Forest of Perpetual Autumn

Who needs growing seasons when you've got scenery this nice?

"I have a really keen interest in level design. Especially unconventional level design. Ideas that have gone unnoticed, methods that have rarely been used, and you know what I really don't see very often: the Autumn Level. More specifically, the Autumn Forest. Yeah, I'm classifying that as a theme. Because, in many respects, it is a theme. It's a theme characterized by a very specific color palette. A very select state of being. It's a season of the year. A phase of change in physical form, and as far as level design goes, well... it's beautiful."

— Jordan Underneath, "AUTUMN LEVELS — Underneath (Fragments)"

In large-scale games that feature a wide variety of locations themed along the lines of Green Hill Zone or The Lost Woods, the developers may choose to mix things up with one wooded area that is in autumn even though other such areas are in spring or summer. Whereas other areas will have green and fully-leaved trees, this area will have brown and orange leaves on its trees. Unless the setting is a fantasy world where A Wizard Did It, there will almost never be an explanation for why this area is experiencing a different season from the rest. The out-of-story explanation, though, is because autumn is very pretty while also being a nice change of pace from spring and summer settings, while winter will almost guarantee an ice level.

Contrast with Four-Seasons Level, when one area experiences multiple seasons in course of the game. A localized aversion of It's Always Spring. If the game world transitions from a normal forest to this one very abruptly, it can produce a Patchwork Map. May overlap with It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans if the story takes place in a setting with prominent autumn holidays such as Halloween or Oktoberfest.

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Video Game Examples:

Action Game

• Pokémon Rumble Blast features two Autumnwood areas in Volcanic Slope and Firebreathing Mountain, which have perpetually orange-leaved trees. They're home to various Grass- and Bug-type Pokémon, and Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus can also occasionally be found there.

Action-Adventure

• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: While most forested screens in the game have green springtime trees, The Lost Woods instead feature orange-leaved trees. It helps to distinguish the mystical, maze-like area from the more mundane forests elsewhere.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: One of the core game mechanics is that the seasons are out of whack in Holodrum, resulting in a Patchwork Map where spring, summer, autumn, and winter are shoved together and can be cycled through manually with the Rod of Seasons. The gloomy Tarm Ruins are in autumn by default and reset to it as soon as you leave.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Akkala region consists of woodlands, prairies, and wetlands filled with red-, orange-, gold- and brown-leaved trees, bushes, and grasses.

Adventure

• Uru: The online version features a Garden Age called Eder Delin, with tall brown-leafed trees that constantly shed, complete with an orange-hued sky. The Age does receive occasional snowfall, but the trees still remain the same.
• The Witness has an autumn-themed area in its Patchwork Map.

