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Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography

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"Every other Mario game has used pretty much the same roadmap: grasslands, desert, forest, jungle, ice world, fire world, boss."
— Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation review of Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Mainly a video game trope, this describes the odd phenomenon in which the landscape the characters travel through gets steadily scarier and more esoteric as they get closer to the end of their quest.

The adventure almost always starts off in a sleepy village nestled within a landscape of green meadows and idyllic woodland. After thoroughly exploring an underground crypt or dungeon, the adventurers break out into the wilderness: passing through a huge forest, they cross a searing desert for brief R&R at a sunny beach and a diving detour. Upon wading through a foul-smelling swamp, they arrive in a humid jungle, beyond which lie the lands of the dead, icy glaciers, and fiery lava landscapes. A mighty mountain, an 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 burning wasteland, literal Hell, an intimidating giant machine, or an outright Eldritch Location. The very final level, boss fight or post-game content may leave the wold entirely, usually for a Space Zone or an entirely new (and often psychedelically colored) dimension entirely.

This can be justified if the lands they visit are steadily more influenced by the Big Bad. Often, however, this isn't the case, and the landscape just happens to look more threatening as the story goes on, 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 outlandishness is to signify that the characters are getting farther and farther away from familiar territory: things like their hometown and other villages or landmarks they visit regularly in their daily life, creating an environmentally told version of The Hero's Journey. 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.

Remember, this is about the appearance of the area, not its actual threat level. Characters might travel through the creepy Lost Woods completely unscathed, whereas the pleasant-looking plains could be the site of a climactic battle in which hundreds die. If the plains come after the lost woods, it is not this trope.

This often overlaps with Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia. In this case, the progression of increasingly ominous and hostile landscapes matches the journey from the heroes' home to the villains' — the game will begin in the lush fields and picturesque woods of Arcadia, progress through increasingly harsh wilderness areas such as deeper forests, mountains or sun-scorched deserts, and end among the rocky wastes, lava fields, refuse heaps and pounding factories of the Wasteland.

The popularity of the Green Hill Zone trope is based off this, as game creators prefer ease players into the game by having a level that is less inherently threatening.

See also Video Game Settings and Fantasy World Map.

Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Played straight in Digimon Adventure. Throughout the series, the locations each arc focuses on are: A tropical island, a mysterious continent, a city under siege, and a version of the world that has been remade in the image of the primary antagonist faction and their Eldritch Abomination master. In a clearer cut sense, the areas of this remade digital world are, in order: An ocean with a tropical beach, a forest with a spooky house in it, a mostly uninhabited city ruled by evil robots, a gloomy and desolate wasteland, and a void of nonexistance.
  • Zig-Zagged with in Season 2 of Digimon Fusion. The first land they visit is Dragon Land, which is a combination of jagged rocky terrain and flowery fields inhabited by dragon monsters. The second land is the far more threatening Vampire Land, a dark and spooky wasteland where all the digimon live in fear. However, the third land is Honey Land, a happy friendly place of fields and forests. Then we're back to the uncanny with Cyber Land, an uncanny metropolis barren of life after its leader commited genocide on the residents via subterfuge. Then, its back to the nonthreatening geography with Gold Land, a beautiful and shiny ocean of golden ooze. Canyon Land, on its own, seems more threatening than Gold Land but less threatening than the likes of Vampire Land and Cyber Land(although the lighting makes it look quite sinister at times). The last major land is Bright Land, which wouldn't be that threatening if it weren't attatched to the Digital Underworld, a realm filled with spikes, lava, and other vicious hazards where evil is more powerful and good is weaker. Finally, there is the main antagonist's grim fortress dimension known as the Bagra Pandaemonium.

    Literature 
  • The City in the Middle of the Night starts out in the temperate zone of a Tidally Locked Planet, in a city that's relatively protected from the elements, but traveling between the cities on the planet is hazardous to say the least. Alien creatures with too many teeth, freezing or scalding temperatures, and the cheerfully named Sea of Murder make up the terrain.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam travel from the peaceful Shire, to harsh wilderness, to 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 The Hobbit. 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.
