History Main / InvisibleWall

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/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.

* WebVideo/JonTron considers these a mostly harmless NecessaryWeasel, which is notable since he frequently nitpicks much smaller things for breaking a game's immersion or flow. He comments that a game can't go on forever and when you have to go out of your way past anything interesting to find them anyway, it's okay for the game to stop you before it crashes. He does have a problem with particularly blatant ones that look like somewhere you should be able to traverse, though.

The most extreme and JustForFun/{{egregious}} form of the InsurmountableWaistHeightFence. The Invisible Wall is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a boundary that limits where the player can go, even though there's nothing physically there to stop them. It's as if someone decided to build a glass wall. You try to walk past it, but your character just stops or walks in place. You can't see the boundary, but it's there. There's not even a flimsy HandWave as to why you can't keep going. You just can't.

[[folder:Advertising]]
* A commercial for ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater Tony Hawk's American Wasteland]]'' has the titular skater run into one of these. Blasted loading.
[[/folder]]

* "Literature/InTheWallsOfEryx" by Creator/HPLovecraft is a sci-fi horror tale about an alien maze built of these. A person trapped in the maze would die of thirst while looking at a nearby lake.
* 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.

** There is the inevitable NoBudget version from Classic ''Who''. In "The Invasion of Time", Rodan's office is protected by a forcefield that doesn't even [[SomeKindOfForcefield have a flash or a sound effect]], just Leela miming "there's something blocking this apparently open doorway" and then Rodan explaining that there's a force field there.

* ''VideoGame/ATVOffroadFury'' has an extreme case of this. Similar to the ''VideoGame/MotocrossMadness'' example above, in Freestyle mode, if you go too far, you not only crash into an invisible wall, but also fly a bajillion times farther than you would upon hitting a normal obstacle. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking You also could not quick-reset if you bail through this means.]] These crashes were actually pretty fun to watch... some people didn't even bother trying anything but freeride because they wanted to see if they could ever kill the rider. (They couldn't.)

* ''VideoGame/BloodyZombies'' have walls that can be seen onscreen, resembling red forcefields, which will remain active as long as there are zombies around - you ''must'' kill all zombies before the wall goes away allowing you to access the next area.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'': Used with and without explanation; some urban missions are explicitly described as taking place in neighborhoods which have been isolated with portable forcefield units, but other urban missions, as well as tasks in the Spirit World, have transparent boundaries for no known reason. (And strictly speaking, these walls aren't invisible when you're close up to them; then they're transparent blue.) The "War Walls" separating the various zones serve a similar purpose, although they're visible and again have an in-game explanation.

*** Used at the edge of the map. Should you try to cross it, a caption will come on the screen telling you that you can go no further, which by then is perfectly obvious given you literally cannot go any further. Nevermind that the land and/or water continues, and you can see the terrain continuing into the distance, often with locations that would give you a strategic advantage over the enemies, or some rare plants with precious alchemy components just out of your reach. These border walls -- unlike other invisible walls within the game -- can be turned off with a switch in the game's .ini file. The area between them and the ''real'' end of the map is completely empty, consisting only of ground and vegetation. Similar to the "beauty strip" between a clearcut forest and a road, it exists only to mask the fact that at some point the world simply ceases to exist, cutting off in mid-air.

* ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' has a variation of this: The map is spherical (but you can't travel to the poles) but certain areas are designated as "Permanent Terra Incognita" and cannot be explored (includes the interiors of Africa, Australia and the Americas.)

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy: The Game'' lampshades this, with an unobstructed street where a mime is moving back and forth along an invisible wall. Trying to go around the mime prompts Peter to say "Stupid mimes and their invisible walls..."

** The series uses these a lot. Sometimes they're traditional, sometimes they're in-universe magical barriers locking you into a boss fight. The latter tend to be accompanied by camera shots of them flashing into life and disappearing.
** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', Goofy and Donald bounce off invisible walls just before Sora fights Possessed! Riku. It happens again in the final dungeon just before he fights Darkside.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterBash'': [=E1M4=] has one preceding the dragon guarding the exit until all the pets are found.

* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': The levels without walls are relatively common, but if you try to stray too far from the puzzle area, you are treated to Elohim's BrokenRecord announcement (above). If you push on, you die. The explanation to that is [[spoiler:you can only exist within the boundaries of the simulated world, which are pretty limited]].

* ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'' has these on the edges of game world, [[{{Metroidvania}} in a genre]] where world borders are usually closed with walls. They also appear during several boss fights as well as in the form of invisible ceiling in [=ButtRun and MountSide=].

* ''VideoGame/XMenLegends'' has these everywhere, and usually without explanation.

