History Main / InvisibleWall

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has these in much the same way Assassin's creed does - try to walk off the map and a pop-up box will tell you something along the lines of "You cannot go any farther north."
** Lampshaded in the Operation: Anchorage expansion, which takes place in a computer simulation. There are semi-visible walls showing you where you can't go in the simulation.

* In the movie ''TheCabinInTheWoods'', the entire campground is surrounded by one of these (except for a small tunnel), as some of the campers find when they try to escape. When run into, the wall becomes a BeehiveBarrier.

* In the movie ''CabinInTheWoods'', the entire campground is surrounded by one of these (except for a small tunnel), as some of the campers find when they try to escape. When run into, the wall becomes a BeehiveBarrier.

*** Or is a moon jump code enough? This troper attempted- for 5 minutes- to fly out of bounds, and ''failed''.

* The ''{{Thief}}'' games have occasional invisible walls, but all in areas the player isn't supposed to reach (such as the roofs of buildings). However, these are notable in that they are apparently made of invisible wood, and as such the player can smash them aside with their sword and continue.

* ''TheForceUnleashed'' had lazy invisible walls during the whole prologue Level. You try to go over a cliff or jump? Nonono, young Padawan! You are allowed to do this first in level 2...it probably has something to do with you being unable to die in this level, even when your lifebar is nonexistent but they could have just taken the level deeper into the forest, where there are no descents.

** Its direct predecessor, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', however, [[AvertedTrope averts this trope spectacularly]]: Despite resorting to your boat telling you "It's too dangerous to continue", and some short patches of instant-kill water should Link swim there alone, is notable for averting this completely: some TASers discovered some physically doable glitches to override these barriers (although a simple moonjump cheat code is more than enough), and, should you continue out-bounds, Link will literally 'fall over the edge of the world', or rather the Great Sea, in a huge BottomlessPit.

*** Played straight painfully with the ridiculously high barrier surrounding Hyrule Castle.

* In the first ''ReturnFire'' game you could pilot the helicopter off the main play area (always an island) and away in the distance. However, if you overdid it, a sub would surface right under you and shoot you with a homing missile that was absolutely impossible to evade and would kill you in one hit.

** Annoyingly, ''NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams'' plays this normally. Quite annoying, since in the original, at least you could temporarily stop the Egg Timer...Here, the Awakers can't be stopped, so if you come up against an Invisible Wall, you're pretty much screwed.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' has points where whenever Altair attempts to wonder off somewhere he's technically never been to yet, a not-quite-invisible wall appears and blocks his path, along with a message from the Animus stating that he cannot go there YET!

* Creator/GregEgan uses this in a rare non-video game example in ''Literature/PermutationCity''. The simulated city introduced right at the beginning contains a 3D model of a single apartment and enough of the rest of the city to accurately reproduce what you can see out of the window. However, get out of the apartment and the many limitations of the simulation become apparent very quickly, including that a couple of blocks out an invisible wall prevents you from proceeding further. Egan even wrote this specifically as an "edge of the universe" where any attempt to move outward is simply cancelled, rather than mere wall with a surface.

* Parodied in an ad for ''TonyHawksAmericanWasteland'', in which the titular skater runs into one of these. In live action.

** In Carnival Night Zone, when Knuckles appears to turn off the lights. Sonic just ''stops'', inches away from the smirking echidna...held back by an InvisibleWall. Even worse, you can have all of the emeralds by this point, and so ''Super'' Sonic can be held at bay by it.

* In ''{{Halo 2}}'', horizontal instant-kill barriers prevent the player from taking a shortcut from the top to the bottom of certain areas (for example, the elevator shaft on The Oracle), despite there being no fall damage in the rest of the game. Vertical "death walls" are also used, in addition to nonlethal invisible walls. They apparently forgot to patch up the holes in some places, though, eg some seemingly insurmountable hills can be climbed, leading to major SequenceBreaking.

** There are standard-issue invisible walls in the Training Area, with no explanation. Interestingly, they aren't tall enough: the Jump Pack power lets you jump over them, leading to things looking a bit...[[MinusWorld broken]].

* ''MotocrossMadness'' has both a visible wall (in the form of [[GravityBarrier high cliffs]] surrounding the arena) and an invisible ''cannon''. Should you manage to scale the cliffs, you see an endless flat expanse, but driving more than a few feet into it gets you a free trip into the sky...for a few seconds. (Then you crater back into the arena)

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' tells you about them with a sign, saying that's where the paintings end. Seeing as all of Mario 64's worlds are in paintings, it ....kind of works.

* ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins'' oddly averts this in some levels; running off the screen to the left at the start or end of a level will eventually kill the player. But in this game, [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist]], so it doesn't really matter.

* ''RaymanOrigins'' oddly averts this in some levels; running off the screen to the left at the start or end of a level will eventually kill the player. But in this game, [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist]], so it doesn't really matter.

* In an episode of ''EdEddnEddy'', the Eds have built an office-like area with nothing but lines of tape indicating where walls would go. At one point Ed smacks right into one.

In 2D games, the edge of the screen itself frequently served as the Invisible Wall, working on the principle of "out of sight, out of mind"; you can't go there, but as far as you can see there's nothing there anyway, so why would you want to?

[[caption-width-right:327:[[InertiaIsACruelMistress The only thing to slow down]] [[Franchise/SonigTheHedgehog Sonic.]]]]

-->--'''Comic Book Guy''', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons [[VideoGame/TheSimpsonsGame Game]]''

[[quoteright:327:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/empty_walls_by_rdcarneiro_9806.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:327:[[InertiaIsACruelMistress The only thing to slow down Sonic]]]]

* In ''{{Gothic}}'', the magical barrier that surrounds the prison colony is largely invisible until you walk into it, at which point you are surrounded by crackling blue lightning. Keep walking, and you'll start taking damage and quickly die. Unsurprisingly, there have been no recorded escapes from this colony.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' continues this trend, although there is usually a wall of mountains blocking access anyway. There are a few paths that lead into other provinces but are blocked by invisible walls, as well as in the ocean. A message on the top corner of the screen will bluntly state "You cannot go that way."

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' continues this trend, although there is usually a wall of mountains blocking access anyway. There are a few paths that lead into other provinces but are blocked by invisible walls.

[[caption-width-right:327:{{InertiaIsACruelMistress The only thing to slow down Sonic}}]]