    • Beren and Lúthien: The Quest for the Silmaril always begins in a beautiful, ancient wood. Then it proceeds through the Pass of Sirion, a valley controlled by Sauron and his wolves, right next to the Mountains of Terror. As Beren and Luthien continue northward, the haunted lands of Dorthonion give way to the scorched and barren Thirsty Plains. As they progress, the badlands get progressively worse and steeper until the heroic duo reach the towering Iron Mountains and the fortress of the first Dark Lord.
  • The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World also does this. It starts off in the sleepy farming country of the Two Rivers, progressing through the Wild Wilderness 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 Shadar Logoth and The Ways, but these are relatively short and serve as set-pieces to mark the transitions between the story's three acts.)
  • In Pat O'Shea's fantasy novel The Hounds of the Morrigan, two children living in modern Galway are drawn into the other Ireland of myth and legend. As their quest progresses, the mythological landscape is at first funny, absurd, Disney-Oirish, even, with hints of something deeper beneath. It gradually becomes darker, bleaker, more sinister, as the life-or-death nature of their quest asserts itself, and the final showdown with the forces of Not-Good takes place in a Mordor-like bleak and barren place. It's like going from a leprachaun Hobbiton to a Mordor ruled by the Morrigan.
  • Murderess: Played with. The notorious Myles Mountains are about halfway through Lu’s journey, followed by the pleasant Myles forest; Doubly Subverted, as it turns out 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 Training from Hell.
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The journey through Oz begins in idyllic, rural Munchkin Country, and there are pleasant-looking spots along the way ... but the journey also progresses through (in this order) a deep forest, a field of poisonous plants, a country controlled by a wicked witch, a bizarre wilderness populated by fighting trees and creatures with heads on springs, and then, to top it all off, a city full of unfriendly people who are made of porcelain. Steadily more esoteric indeed.
  • Journey to the West starts in what was then the center of the known world, through youkai-haunted no man's lands, and end up somewhere beyond this world. It's a good thing that the majority of the travelers possess magic.

    Video Games 
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog series, having codified the Green Hill Zone, frequently follows this trope, beginning with the aforementioned environment and ending with Dr. Eggman's latest base. This even carries over to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a game built in two halves: the Sonic 3 half begins in the jungles of Angel Island and proceeds through moderately threatening levels, whereas the Sonic & Knuckles half is mostly comprised of levels building up to the climax.
  • World of Warcraft plays with this with each expansion. Classic WoW generally plays this straight: Virtually all the starting zones are very friendly looking, whilst the high level plaguelands most certainly aren't.
    • The Burning Crusade plays with this. The demon-infested Hellfire Peninsula fits this trope as it continues on from the classic zones, however after that are the pleasant looking zones of Zangarmarsh, Nagrand and Terrokar Forest. However the highest level zones, Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm fit this trope to a T.
    • Wrath of the Lich King plays this straight and subverts it, going from harshly beautiful fjords and tundra, to the zombified Icecrown Glacier and spectacular Storm Peaks.
    • Cataclysm averts it. The high level zones are all very esoteric and threatening, except for the highest level zone Twilight Highlands, which is mostly verdant hills and woodland.
    • Mists of Pandaria plays it entirely straight. The starting couple of zones are all friendly looking forests and plains... then they progress to more depressing looking forests, mountaintops, then sha-infested zones.
    • Warlords of Draenor play with it, much like with Burning Crusade. Players start off in either the non-tainted Shadowmoon Valley or the snow-covered Frostwolf mountains. The zones gradually get more and more threatening, but the highest level zones are the Savannahs of Nagrand and the Tanaan jungle.
    • Legion lets you play with it, since its zones can be completed in any order. Thus the player is allowed to start or end with the demon-overrun Azsuna, the mountainous Highmountain, the peaceful woodland Val'sharah, or the nordic Stormheim. However, once the player reaches the max level, it plays this entirely straight with the peaceful looking Suramar then the ruined world of Argus.
  • Crash Bandicoot (1996): 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.
  • Dragon Quest: Typically, the games start off with the main character wandering around an idyllic countryside and running into mostly cute critters: slimes, feral cats, crows, bat,s worms...as the game progresses, the Hero is forced to traverse large woods, pass through high mountains and explore labyrinthine caves, running into increasingly powerful monsters. By the endgame, the party characters are usually fighting their way through the game's version of Hell.