When the invisible wall prevents you from walking past the edge of a platform, be it next to a BottomlessPit or not, it's a case of EdgeGravity.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' normally averts this -- should you continue out-bounds through glitches, Link will literally fall over the edge of the world in a huge BottomlessPit -- but Hyrule Castle and the path leading to it are surrounded by an extremely tall, invisible barrier.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'': The action scenes often have these to prevent you from running past the enemies you're supposed to shoot, or punching out an ImmuneToBullets boss.

[[AcceptableBreaksFromReality Generally acceptable]] when used to demarcate the edge of a level, but invisible walls are a renowned ScrappyMechanic when used within levels, especially when mixed in with the regular level geometry, where they can seemingly arbitrarily block players off from routes or places that look viable. In the worst case scenarios, invisible walls can actually be bumped up against during regular gameplay, messing with the player's controls in the process. In all situations, the work of the designer is either to find "natural" ways to limit the player's movement, or at the very least to make it obvious what is and isn't meant for gameplay before the player tests it with their noggin.

* Earth's gravity tends to pull back anyone who tries to go much further, a lot of technology, work and expenses are needed to get about 10km above the surface (a commercial airliner), effectively acting as a virtual invisible wall for the vast majority of mankind; that and the fact there's no breathabble air in space and falling from just a few meters results in instant death. The furthest humans have travelled from earth was 400,171 km,[[https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/farthest-distance-from-earth-reached-by-humans/]] [[Film/Apollo13 and they barely managed to came back alive from this "invisible wall"]].

[[caption-width-right:327:[[InertiaIsACruelMistress The only thing to slow down]] [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic.]]]]
%% Original work: http://rdcarneiro.deviantart.com/art/Empty-walls-96634794

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 "Orphan 55"]], the walls of the environmental dome Tranquillity Spa is secretly built inside of are hidden by holograms, with this effect, as shown when Graham bumps his head on the wall while trying to walk around an area where the hologram's been temporarily deactivated to show a breach.

* Earth's gravity tends to pull back anyone who tries to go much further, a lot of technology, work and expenses are needed to get about 10km above the surface (a commercial airliner), effectively acting as a virtual invisible wall for the vast majority of mankind; that and the fact there's no breathabble air in space and falling from just a few meters results in instant death. The furthest humans have travelled from earth was 400,171 km,[[https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/farthest-distance-from-earth-reached-by-humans/]] [[Film/Apollo13 and they barely managed to came back alive from this "invisible wall"]].

%%* ''VideoGame/GauntletII'': Used in some stages, resulting in them looking all-but-empty.%%Meaning what?
* ''VideoGame/MonsterBash'': [=E1M4=] has one preceding the dragon guarding the exit until all the pets are found.

* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/XMenLegends'' has these everywhere, and usually without explanation.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** The series uses these a lot. Sometimes they're traditional, sometimes they're in-universe magical barriers locking you into a boss fight. The latter tend to be accompanied by camera shots of them flashing into life and disappearing.
** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', Goofy and Donald bounce off invisible walls just before Sora fights Possessed! Riku. It happens again in the final dungeon just before he fights Darkside.
** The first area in the End of the World is literally an entire invisible ''maze'' -- as in, it is a huge empty area full of invisible walls. Your only clue of how to navigate it is the random bits of rock at the center of each intersection, which form arrows pointing in the direction you have to go. The battle zones are similarly invisible, but during said battles the maze is visible.
** ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'' showed that this could be a blessing in disguise. It kept the "enemies heal when they disappear" mechanic KHII introduced, but not the "lock-on means you can't leave the area" mechanic, while several of its bosses don't use the invisible barriers. This means that you could be knocked out of an area by a particularly difficult boss's attack, only to return and find it fully healed.
** Some of the later games introduce another variant: you can't go into areas you're not supposed to go to at the moment, and your character will remind you that it's not the right way.

* ''VideoGame/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.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': In ''VideoGame/Halo2'', 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. Subsequent games have these, too, though the insta-kill barriers have been replaced by timed-kill ones.
* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'': Invisible Walls keep you from plummeting to your death in any of the dangerous-looking chasms. You can fly over them with the dragon, but you sadly can't dismount into them.
* ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'': The player's inability to move the mouse pointer outside the world limit makes it impossible to order units off it. However, should you order bomber planes to attack an enemy object that's close to the limit, they'll cheerfully fly off it and come back raining death. They can't land outside the world, though; tell them to stop and they'll first come back, and then land.
%%* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'': The edge of the map is ''literally'' the edge of a map.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'':
** In the SNES original, all stages consist of a linear corridor. Approaching the edge will display a triple arrow guiding you back where you're supposed to be, and your ship will drift back in to the corridor unless you continue to push against the edge of the screen.
** ''VideoGame/StarFox64'': In addition to the corridor levels, during the "all-range mode" segments, reaching the edge of the map causes your ship to automatically turn around.
* ''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. The hub-world's castle grounds and separated garden, ruin the illusion though. Still, [[http://speeddemosarchive.com/Mario64.html#SS100p some gamers]] have encountered invisible walls in random, unexplained places not related to the edge of a world.
* ''VideoGame/DiddyKongRacing'' for the Nintendo 64 had a very noticeable example where you could barely get off the beach into the ocean before you hit it.

