandoned cities - there's generally the remains of some suitably monumental building sat on top of them which was probably the Ayelid temple.
*** Also, the Imperial Legion has seen fit to allow every fort in the province to fall into disrepair and serve as shelter for all manner of monsters and villains. Some of these forts are built dangerously close to major roads, including one built ''directly on top of the road'' now ''infested with goblins''. In addition there isn't a single working mine in the province, they're all described as "deserted", "forgotten" or "haunted". All Aleyid cities only ever make sense if you take 'city' to mean 'necropolis', because burying people and treasures is all they do. They also suffer from BlatantItemPlacement in that you find Third Era Imperial currency ostensibly from the First Era Ayleid empire.

** VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' has dungeons which occasionally fall into this, but the Nordic Ruins were deliberately full of traps to hide the [[WordsOfPower treasure]] within. Most of said Nordic ruins are also in fact burial crypts, if you go into pretty much any random dungeon there's a very high chance that there will be undead inside. Regarding forts, the situation is mixed; in the beginning, all forts are abandoned and occupied by various hostile fringe factions, but during the progress of the Civil War questline, some of them, one per hold, are reoccupied, cleaned and restored by Imperials and Stormcloaks to be used in the war, giving a boot to the previous occupants. If you don't want to wait for the government to clean everything up, you can open up a can of wup ass in these forts yourself; there's a small chance that soldiers will move in when you kill the bandit boss, master necromancer or whoever owned the place. Friendly forts are good places to sleep, eat, use the smithy or borrow a horse.

The explanation is thus RuleOfCool: the ruins are supposed to add to the atmosphere of the setting, either by being visual impressive or proding the player into wondering about their purpose and creating the backstory themselves.

* Nazi architect Albert Speer developed the "Theory Of Ruin Value", which proposed that monumental architecture shouldn't just look good, it should leave a good looking corpse. His view was the fact that structures like the Parthenon and Colosseum had survived into modern times, with essentially no maintenance, implied that monumental stone construction was inherently robust and long-lasting. He borrowed heavily from classical architecture and worked in stone rather than modern materials wherever possible, with an eye to ensuring that the Third Reich's great buildings would remain symbols of German culture for millenia after they'd been abandoned and fallen into ruin. Unfortunately for fans of Speer's work, it turns out that this only really applies to buildings that predate the gunpowder age; most surviving English castles were either abandoned before the Civil War or located away from the action, and the ones that ''were'' attacked didn't leave much in the way of ruins. The fact that large swathes of Germany were heavily carpet-bombed by Allied air forces didn't exactly help Speer's buildings leave much in the way of remains either.

* Averted in ''{{Thief}}'', where the many ruins and ruined locales visited by the protagonist actually look like places that were once inhabited and served clear purposes. It helps that you can find a lot of old parchments, texts, diaries and notes about various past events in virtually all of these places. On the other hand, the trope is played straight a teensy bit in one or two levels of the series, which have tombs that were built in a deliberately labyrintine and NoOSHACompliance fashion (so their ancient treasures would be well protected from theft).

*** Often, the ruins are referred to as abandoned elvish cities, despite being unnecessarily mazelike, full of traps, etc. No wonder the elves aren't ruling anymore.

*** Also, the Imperial Legion has seen fit to allow every fort in the province to fall into disrepair and serve as shelter for all manner of monsters and villains. Some of these forts are built dangerously close to major roads, including one built ''directly on top of the road'' now ''infested with goblins''. In addition there isn't a single working mine in the province, they're all described as "deserted", "forgotten" or "haunted". All Aleyid cities only ever make sense if you take 'city' to mean 'necropolis', because burying people and treasures is all they do. They also suffer from BlatantItemPlacement in that you find 3rd Era currency in a 1st Era ruin. It makes sense when you realize that, since the ruined forts, abandoned mines, and Ayleid cities are currently being occupied by bandits, rogue mages, necromancers, etc., they'd bring whatever (modern) money and other goods they have with them and stash them there.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'' had a lot of randomly generated dungeons to visit. You could 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 were more complex than the majority of regular buildings, and this was never justified in-game.
** ''TES: Oblivion'' offers a partial aversion, with a few dungeons and supposed prisons actually containing the expected cells. Other than that, it generally falls into this.

*** ''TES: Morrowind'' has lots and lots of ruins. Most of them seem to have some purpose behind them. The Dunmer Stronghold ruins were used as outpost during wars. The Dwemer Citidels were homes/factories/science labs to Dwarves and the Daedric Ruins are relics from the time that the Dunmer worshipped Daedra (and are usually filled with angry Daedric Minions and daedra worshipers). Some old Velothi towers are occupied by rogue Telvanni members, who are friendly if you belong to that house and hostile otherwise; one of the old Dunmer fortresses has the same with Redoran.
*** Skyrim's dungeons occasionally fall into this, but the Nordic Ruins were deliberately full of traps to hide the [[WordsOfPower treasure]] within. Most of said Nordic ruins are also in fact burial crypts, if you go into pretty much any random dungeon there's a very high chance that there will be undead inside. Regarding forts, the situation is mixed; in the beginning, all forts are abandoned and occupied by various hostile fringe factions, but during the progress of the Civil War questline, some of them, one per hold, are reoccupied, cleaned and restored by Imperials and Stormcloaks to be used in the war, giving a boot to the previous occupants. If you don't want to wait for the government to clean everything up, you can open up a can of wup ass in these forts yourself; there's a small chance that soldiers will move in when you kill the bandit boss, master necromancer or whoever owned the place. Friendly forts are good places to sleep, eat, use the smithy or borrow a horse.