  • Dungeon Siege:
    • Chapter 1: The game opens with a Green Hill Zone set in Ehb's farmlands. After the last farmhouse, it transitions into The Lost Woods, and then a crypt full of animated undead. A few green hills later, the player reaches Stonebridge, their first town. The chapter is populated by the Krug, the first of the game's four monstrous races.
    • Chapter 2: From Stonebridge, the players progress to a dungeon infested with giant spiders and undead before reaching a Door to Before, opening a path back to Stonebridge, but then having to travel to Glitterdelve, a dwarven mining town, and deep into its Abandoned Mine, the last place in the game that one encounters Krug.
    • Chapter 3: The mine exits into a Slippy-Slidey Ice World; after passing through the town of Glacern, the party must then traverse a series of ice caves which follow the Ice Palace trope.
    • Chapter 4: After a bit more snow, you enter an odd cavern system full of crystals, underground rivers, and some of the most alien monsters in the game. This lets out into the Dark Forest, the only portion of the game where the main enemies are human brigands, and the site of the only town in the chapter, which is more of a Gypsy encampment. This forest takes you to the truly terrifying Eastern Swamp, a Bubblegloop Swamp area full of witches and huge monsters. Finally, the swamp leads you to the Goblin Warrens, where the second monstrous race, the Goblins, have set up a wholly unique Steampunk dungeon full of high technology not seen anywhere else in the game.
    • Chapter 5: This chapter gives you a Breather Level, taking place in a Redwood Forest not unlike some of The Lost Woods seen in earlier portions of the game, bordered by a sandy beach and an optional aquatic-themed Mini-Dungeon. Afterwards, however, there's a very harrowing dungeon crawl through some old temple ruins and then a war-torn wasteland inhabited by armies of skeleton warriors, before reaching the refuge of Fortress Kroth.
    • Chapter 6: Leaving Fortress Kroth takes you through the Hall of Skulls, a spooky skull-themed dungeon, and then out into the Shifting Sand Land of the Cliffs of Fire, inhabited by a lot of heavy-hitting monsters including the fanatical Droog.
    • Chapter 7: The leader of the Droog village sends you on the path to Castle Ehb, a fairly nondescript route where the desert gives way to more green hills. Along the way is an optional location, Dragon's Rathe, a frightening bone-filled cavern wherein dwells the toughest boss in the game, the Dragon Queen. The outskirts of Castle Ehb are downright serene, and the castle itself is very beautiful, apart from being eerily empty, inhabited only by the final race, the mystical Seck, besieging the castle from below. The chapter ends when you find the king in the castle dungeon.
    • Chapter 8: Descending further into the castle dungeon brings you into contact with more Seck and other demonic entities.
    • Chapter 9: Below the dungeons are a Lethal Lava Land and the Vault of Eternity, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon which goes full-on Planet Heck.
  • 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 Green Hill Zone) 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 (The Lost Woods). 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 (Slippy-Slidey Ice World mixed with Grim Up North) and Lavastorm (Death Mountain and Lethal Lava Land in one).
  • Minecraft has the Overworld, then the Underground caves, then the Nether, and finally the aptly titled End.
  • Portal also falls into this, with you starting in the clean, pristine test labs, progressing to more and more damaged/deadly labs and finally into the off-limits zones and GLaDOS's chamber.
  • Portal 2 initially looks like an inversion, where you start in the broken labs and move up into nicer and nicer ones. Then you end up in even more broken labs.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
  • Donkey Kong
  • Kirby
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
  • In Kingdom Hearts, you start in the eerily beautiful Dive to the Heart, a seemingly intimidating and foreboding place where only your inner darkness can harm you and a guiding voice reassures you that everything is alright. You then go to the Destiny Islands, a quasi-utopic world where you play with your friends and dream of visiting other worlds with them. When the island gets destroyed, you must go through worlds based off Disney movies. The first worlds you visit are mostly non-threatening, like Wonderland and Deep Jungle (based on Tarzan), but the more you progress through the game the darker and more dangerous the worlds get, culminating in Hollow Bastion, a labyrinthine, sprawling deserted castle full of powerful enemies, and End of the World, a vacant and somber Eldritch Location made of destroyed worlds.