Eastern RPG

• Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout has the Maple Delta, filled with red-leafed trees despite the game's summertime setting.
• Blue Reflection: Second Light has Kokoro's Heartscape, where the trees and grass all show the shades of autumn with oranges and reds.
• Bug Fables has Golden Path and Golden Hills, which are places set in perpetual autumn, with yellowish-orange grass and constantly falling leaves. Golden Settlement, a farming settlement providing most of Bugaria's food and dyes, is built there. The perpetual autumn is explained to be the result of the actions of Venus, the harvest goddess residing on the top of the Golden Hills.
• Digimon World DS: Steamy Jungle is mostly a Jungle Japes level with the exception of the area immediately around Arukenimon's web, which is Palette Swapped to dark orange to resemble autumn leaves.
• Epic Battle Fantasy: The series features several autumn forests, with the twist that they are associated with the undead:
  • Bullet Heaven 2: The eighth stage, Browngrave Necropolis, opens with an autumn forest and has orange versions of previous plant enemies. Its superboss is an orange, undead version of the bush enemy that serves as the first boss.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 5:
    • The deeper parts of the Mystic Woods feature orange leaves and enemies such as Haunted Mirrors and Wraiths. In this case, the forest is explicitly said to be cursed.
    • Redpine Town is a town area that has an autumn appearance, in contrast to the spring/summer look of Greenwood Village. It's implied that the town is normally green, but the Big Bad's doing has been killing the vegetation around it.
• Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (and its Untold remake) has the second dungeon, Auburn Thicket, a forest that never got past autumn (the other forest dungeons are encased respectively within the other seasons). It is filled with harmful floor tiles, and is home to a species of Salamanders who attack explorers with fire breath (this also applies to their mother, who is luckily a Skippable Boss), so it's not an easy place to be in.
• Final Fantasy XIII-2: The Sunleth Waterscape has become a more autumnal woodland in 300 AF thanks to the absence of the fal'Cie that used to maintain its tropical conditions. After it becomes a protected nature reserve, its tropical splendor is restored by 400 AF.
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Two of the three maps for the Materiwood have fall colors. One, the site of the forest's overworld encounters, has orange leaves in both the trees and the undergrowth. The other, the site of the Moogle Bride mission, has trees full of red and pink leaves while the ground is covered in foliage that is just starting to turn yellow.
• Monster Hunter 4: The Ancestral Steppe is the first hunting area in the game. It's a temperate region whose flora ranges from yellow in the frontier zones to red in the inner ones (best appreciated in Area 4 when you look at the upper background), though some green folly is still present to an extent. It also includes a climbable rocky plateau in the northernmost territory. It is even called "Autumn Steppe" in the Spanish version, while its Battle Theme Music is called "Golden Reminiscence".
• Ni no Kuni: The Golden Grove is always in the season of autumn. The trees have gold and orange leaves, and there are large mushrooms throughout the forest.
• Onmyoji has the Read Leaf Forest (Momijibayashi) where Kijo Momiji resides. It's also apparently right next to the Cherry Blossom Forest (Ōkarin).
• Paper Mario: The Origami King: The Autumn Mountain region is covered in dazzling scarlet foliage even when the rest of the setting is green and lush. It can be easily spotted from even long distances because, in a range of green and white mountains, it's the only orange one. Piles of raked leaves replace the green bushes of the earlier Green Hill Zone, and the origami Toads hidden here are often found folded in the shape of red and yellow maple leaves. Nearby Chestnut Valley features the same autumnal foliage, alongside hazards in the form of massive spiky chestnuts.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver: The path leading to the Tin Tower/Bell Tower is made into its own map in HeartGold and SoulSilver as Bellchime Trail, which contains the tower itself surrounded by trees and fallen leaves in various fall colors.
  • Pokémon X and Y: Laverre City and Routes 15 and 16 have a much yellower palette overall compared to the usual green foliage, and the ground in some places is strewn with fallen leaves. The trees of the likewise heavily forested Route 14 nearby all have muted brownish foliage, and the route itself, covered by flooded graveyards and inhabited by Ghost Pokémon, has a noticeable Halloween theme.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: The Crimson Mirelands are covered in trees in full fall colors and fields of yellow grasses, in contrast to the lush green vegetation of other in-game areas.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Socarrat Trail is a pathway near Casseroya Lake marked by gold-orange-hued grass and leaves. Adding to the theme, it's one of two places in Paldea where you can catch Deerling and Sawsbuck in their Autumn Form.
• Tales of Berseria has the Morgana Woods in the Eastgand region where Velvet's hometown of Aball is located. The trees and surrounding flora have orange to red-colored leaves all year round, and it's explained in-game that the reason the forest experiences perpetual autumn is because of the gradually cooling climate in the area.
• Undertale: While there are relatively few trees in the Ruins, it's the only area of the game that has piles of fallen leaves strewn across the ground.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Played with. It's not totally clear if Uraya is indeed experiencing autumn, as the environment consists of strange glowing trees in the middle of a continent-sized whale's belly, but the orange leaves that occasionally fall in droves depending on the weather nonetheless give this impression, especially when compared to the more obviously springtime environments of Gormott and Leftheria.

Environmental Narrative Games

• Meadow: The game's southern half is a lush golden-red autumn forest.

First-Person Shooters

• Clive Barker's Undying: The last section of the game takes place in an alternative universe ruled by Bethany Covenant, called "Eternal Autumn". The scarce vegetation there has dark colors, although it's mostly composed of rocky terrain.

MMORPG

• Final Fantasy XIV: While the Black Shroud is mostly The Lost Woods, the trees of the North Shroud have far more autumnal hues than the rest of the forest. This also extends to East End in the Fringes—while technically a part of Gyr Abania, it gets its name from being the east end of the same forest that makes up the Shroud.
• Guild Wars 2: Most of the wooded areas are very green, like Kryta and the southern reaches of the otherwise white Shiverpeaks. However, the Charr lands of Ascalon are done up in red and orange foliage.
• Runescape: Maple trees are always a bright orange, no matter what time of year it is. Seer's Village and the surrounding region have them in abundance, giving northern Kandarin an aesthetic of perpetual autumn.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: The planet Voss has a serene, autumnal setting that nicely complements the steady undercurrent of weirdness that surrounds the story there.
• World of Warcraft:
  • The starting area for Blood Elf players, the Eversong Woods, is a section of forest where the trees are perpetually covered in red and gold autumn foliage, with leaves falling from their branches and drifting to earth. In the past it was an example of It's Always Spring, since the high elves had locked it in perpetual spring via magic.
  • Azshara is a forested area on the eastern coast of Kalimdor (the westernmost continent of the game world) cloaked in eternal autumn. The trees are always a rich orange and red, while the grasses and ground cover are in a more muted ochre. It's worth noting that all the trees in the area are conifers, and resemble pines more than anything. This does nothing to stop their needles from being a brilliantly red as any maple's leaves in autumn.
  • The Runewood — a forested area within Stormhelm, a region of the Broken Isles — consists of trees whose leaves are in perpetual fall gold, something that goes for both the broad-leaved trees and the conifers.

