History Main / SortingAlgorithmOfThreateningGeography

** As does VideoGame/AdventureStory'', going from GreenHillZone to ShiftingSandLand to SlippySlideyIceWorld to LethalLavaLand.

The adventure almost always starts off in a [[{{Arcadia}} sleepy village]] nestled within a landscape of [[GreenHillZone green meadows and idyllic woodland]]. After thoroughly exploring an [[UndergroundLevel underground crypt or dungeon]], the adventurers break out into the wilderness: passing through a [[TheLostWoods huge forest]], they cross a [[ShiftingSandLand searing desert]] for brief [[BreatherLevel R&R]] at a [[PalmtreePanic sunny beach]] and a [[UnderTheSea diving detour]]. Upon wading through a [[BubblegloopSwamp foul-smelling swamp]], they arrive in a [[JungleJapes humid jungle]], beyond which lie the [[BigBoosHaunt lands of the dead]], [[SlippySlideyIceWorld icy glaciers]], and [[LethalLavaLand fiery lava landscapes]]. A [[DeathMountain mighty mountain]], an [[TempleOfDoom ominous temple]], or an outright {{gimmick level}} may be wedged in-between stages at any point before the climax, which usually takes place in a [[{{Mordor}} burning wasteland]], [[PlanetHeck literal Hell]], an intimidating [[EternalEngine giant machine]], or an outright EldritchLocation.

** ''VideoGame/KirbyMassAttack starts in [[GreenHillZone Green Grounds]], then down to [[ShiftingSandLand Sandy Canyon]], [[PalmtreePanic Dedede Resort]], [[LethalLavaLand Volcano Valley]], and finally, the Necro Nebula.
** ''VideoGame/KirbysEpicYarn'' starts of in [[{{Arcadia Quilty Square]], then goes down to [[GreenHillZone Grass Land]], [[LethalLavaLand Hot Land]] ([[ShiftingSandLand which has a few desserts]] [[Prehistoria and a dinosaur level]]), [[LevelAte Treat Land]], [[PalmtreePanic Water Land]], [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Snow Land]], [[SpaceZone Space Land]], and finally back to Dreamland.

** ''VideoGame/KirbysEpicYarn'' starts of in [[{{Arcadia Quilty Square]], then goes down to [[GreenHillZone Grass Land]], [[LethalLavaLand Hot Land]] ([[ShiftingSandLand which has a few desserts]] [[{{Prehistoria and a dinosaur level}}]]), [[LevelAte Treat Land]], [[PalmtreePanic Water Land]], [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Snow Land]], [[SpaceZone Space Land]], and finally back to Dreamland.

** ''VideoGame/KirbysEpicYarn'' starts of in [[{{Arcadia Quilty Square]], then goes down to [[GreenHillZone Grass Land]], [[LethalLavaLand Hot Land]] ([[ShiftingSandLand which has a few desserts]] [[{{Prehistoria and a dinosaur level]]), [[LevelAte Treat Land]], [[PalmtreePanic Water Land]], [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Snow Land]], [[SpaceZone Space Land]], and finally back to Dreamland.

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' is usually very strict about this. There's no Kirby game that doesn't start in a grassy hill, followed by an assortment of more dangerous settings, and then ends in some sort of [[AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield colorful, alien battlefield of evil]] in outer space or another dimension (the first game may be the only exception). The ''Milky Way Wishes'' mode from ''VideoGame/KirbySuperstar'' is the most blatant example of this, although it at least has the decency of making the initial GreenHillZone part of a FourSeasonsLevel.
** Played with in ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards''. The stages go, grassland, desert, ocean, jungle/volcano, ice world, but then Ripple Star, the final (regular) level, ''was'' a scenic, calm, peaceful place. The first level in that world is actually a palette swap of the game's first level. However, the furthur you go in the world, the more dangerous things become, as Dark Matter consumes more and more of the stage.

** ''VideoGame/KirbyMassAttack: starts in [[GreenHillZone Green Grounds]], then down to [[ShiftingSandLand Sandy Canyon]], [[PalmtreePanic Dedede Resort]], [[LethalLavaLand Volcano Valley]], and finally, the Necro Nebula.