  • In Morrowind, as you progress through the main quest, you start on an ordinary-looking seashore, and travel to your first city through unthreatening countryside. During the course of your adventure, you visit deserts of volcanic ash, jagged rocky shores, labyrinthine lava scathes and reach the climax of the story in flat out a sprawling ruin built over an open volcanic crater. The Bloodmoon expansion works similarly, starting you off in a chilly-looking but generally green pine forest, passing through harsher and harsher arctic-looking climes, and culminating in and under a giant snowstorm-lashed castle atop a massive glacier.
  • In The Elder Scrolls V: 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.
  • Most games in The Legend of Zelda 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 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which starts with the dungeon of the Big Bad and continues with a fire-themed dungeon. The forest one is the third). Special mention goes to the games with multiple worlds or eras.
  • Touhou Project games typically start somewhere comparatively hospitable to humans, ending up somewhere else that is not. Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom starts on a snowy village, going up through storm clouds and end up in an Elysian afterlife. Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism starts in a cave and end up in Hell.
  • Dust: An Elysian Tail starts in a glade where deer run by you peacefully and stays in forests, hills and plains at first. The middle part of the game is spent in a cave, cemetery and snowy mountain (complete with ice spikes and avalanches), and it finally ends in a volcanic area.
  • This trope is inverted in Final Fantasy XIII; the game starts in a ruined city and the party travels through many industrialized areas, but most of the endgame takes place in Green Hill Zone.
  • Guild Wars plays this straight in Nightfall (Start in the settled mixed terrain of Istan, than the deserts of Kourna and Vabbi, than the poisonous and empty Desolation, finally the dark hell like Realm of Torment), and somewhat straight in Prophecies (Pre-searing is Green Hills, and the game ends in the volcanic Ring of Fire), but with some mix-ups on the journey. Factions and Eye of the North largely avoid this.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy series: The games typically start in a forest and end somewhere dark and ominous.
  • Diablo:
    • Diablo II: 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 Volcano Lair afterwards.
    • Diablo III:
      • 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.
      • The expansion sends you back to an average, normal world, but with everyone being made into reapers, giving the areas a very ghost-like and deserted appearance. It begins in Westmarch, which is under siege by Malthael's forces before then moving on to the poisonous Blood Marsh and the nephalem ruins of Corvus, and then traveling to the very heart of Pandemonium and its title fortress, which has changed significantly since the last time we went through it 20 years ago.
  • Ori and the Blind Forest begins its first act with the relatively easy Sunken Glades and Hollow Grove, progressing to Thornfelt Swamp, the underground Moon Grotto, and the jungle-like Ginso Tree, then the second act goes to the Valley of the Wind, Misty Woods and the icy Forlorn Ruins, then the final act ascends to Sorrow Pass, a Gusty Glade on Death Mountain in Mordor, and the Lethal Lava Land of Mount Horu.
  • Valiant Hearts 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 being led to your own execution for killing own of your own officers who was continually ordering your comrades to their deaths.
  • Gatling Gears plays this straight. The prologue and especially first chapter take place in Green Hill Zone, the second chapter takes place on a Death Mountain, the third chapter in a stormy Remixed Bleak Level of the prologue, the fourth in a barren desert (that was once an ocean), and the last one in Katharsis, a suffocating Eternal Engine Mordor. Interestingly, the final two stages in Katharsis is actually an artificial Green Hill Zone.
  • Mini Robot Wars: The first chapter is Green Hill Zone, the second chapter is Shifting Sand Land, the third is Under the Sea, the fourth is Slippy-Slidey Ice World, and the final level is an Eternal Engine Mordor.
  • The Pokémon games do this to different degrees, but the main series games will always, always, start out with a few very short, grassy field areas. Also without fail, a couple towns over there's always a forest that's darker, creepier and longer than the routes seen thus far. Additionally, every game has more areas unique to it that also fit this theme:
    • Pokémon Red and Blue 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 Blackout Basement), Pokemon Tower (starting a proud tradition of putting 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 Container Maze and/or Eternal Engine), Seafoam Islands (a cave in the sea that combines Slippy-Slidey Ice World 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.)