Platformers

• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: The second island, Autumn Heights, is heavily based on a fall theme. All of its component levels are thus inspired by autumn themes, but this is especially evident in Horn Top Hop, the third level. This consists of a forest of towering birch trees with red and gold leaves. A solid canopy of autumn leaves marks the top of the level, more carpet the forest floor, and large leaves fall to earth periodically, providing temporary platforms to jump on.
• Kirby Star Allies: Planet Earthfall and Falluna Moon, the first two stages of Far Flung - Starlight Heroes, are fall-themed versions of Green Gardens, Star Allies' first stage.
• MacBat 64: Journey of a Nice Chap has a level in it in which orange leaves are constantly falling to the ground.
• The Messenger (2018): The first level, the Autumn Hills. They're always autumn. Even after the time skip.
• Ori and the Blind Forest: Much of the forest of Nibel, particularly Sunken Glades and Hollow Grove, look autumnal due to the Spirit Tree no longer sustaining the forest and the plants starting to die as a result.
• Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!: Autumn Plains. The other homeworlds have summer and winter themes for comparison; Autumn Plains has yellow and brown trees, leaves falling, and pale skies.
• Songs for a Hero: The second act of the first level "Not so Greenish Hill" is set in a bush with autumn-based vegetation, with a color palette much more inclined to orange than the other acts. This is lampshaded by the Hero himself, who wonders in song form how could so much time have passed since he passed through the last phase, which was still green. He gets confused again in the third act "Venomous Fortress", where the foliage is green once more.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario World: The level Outrageous takes place in a forest setting similar to the levels of the Forest of Illusion (World 5), but it's set in autumn instead of spring. Once this level as well as the rest of Special Zone are cleared, the overworld map will permanently shift into autumn, though this event downplays the trope (the shift alters several enemies to give them a Halloween motif, but leaves the levels' design and themes the same otherwise).
  • Super Mario All-Stars: The background of 8-2 in both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels has an autumn-based foliage, mixing shades of green, red and orange. This contrasts the graphical design of the original games' version, where it was indistinguishable from most other levels.
  • Super Mario Galaxy: The Gold Leaf Galaxy seems to be stuck in perpetual autumn, as implied by the name. The large tree's leaves are completely orange and the ground is littered with its fallen leaves. The level is also separate from Honeyhive Galaxy, which has the same central layout (albeit mirrored) but is always in spring.
  • Super Mario 3D World: World 3-7, Switchboard Falls, takes place in the autumn, where the trees have orange leaves, leaves are falling in the sky, and there are waterfalls.
  • Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, a fanmade game, has Goldwood Forest, which borrows the autumn concepts of Gold Leaf Galaxy in its levels and uses the music theme of Maple Treeway.

Racing Games

• Most of the Forza Motorsport games have the fictional Maple Valley Raceway as one of the tracks you can race on. True to its name, it's set in a valley that is mostly populated with maple trees. It's also one of the few tracks in the Motorsport games that doesn't take place during the spring or summer.
• Mario Kart Wii: Maple Treeway is a course taking place almost entirely in the branches and canopy of an enormous maple tree in full fall colors. Piles of dead leaves litter the trail as obstacles to racers, and more fall-colored trees fill the background on all sides. Note that all the other courses take place in the same nondescript spring-summer setting: Maple Treeway is the only course in which visible plant décor is anything less than lush and green. The course returns in Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (via DLC) as a Nostalgia Level.
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted: The setting is always autumn, which might explain its obsession with tinting everything brownish.

Raising Sims

• The Sims 3 has the town Appaloosa Plains in the Pets expansion pack having a perpetual autumnal aesthetic even with the Seasons pack installed. The University Town in the University Life pack will also have trees that are appearing to be shedding leaves.