* The ''[[VideoGame/TwentyTwentySpringCollab 2020 Spring Collab]]'' in the ''VideoGame/{{Celeste}}'' modding scene. While the maps within the [[HubLevel lobbies]] are all over the place, the lobbies themselves follow this: the Beginner lobby is a GreenHillZone with a bit of water in it, the Intermediate lobby is themed around trees in autumn, the Advanced lobby is a colourful cave with some spikes in it, the Expert lobby is a LethalLavaLand, and the Grandmaster lobby is an ominous [[RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver red and black castle]]. The lobbies themselves also get harder to navigate: at Advanced you can die to it if you get careless, and Expert and Grandmaster require significant tech skills just to find the levels. This aspect was dropped in the subsequent large mod ''VideoGame/StrawberryJamCollab'', whose WarpWhistle mechanic would have rendered it largely pointless anyway.

* ''VideoGame/{{Crash Bandicoot}}'' Follows this very well in the original game. You start off on a calm beach, before venturing into jungle levels and river levels, followed by ancient ruins. The final island involves industrial levels, and well as a few completely dark levels. The sequels do this as well, but not to the same degree as the original.

* Most games in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' start with a forest-themed dungeon as it's traditionally the least hazardous, and continue with fire, water and (in fewer games) ice dungeons which are more devious (a notable exception is ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', which starts with the dungeon of the BigBad and continues with a fire-themed dungeon. The forest one is the ''third''). Special mention goes to the games with [[DarkWorld multiple worlds]].

** ''VideoGame/DiabloII'':
*** The first Act is set in the same area as act 1, to the point they share a level, the second Act is set closeby ''Diablo 2'''s Act 2, in the same desert, then Act 3 moves to the frozen waste and volcano of ''Diablo 2'''s expansion before descending into the heart of Hell. Then in Act 4, you go to the now corrupted High Heavens, which get more Hellish as you go deeper.

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' is a case where the environments already start bleak but only get worse. The Basement at least still has a vaguely familiar "house-like" feeling to it. After that is the larger and eerier Caves. Then the Depths, an outright dungeon. Beyond that is the Womb, a literal WombLevel where Isaac goes through his Mom's insides. Each of those four levels also has two unlockable variations that are worse, such as the Basement having the spider-infested Cellar, on the on-fire Burning Basement. Between the two main choices after that, he could venture to Sheol itself, a bleak "afterlife," and after that is the Dark Room, an ambiguous location made of decayed islands floating on a purple and gray void. The other path after the Womb subverts this, as the Cathedral is ominous but generally feels more wecoming than the Womb or Sheol, while the Chest is just Isaac's toy chest filled with bosses. ''Repentance'' added alternate versions of the first four settings from a different path that are even more threatening than their Burning, Flooded, Dank, or Scarred versions: The Basement's counterpart is the haunted and flooded Downpour, the Caves has the magma-filled Mines, the Depths has the occult Mausoleum, and the Womb becomes the dead Corpse. All of them except the Corpse have an even harsher variation.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' and the remakes have the aforementioned settings as Route 1 and Viridian Forest, respectively. Then, in between the occasional road and field, the player encounters Mt. Moon (a cave), Rock Tunnel (a cave ''and'' a BlackoutBasement), [[BigBoosHaunt Pokemon Tower]] (starting a proud tradition of putting [[SurpriseCreepy uncharacteristically scary]] areas in cute monster collection games to give kids nightmares), Rocket's Hideout (incidentally, every game also features at least one criminal hideout, which often overlaps with ContainerMaze and/or EternalEngine), Seafoam Islands (a cave in the sea that combines SlippySlideyIceWorld with treacherous currents that drag you around), and Pokemon Mansion (the derelict ruins of a house that used to double as a lab where some, er, less than ethical experiments were conducted.)