    • Pokémon Gold and Silver 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 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 Blackout Basement), 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 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).
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire 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 desert, a volcano, and two 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 Goddamn Bats) 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.
  • Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle both play it straight:
    • Dark Cloud starts off with the first dungeon being a simple cave nearby the town. The next dungeon is a forest, followed by a sunken ship, a desert palace, the moon, and an Eldritch Location that gets older the further and further and further you go. The Bonus Level is an even further eldritch location called the "Demon Shaft".
    • Dark Cloud 2 starts out with the first level being the seemingly quiet sewers, followed by a quiet forest. Then a canyon, an oceanside cave, a volcano, then culminating in a massive palace. The bonus level is a simple mineshaft.
  • Monster Hunter games tend to follow a set pattern for in-game areas starting with a Green Hill Zone and working up to more hostile locales.
    • Monster Hunter (2004): First are the Forest and Hills, where the biggest danger are the cliffs that might make Egg Delivery hard but is otherwise harmless outside of monsters showing up. Next is the Jungle, which while not capable of harming you with hazards or environment can still prove a nuisance with its intertwining palm tress and dense vegetation that may block your view in a hunt. It also has cold areas where your stamina will drain if you stay on them long enough or without a Hot Drink. Afterwards comes the Desert, with a large amount of hot areas that will drain your HP without Cold Drinks and to boot a cold underground cave area that will instead sap your stamina without Hot Drinks. Then comes the Swamp, which has large foggy areas that will impede your view and 3 cold areas that will drain your stamina without Hot Drinks. The last regular unlocked area is the Volcano, a harsh hot land where most of the area will be draining your HP unless you bring Cold Drinks there.
    • Monster Hunter: World as an example: the first explorable area is the Ancient Forest, a coastal region replete with flora. Next is the Wildspire Waste, a mountainous desert with some swampland. Third is the Coral Highlands, an Under the Sea level, minus the actual sea, with picturesque coral growths and bizarre wildlife. Fourth is Rotten Vale, a Bleak Level filled with corpses and toxic gas. Finally, there is the Elder's Recess, a Lethal Lava Land replete with quartz-like crystal growths. The Iceborne expansion adds the Hoarfrost Reach, a Slippy-Slidey Ice World; and the Guiding Lands, an endgame sandbox that features all of the biomes from the game combined in one region. Certain bosses are fought in special arenas that grow increasingly hostile as their difficulty goes up, such as: the Everstream, one of the magmatic energy conduits of the New World where players fight Zorah Magdaros; the Confluence of Fates, a crystaline nest home to Xeno'jiiva; Origin Island, a desolate island where Ruiner Nergigante and Shara Ishvalda are fought; and Castle Schrade, a Nostalgia Level from earlier Monster Hunter games that takes place in castle ruins that are home to Fatalis.
    • Monster Hunter: Rise: The regions in the game are unlocked in approximate order of their danger levels, including: The Shrine Ruins, a Green Hill Zone with some Ruins for Ruins' Sake; The Flooded Forest, a watery jungle with a massive ziggurat; Frozen Islands, an icy wasteland with beached ships; The Sandy Plains, an arid and mountainous desert; The Lava Caverns, a rocky hellscape at the base of an active volcano; The Coral Palace, the arena for the Final Boss Thunder Serpent Narwa (and later Wind Serpent Ibushi): a desolate fortress ruin arena. The Sunbreak expansion continues from where the base game ended, bringing in the diverse Citadel (a Hailfire Peaks biome featuring a forest area, castle ruins, a swamp and a snowy frontier), the Jungle from the second-generation games and finally an eerie, desolate hollow housing the Elder Dragon Gaismagorm.
  • Outcast plays this trope mostly straight, with two notable exceptions: you start the game in the Slippy-Slidey Ice World of Ranzaarnote  and the last region you normally gain access to (after five daoka hops) are The Lost Woods of Okaarnote . From Ranzaar, you can only go to the rather literal Green Hill Zone of Shamazaarnote , which leads to the Shifting Sand Land of Talanzaarnote , from where you have access to the Lethal Lava Land of Motazaar and the Bubblegloop Swamp of Okasankaarnote . Finally, Okaar is accessible only through a remote daoka in Okasankaar and is easily the most hazardous region of the game (except maybe the Big Bad's palace in Talanzaar).