Real-Time Strategy

• Pikmin:
  • Pikmin 2 has the Wistful Wild, an eerie forest region with decaying flora that merges the mainlands of the Impact Site and the Final Trial from the first Pikmin game. Four of the five treasures found aboveground (a pinecone, a chestnut, a mushroom, and an acorn) are all the kind of flora you'd expect to find littering the forest floor in autumn (the fifth treasure is the infamous Doomsday Apparatus, which can only be retrieved with 100 Purple Pikmin).
  • Pikmin 3 has the Twilight River, which retains the autumn setting. Its music makes it more cheerful, despite having more enemies (including hornets and aquatic creatures). Note that this game as well as Pikmin 2 both have levels that already represent the other seasons, which justifies the perpetual autumn of the described regions gameplay-wise even if it doesn't story-wise.
  • Hey! Pikmin: Leafswirl Lagoon takes place in an autumnal forest, with a background dominated by yellow and orange leaves and the occasional pumpkin.
  • Pikmin 4: The Primordial Thicket is a muddy area deep within a forest that appears to be in an autumn state, with many plants in shades of reds, oranges, and yellows. Even the names of its landing sites bring to mind autumn imagery. The location has callbacks to the autumn areas of 2 and 3, having a 1,000-weight treasure and final cave like the Wistful Wild, plus the Winged Onion like the Twilight River.

Simulation Games

• The Sims 3 has the town of Appaloosa Plains, which has a look of perpetual autumn, even with seasons enabled.

Western RPG

• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: One of the Tower of Plot's hidden areas is an autumnal forest in the middle of a spring-green countryside. It contains a village, Clockwork Town, where the streets are covered in fallen leaves.
  Villager: Tick Tock to the rhythm of autumn.
• Deltarune: Chapter 1 has the Scarlet Forest (otherwise known simply as the Forest), a landscape covered in red bushes and trees with blocky red falling leaves, evoking this trope. One of the music tracks that plays in this area is even titled "Quiet Autumn".
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim features the Rift, a hold located in the southeastern portion of Skyrim and covered by an extensive forest. While the evergreen trees are fairly unremarkable, the deciduous trees (mainly birches and larches), bushes and grasses are in constant autumn foliage, painting the Rift in red, yellow, and gold. Drifting, falling leaves fill the air in most places, and there are also squash-like gourds growing wild. While Skyrim is a cold, wintery land overall, the non-snow-covered deciduous trees we see elsewhere have full sets of green leaves.

Wide-Open Sandboxes

• Terraria: While there isn't such a place in the main game, the mod Shadows of Abaddon adds a biome called the Flame Razed Forest, which resembles a fiery version of this trope.

Non-Video Game Examples:

Fan Works

• Skylanders: Return to the Ruins: The Aurora Forest always has orange leaves and a bountiful harvest, all year long. It is said to be guarded by the spirit of an ancient Skylander named Wind Dancer. In the context of the story, the location is important for being where the core cast first meet Crestfeather, a troll mage searching for her long-lost family.

Films — Live-Action

• The Lord of the Rings: The woodlands around the Elven towns of Rivendell and Lothlorien are in a permanent autumnal state to symbolize the declining influence of the Elves in Middle-earth.

Literature

• Lumbanico, the Cubic Planet: A vast region known as the Yellow Valley is in permanent autumn and frequently shrouded in golden-hued mists due to the planet's strange climate.

Live-Action TV

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Lindon is surrounded by a birch forest in an autumnal estate.
• Star Trek: Picard: The forest surrounding the Qowat Milat's Arboreal Abode appears to be in a perpetual autumn setting due to its reddish foliage and the late afternoon/early evening sunlight.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: In the supplement WG7 Castle Greyhawk, Level 4 of the titular castle, "There's No Place Like Up", takes place almost entirely in an extradimensional area called "Eternal Autumn Woods". Most of the area consists of a forest with gold, orange, and red leaves. The ground is covered with things like piles of raked leaves and bushels of apples.

Web Animation

• RWBY has the forest known as Forever Fall. As its name implies, all of the trees there have red leaves that make it seem like it's always autumn.

Web Original

• SCP Foundation: SCP-3598 is Another Dimension that is identical to a fictional park in Ohio, except that it's always autumn. Its landscape extends past the edges of the park, though attempts to explore beyond the park's boundaries always lead back to the equivalent location in the real world.
• Taerel Setting: The Ir'ser Autumn Taiga, a taiga forest controlled by the Ormad Kin'toni Clan is stuck in a forever Fall. It earned its name from that.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Jet" takes place in a forest of red-leafed trees. Considering the episode takes place shortly after the Winter Solstice, they're probably like that year-round.

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