* In the first act of ''VideoGame/OriAndTheWillOfTheWisps'', Ori lands in [[BubblegloopSwamp Inkwater Marsh]], ventures to TheLostWoods of Kwolok's Hollow, crosses [[GreenHillZone Wellspring Glades]] to restart the BambooTechnology EternalEngine that is the Wellspring, then [[WalkIntoMordor walks into the]] {{Mordor}} of the Silent Woods to find Ku. The second act's FetchQuest to reunite the titular Wisps and save Ku as well as Niwen as a whole takes Ori to a SlippySlideyIceWorld on DeathMountain (Baur's Reach), a [[SpidersAreScary spider-populated]] BlackoutBasement where [[DarknessEqualsDeath the darkness itself is lethal]] (Mouldwood Depths), UnderTheSea by way of PalmtreePanic (Luma Pools), and lastly, a TempleOfDoom in ShiftingSandLand (Windtorn Ruins). TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon (Willow's End) is once again in Mordor with a side of LethalLavaLand.

** ''Wrath of the Lich King'' plays this completely straight, going from harshly beautiful fjords and tundra, to the zombified Icecrown Glacier.

* In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' you're first given free reign in the warm, wooded areas of the game, as opposed to the completely frozen parts you'll run into later.

* Played with in ''Literature/{{Murderess}}''. The notorious Myles Mountains are about halfway through Lu’s journey, followed by the pleasant Myles forest; [[DoubleSubversion Doubly Subverted]], as it turns out [[spoiler:Lu’s prolonged stay in the forest could make her stay a Moondaughter permanently and unable to finish her quest]]. The road from the forest to the Refugee Camp is fairly calm and beautiful (and brief), while the Refugee Camp itself is where Lu has to get a TrainingFromHell.

* ''VideoGame/{{EverQuest II}}'''s original expansion. Depending on whether they were good or evil, the first large outdoor zone players (in their 10s, level wise) explored was either Antonica (a GreenHillZone) or The Commonlands (a savannah). In their 20s, players moved on to The Thundering Steppes (plains beat to hell by a catacylsm) or Nektulos Forest (TheLostWoods). In their 30s, it was on to Zek, the Orcish Wastes (a barren wasteland) and The Enchanted Lands (a beautiful but eerie cursed island). And then in the 40s, it was on to Everfrost (SlippySlideyIceWorld mixed with GrimUpNorth) and Lavastorm (DeathMountain and LethalLavaLand in one).

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' initially looks like an inversion, where you start in the broken labs and move up into nicer and nicer ones. [[spoiler:[[ZigZaggedTrope Then you end up in even more broken labs.]]]]

* In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Frodo and Sam travel from the peaceful Shire, to harsh wilderness, to well... {{Mordor}}. Justified with the homework Tolkien had done creating his universe. Frodo and Sam's path got progressively worse because they came at Mordor from the northwest, which was the path that Sauron fled Mirkwood between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and his influence was persisting. The rest of the group only really had Moria, which was also a direct result of Sauron's actions.
* This also happens in ''Literature/TheHobbit''. The adventure starts out in Hobbiton and proceeds through hobbit lands, then into the semi-wilderness Lone-lands where they meet the trolls. The party enters the Misty Mountains, passes through the darkness of Mirkwood and eventually reaches the Desolation of the Dragon - the "bleak and barren" land around the Lonely Mountain.
* ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime The Eye of the World]]'' also does this. It starts off in the sleepy farming country of the Two Rivers, progressing through the WildWilderness to various grand cities, then we go to the harsh, icy pine forests of Shienar and then to the plagued jungle that is The Blight. (The pattern is broken up somewhat by detours through [[EvilTaintedThePlace Shadar Logoth]] and [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace The Ways]], but these are relatively short and serve as set-pieces to mark the transitions between the story's three acts.)

* ''Videogame/{{EverQuest II}}'''s original expansion. Depending on whether they were good or evil, the first large outdoor zone players (in their 10s, level wise) explored was either Antonica (a GreenHillZone) or The Commonlands (a savannah). In their 20s, players moved on to The Thundering Steppes (plains beat to hell by a catacylsm) or Nektulos Forest (TheLostWoods). In their 30s, it was on to Zek, the Orcish Wastes (a barren wasteland) and The Enchanted Lands (a beautiful but eerie cursed island). And then in the 40s, it was on to Everfrost (SlippySlideyIceWorld mixed with GrimUpNorth) and Lavastorm (DeathMountain and LethalLavaLand in one).