  • Nox has a different sequence of levels for each of its three classes:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles X is a Wide-Open Sandbox game that gives you free reign to travel where you want to from the get-go, but the game's story campaign explores each of the planet Mira's regions in order, starting with the idyllic plains and lakes of Primordia, followed by the thick and toxic rainforests of Noctulum. Next is the desertous Oblivia, then the mysterious and alien Sylvalum, and finally, the volcanic mountains of Cauldros.
  • The original Knights of the Old Republic follows the formula pretty closely, except for starting out at the City Planet of Taris: the planet after that — the first where you have Force powers — is the Green Hill Zone of Dantooine, and although you are free to tackle the next four worlds in any order, they are carefully balanced to encourage you to visit the iconic Shifting Sand Land of Tatooine first, then The Lost Woods of Kashyyk, the ocean-covered Manaan, and finally Korriban, whose vistas invoke Lethal Lava Land, even if there isn't much actual lava about. After collecting a MacGuffin from each of those four, you are allowed to go to the Jungle Japes and beaches of Rakata Prime, and ultimately to duke it out with the Big Bad inside the literal Eternal Engine of the Star Forge space station.
  • The original Mass Effect started off in the Green Hill Zone of Eden Prime and a lengthy segment inside the Eternal Engine of the Citadel space station. After gaining command of the Cool Starship Normandy, you are free to explore the Lethal Lava Land of Therumnote , the Ghost City Planet of Feros, and the Slippy-Slidey Ice World of Noveria, with the Palmtree Panic of Virmire also getting unlocked along the way. After beating all four of those, you proceed to another Ghost Planet, Ilos, and to the Final Battle back aboard the Citadel.
  • Phantasy Star
  • Kingdom Rush series:
    • The original game plays this straight. The first area takes place in the verdant and green Linirea, the second area takes place in the cold icy mountains, and the third area takes place in the barren and hellish landscape of Valardul, of which Vez'nan's tower resides.
    • Kingdom Rush: Vengeance inverts and zig-zags this, since you play as Vez'nan's dark army. The tutorial level starts out at Vez'nan's Dark Tower in the above-mentioned Varladul. The second area of the game is the Dwarven underground caves filled with machinery, the third area of the game is the barren, barbarian-filled Frozen North, and the final area of the game is the lush and verdant Linirea... which you're about to take over.
  • Starbound classifies the natural biomes of planets you can land on and explore in six tiers from 1 to 6, ranked by general threat level: Low, Moderate, Risky, Dangerous, Extreme, and Inconceivable. Hostile creatures on these planets scale up and down in terms of their stats relative to the tier of the planet. The player character begins a new game on a Garden biome planet (level 1) and the Fetch Quests for each race are ordered so that the biomes they are more likely to be found on go in progression of threat level (Floran villages and dungeons are weighted towards Moderate-level Forest biomes, Hylotls in Risky-level Ocean biomes, Avians in Dangerous-level Jungle biomes, Apex in Extreme-level Tundra biomes, and Glitch in Inconceivable-level Volcanic biomes). Higher tier biomes also require the player to don an Environment Protection Pack upgraded to the appropriate level to explore safely. There's also a Tier 0 for moons and the final boss level, though those are more because of their unique circumstances which defy normal classification (moons are devoid of all threats save for meteor strikes and an unrelenting Erichus Ghost; the Ruin is an entire planet infested with a hostile life form that the player must travel down to the heart of to slay once and for all).
  • Fe begins with the eponymous protagonist awakening in a Green Hill Zone adjacent the World Tree Hub Level, from which they follow a cavern to Death Mountain, descend to a Gusty Glade valley with hints of Shifting Sand Land, cross Bubblegloop Swamp to a seaside zone, navigate a Blackout Basement followed by a Slippy-Slidey Ice World, then hop and glide across a Level in the Clouds to reach the Eternal Engine Final Dungeon.