* Nazi architect Albert Speer developed the "Theory Of Ruin Value", which proposed that monumental architecture shouldn't just look good, it should leave a good looking corpse. His view was the fact that structures like the Parthenon and Colosseum had survived into modern times, with essentially no maintenance, implied that monumental stone construction was inherently robust and long-lasting. He borrowed heavily from classical architecture and worked in stone rather than modern materials wherever possible, with an eye to ensuring that the Third Reich's great buildings would remain symbols of German culture for millenia after they'd been abandoned and fallen into ruin. Unfortunately for fans of Speer's work, it turns out that this only really applies to buildings that predate the gunpowder age; most surviving English castles were either abandoned before the Civil War or located away from the action, and the ones that ''were'' attacked didn't leave much in the way of ruins.

* Exaggerated in ''[[CrimsonSkies Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge]]'' in the South America levels. Along with massive temples and structures surrounding the mountain with a gigantic face in it, you need to tow a sunstone the size of a small house with your zeppelin to help unlock a door (the mouth of said giant face) and traverse the ruins inside the mountains. Said ruins are large enough for at 10 to 15 minutes of straight flying, with enough room to fit an entire city AND the surrounding urban sprawl and humongous death traps that are sized for attacking either aircraft or {{Godzilla}}.

* Averted (mostly) in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', where the dungeons are prisons, mansions and mines, all looking fairly realistic and practical, even if they were just as malevolent as the more traditional dungeons. Averted further in Wind Waker where there's a ''very'' good reason for all these [[AfterTheEnd ruins]]. Arguable if they're ruins, the dungeons in ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' are stated in the manual as tests for the legendary Hero.
** Averted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', where the purpose of every major dungeon is stated or obvious.

* Averted in Pikmin in which the world is in fact, a future abandoned earth from the viewpoint of a being the size of an ant.

* SaintsRow 2's Stilwater has an inexplicable Greek ruins complete with amphitheater and pseudo-Parthenon buildings on what is ostensibly an island in the American Midwest.
* {{Kirby 64}}'s Rock Star planet. Also The final level was built by StarfishAliens, so it does not have to make sense, but the other ruins count.

*** Skyrim's dungeons occasionally fall into this, but the Nordic Ruins were deliberately full of traps to hide the [[WordsOfPower treasure]] within. Most of said Nordic ruins are also in fact burial crypts, if you go into pretty much any random dungeon there's a very high chance that there will be undead inside. Regarding forts, the situation is mixed; in the beginning, all forts are abandoned and occupied by various hostile fringe factions, but during the progress of the Civil War questline, some of them, one per hold, are reoccupied, cleaned and restored by Imperials and Stormcloaks to be used in the war, giving a boot to the previous occupants. If you don't want for the government to clean everything up, you can open up a can of wup ass in these forts yourself; there's a small chance that soldiers will move in when you kill the bandit boss, master necromancer or whoever owned the place. Friendly forts are good places to sleep, eat, use the smithy or borrow a horse.

*** Skyrim's dungeons occasionally fall into this, but the Nordic Ruins were deliberately full of traps to hide the [[WordsOfPower treasure]] within. Most of said Nordic ruins are also in fact burial crypts, if you go into pretty much any random dungeon there's a very high chance that there will be undead inside. Regarding forts, the situation is mixed; in the beginning, all forts are abandoned and occupied by various hostile fringe factions, but during the progress of the Civil War questline, some of them, one per hold, are reoccupied, cleaned and restored by Imperials and Stormcloaks to be used in the war, giving a boot to the previous occupants. Friendly forts are good places to sleep, eat, use the smithy or borrow a horse.

*** ''TES: Morrowind'' has lots and lots of ruins. Most of them seem to have some purpose behind them. The Dunmer Stronghold ruins were used as outpost during wars. The Dwemer Citidels were homes/factories/science labs to Dwarves and the Daedric Ruins are relics from the time that the Dunmer worshipped Daedra (and are usually filled with angry Daedric Minions and daedra worshipers).
*** Skyrim's dungeons occasionally fall into this, but abandoned forts are now mixed in with working ones, and the Nordic Ruins were deliberately full of traps to hide the [[WordsOfPower treasure]] within. Most of said Nordic ruins are also in fact burial crypts, if you go into pretty much any random dungeon there's a very high chance that there will be undead inside.