* ''{{VideoGame/Touhou}}'' games typically start somewhere comparatively hospitable to humans, ending up somewhere else that is not. PCB starts on a snowy village, going up through storm clouds and end up in an Elysian afterlife. SA starts in a cave and end up in Hell.

** ''Diablo 2'': The player starts with rainy grasslands for Act 1, moves onto desert for Act 2, jungle for Act 3 and then Hell itself for Act 4. The expansion moves into a frozen waste followed by a VolcanoLair afterwards.
** ''Diablo 3'':
*** The first Act is set in the same area as act 1, to the point they share a level, the second Act is set closeby Diablo 2's Act 2, in the same desert, then Act 3 moves to the frozen waste and volcano of Diablo 2's expansion before descending into the heart of Hell. Then in Act 4, you go to the now corrupted High Heavens, which get more Hellish as you go deeper.

* ''Videogame/ValiantHearts'' does a variation on this, where the opening levels are non-threatening (A train station on the way to the front and a short boot camp sequence) and even the first real level starts with a rather pleseant countryside that quickly turns into a war torn battle field with corpses and shell craters everywhere. The final levels include a battlefield where you are forced to hide behind disturbingly large piles of corpses to avoid being cut down by machine-guns and [[spoiler:being led to your own execution for killing own of your own officers who was continually ordering your comrades to their deaths]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/MarioParty https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mario_party_star_rush_toad_scramble.png]]]]

** ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterRise'': The regions in the game are unlocked in approximate order of their danger levels, including: The Shrine Ruins, a GreenHillZone with some RuinsForRuinsSake; The Flooded Forest, a [[JungleJapes watery jungle]] with a massive ziggurat; Frozen Islands, an [[SlippySlideyIceWorld icy wasteland]] with beached ships; The Sandy Plains, an [[ShiftingSandLand arid and mountainous desert]]; The Lava Caverns, a [[LethalLavaLand rocky hellscape at the base of an active volcano]]; The Coral Palace, the arena for the FinalBoss [[spoiler:Thunder Serpent Narwa (and later Wind Serpent Ibushi)]]: a desolate fortress ruin arena.

This can be justified if the lands they visit are steadily more influenced by the BigBad. Often, however, this isn't the case, and the landscape just happens to look more threatening as the story goes on, [[PatchworkMap even if it means]] placing the treacherous ice level next to the slightly-more-treacherous volcano level. Another possible reason is that the land's steadily rising [[{{Pun}} outlandishness]] is to signify that the characters are getting farther and farther away from familiar territory: things like [[GreenHillZone their hometown and other villages or landmarks they visit regularly]] in their daily life. Any place tends to feel a little bit scarier during the first visit, and having the environment get more and more imposing as the journey continues helps convey the feeling that the heroes are in uncharted waters, at least for them.

** VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue and the remakes have the aforementioned settings as Route 1 and Viridian Forest, respectively. Then, in between the occasional road and field, the player encounters Mt. Moon (a cave), Rock Tunnel (a cave ''and'' a BlackoutBasement), [[BigBoosHaunt Pokemon Tower]] (starting a proud tradition of putting [[SurpriseCreepy uncharacteristically scary]] areas in cute monster collection games to give kids nightmares), Rocket's Hideout (incidentally, every game also features at least one criminal hideout, which often overlaps with ContainerMaze and/or EternalEngine), Seafoam Islands (a cave in the sea that combines SlippySlideyIceWorld with treacherous currents that drag you around), and Pokemon Mansion (the derelict ruins of a house that used to double as a lab where some, er, less than ethical experiments were conducted.)
** VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver mostly averts this trope, unlike its predecessor, for several reasons. For one, this game introduced a Day/Night cycle, with the night versions of routes being automatically more threatening (Ghost types would appear at night in ''many'' routes and buildings, but as a result, no [[BigBoosHaunt area devoted to them was introduced in this game]]). Also, the forest appears much later in these games, and before it the player explores two tunnels (one of them a BlackoutBasement), a well (that's also crawling with Team Rocket grunts), and the Ruins of Alph, which appears very early on and has a very foreboding aura to it. Much later into the game, the region does feature an ice cave, ''Dragon's Den'', Victory Road, and in the postgame, Mt. Silver, but that's about the closest it gets to this trope (they're harsher than other areas, yes, but not much more than the previous ones. Ok, maybe save for [[ThatOneLevel Mt. Silver]]). And then, come the postgame, this is ''inverted'': The player starts out in Vermillion City (which in the original games was almost halfway through the game), and then the exploring order is all over the place, but mostly you'll go from hard and threatening to peaceful and breezy (also, most areas will have very weak Pokemon, which is only natural since the player of the last game beat most of them as a rookie).
** VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire plays this straight again, with the field/creepy forest format being followed by increasingly more hazardous environments. This game is notable for introducing new settings that have been absent from previous games, which have been recurring ever since. Specifically, these games feature a [[ShiftingSandLand desert]], a [[ConvectionSchmonvection volcano]], and two [[JungleJapes overgrown routes showered in perpetual rain]], all appearing across the middle/later half of the game. And further east, you get a huge span of ocean (featuring a ton of aquatic GoddamnBats) that houses the undersea lair of Kyogre/maybe Groudon (depending on the version) and the ruins that house Rayquaza, as well as the Victory Road.