  • Virtua Quest plays around with this trope a bit. The first level in the game is Curio City, an abandoned — yet intact — modern city. Next is Wild Corridor, a Jungle Japes level. Third is Twin Axis, a level that takes place entirely in a pair of buildings under construction. Fourth is Tsukiyoi Castle, an Always Night level taking place in a feudal-style Japanese castle. Fifth is Darkness Harbor, another Always Night level set in a Not-So-Safe Harbor. Sixth is the Thai Phong Ruins, Ruins for Ruins' Sake. Seventh is Qian Dong Jie, another city level, but this time set in a Friendly Local Chinatown. Last is the Main Server, a Cyberspace level that is dark and foreboding.
  • Star Fox employs this rather regularly despite half of it taking place in outer space. The planetary levels tend to be organized in this pattern, with Corneria, the resident Green Hill Zone usually being the first level and some sort of Mordor (often Venom) being last. In Star Fox 64, it's pretty noticeable, as the planets closest to Corneria are somewhat more habitable than the later ones, like Solar or Titania.
  • The Binding of Isaac 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 Womb Level 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, or 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 welcoming 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.
  • Haven (2020) takes place in Green Hill Zone for most of the first act, briefly detours to Bubblegloop Swamp, then heads to Shifting Sand Land in the southern section of the map, followed by Lethal Lava Land Mordor for the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • Wario: Master of Disguise plays this straight for most of the game, starting off in relatively mundane locations like a cruise ship and a museum before moving on to more threatening locales like an ice cave and two Temples of Doom. After that, the game ups the ante even further with a volcano, a Haunted Castle, and a 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.
  • Valheim: While the biomes can be found and accessed in any order, defeating the boss of each one is necessary to fully exploit and use the resources of the next one.
    • The Meadows are forests populated mostly by deer, boar, greylings and the occasional skeleton (who will gleefully ruin an unprepared player's day).
    • The Black Forest is considerably more dangerous, hosting the greydwarves, skeletons, and trolls.
    • The Swamp fully embraces the Swamps Are Evil trope, a dead marsh infested with undead, slimes, constant rain, small islets emerging from leech-infested waters, exploding fire spirits, and giant undead trees.
    • The Mountains constantly drain health if precautions aren't taken against the cold, and contain flying dragons, Rock Monters, Lightning Bruiser wolves and werewolves.
    • The Plains look relatively harmless at first glance. Then you run into (or rather, they see and chase you) three of the most aggravating enemies in the game: The well-named Deathsquitoes, the Boss in Mook Clothing Fulings, and Growths, whose attacks slow and poison you.
    • The Mistlands require a special item to make any real progress in the, well, mist, but even that isn't enough to completely clear it away. Enemies include Giant Creepy Crawlies (one of which flies and drops dog-sized ticks on top of you) and trigger-happy dvergr who will turn on you if you hit their buildings even by accident.
    • The Ocean is relatively peaceful by day (although the wind has a noted tendency to blow in your face), but at night and during storms is when the Sea Serpents emerge.
    • The last two biomes are the Ashlands and Deep North, which are unfinished as of early 2023 but represent the mythical primordial realms of Norse Mythology (one made of fire and the other of ice).
  • The 2020 Celeste Spring Community Collab: While the maps within the lobbies are all over the place, the lobbies themselves follow this: the Beginner lobby is a Green Hill Zone 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 Lethal Lava Land, and the Grandmaster lobby is an ominous 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 Strawberry Jam Collab, whose Warp Whistle mechanic would have rendered it largely pointless anyway.

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  • The Oregon Trail partially met this progression, especially for those who branched off onto the California Trail near the halfway point. The jumping-off point (commonly Independence, MO) would lead through relatively easy terrain of grasslands, springs, gentle rolling hills that weren't too difficult to cross, and an expanding set of bridges and ferries to allow those with money to cross rivers easily. The land would steadily get drier as the pioneers headed west and encountered treacherous mountains; while those going to Oregon would find green land and forests near their destination, travelers to California would finish their journey with long stretches of desert and more mountains. Many expeditions (most infamously the Donner Party) would have little or no trouble for the first half of the journey and then suddenly collapse and suffer casualties toward the end.

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