** The [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble third game]] dials down to a more conventional lineup, but still features an escalatingly dangerous geography, featuring PalmtreePanic, TheLostWoods, UnderTheSea + PalmtreePanic again, EternalEngine, SlippySlideyIceWorld, DeathMountain and, ironically enough, JungleJapes (with an ominous BigFancyCastle).

** The sequel has more unique settings, but still count. JungleJapes + TempleOfDoom is the first, followed by UndergroundLevel, AmusementParkOfDoom, UnderTheSea + GangplankGalleon, {{Prehistoria}} (which has an actual DeathMountain), EternalEngine set in a BubblegloopSwamp, '''the''' HailfirePeaks and then a {{Wackyland}} set in the skies.

* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy III'' plays this pretty straight, going from GreenHillZone to PalmtreePanic to SlippySlideyIceWorld to ShiftingSandLand with RuinsForRuinsSake to LethalLavaLand in {{Mordor}} to SpaceZone. {{Gaiden Game}}s ''Bullet Heaven'' and ''Adventure Story'' are pretty good about this as well, with the former going from GreenHillZone to PalmtreePanic to ShiftingSandLand to LethalLavaLand and the latter from GreenHillZone to ShiftingSandLand to SlippySlideyIceWorld to LethalLavaLand. Now the next game, on the other hand, subverts it pretty much all the way. The FirstTown is in the same setting as the previous games' opening stage, and the rest of the forest, the actual first level in this game, is full of fire and brimstone. The crystal caves are beautiful, but deadly. Then you find another town in this game, this one taking up the ice world. West is a really small, optional BigBoosHaunt leading back home, but east is a great big EternalEngine with a toxic sewer midway through and an ice bit right near the end. After beating that level, you can go to the JungleJapes fourth level and find old friends from early in the last game ([[KillerRabbit that are no easier than the guys from last level]]). After that's taken care of come the third and last town (in ShiftingSandLand with a bit of PalmtreePanic) and the last dungeon, a much more involved TempleOfDoom leading up into a LevelInTheClouds.

** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'' played it straight for the most part (GreenHillZone, DeathMountain + ShiftingSandLand, TheLostWoods + BigBoosHaunt, ToyTime, JungleJapes + LethalLavaLand, GreenHillZone again, SlippySlideyIceWorld, OminousFloatingCastle). The only notable twist was the presence of another, harder GreenHillZone in-between the JungleJapes and the SlippySlideyIceWorld.

** ''VideoGame/WarioMasterOfDisguise'' plays this straight for most of the game, starting off in relatively mundane locations like a [[ShipLevel cruise ship]] and a museum before moving on to more threatening locales like an [[SlippySlideyIceWorld ice cave]] and two [[TempleOfDoom Temples of Doom]]. After that, the game ups the ante even further with a [[LethalLavaLand volcano]], a HauntedCastle, and a [[EternalEngine villainous laboratory]]. However, after the villain lab, the final level takes place in a pristine hanging garden. It's no less threatening than the preceding areas level design-wise, but setting-wise it is noticeably more serene than what came before it.