* ''VideoGame/SnowboardKids'' you can do a jump and veer off to the side of the track, then hit an invisible wall in the middle of the sky and slide right back down.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'': The action scenes often have these to prevent you from running past the enemies you're supposed to shoot, or punching out an ImmuneToBullets boss.
* ''VideoGame/ReturnFire'': In the first game, you can pilot the helicopter off the main play area (always an island) and away in the distance. However, if you overdo it, a sub will surface right under you and shoot you with a homing missile that's absolutely impossible to evade and will kill you in one hit.
* ''VideoGame/GundamVsSeries'': The series adds these in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED: Alliance vs. ZAFT'', and for once it's actually a good thing. Past iterations of the series have the outer limits of the stage be a line that, if crossed, forces your HumongousMecha to auto-pilot itself back into the stage, which is time-consuming, leaves you open to attack, and leads to an annoying sound ("You've left the mission area, please return!"). The use of Invisible Walls speeds up gameplay greatly, and they don't significantly reduce the size of the stages, so it ends up working out well in the end.
* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' uses invisible walls in a very FourthWall-nudging way. The Reapers make the Reaper's Game more interesting by blocking off sections of Shibuya, forcing you to run as they want you to. Some of the walls are lowered by completing tasks assigned by Support Reapers -- everything from defeating Noise in a certain fashion to bringing them food to answering a PopQuiz. Later in the story, a character gains the ability to smash holes in them, allowing you to cheat your way out of the game-within-a-game. If you run into one, it briefly becomes a BeehiveBarrier.

* ''VideoGame/{{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. ''Gothic II'' avoids invisible barriers overland (it just has [[GravityBarrier unclimbable mountains]]); but if you swim too far into the ocean, you just get eaten by a [[BorderPatrol sea monster]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} VII'' has a whole city full of invisible walls. The city is inhabited by ''a race that flies,'' which is comparable to making a snake with wheels.
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic the Hedgehog 3]]'' pulls the Invisible Wall at the first Launch Base Act 2 boss. You SHOULD be able to jump to that ledge but you can't, and until Robotnik jumps into his machine, you can't do anything to him. Annoying, considering that the invisible wall disappears once he's been defeated.
** 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 Invisible Wall. Even worse, you can have all of the emeralds by this point, and so ''Super'' Sonic can be held at bay by it.
** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'': When you're taken into the past by a lens flare, you may see these little structures that are basically a roof and four supports at the corners. You can't go under them. Perhaps this is because it's easier to define an object as being simply this high, that wide, and that long rather than defining all the details of the shape of that object, especially when there's no reason to do so. It's still a little strange.
** ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' uses Invisible Walls in spades. They get annoying in 2D as they prohibit backtracking in some areas, but in 3D, they're really for the best: they line the stage so that the player doesn't fall into the BottomlessPits unfairly.
** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'': The second hub city had giant invisible walls on the streets between buildings, with no indication that you can't go over there on your map. The game often ropes you into doing side quests by having the police [[NPCRoadblock block the way]], even though you can jump over, move around, and in at least one case, walk BEHIND the officer in question.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has these for battles. You are confined to a small portion of the room you are in for fights.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'':
** ''Warcraft 2'' almost plays this straight, with the one exception of whirlwinds, which are able to move at least a short distance off the edge of the map and then return.
** ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' mostly averted this once flying mounts came out with its two main maps, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. However, this trope kicks in full force in Outland, and the Draenei and Blood Elf starting zones. In Instances, each of which is its own isolated mini-map, you aren't actually supposed to run into invisible walls (many of them are dungeons of some kind anyway), but they're still there as a backup, just in case you manage to actually surmount the InsurmountableWaistHeightFence. Outland has invisible walls and an invisible ceiling for flying mounts.
*** There are certain Instances that DO have invisible walls, notably those featured in the Caverns of Time. These contain a replica of a present-day zone as it was at some point in the past. If you leave the standard play area, a mist forms around you, essentially warning that you can't go much farther. And then you hit the invisible wall, forcing you to turn around.
*** Instead of Invisible Walls, Warcraft mostly has invisible ceilings that are so high that you can't actually see the ground at that height anyway, and if you fly too far out into the sea you'll shortly die of Fatigue damage. The exception is the invisible wall over the mountain range dividing the Eastern Plaguelands and Ghostlands. This is because it would take up too much data to make the entire mountain range into an instance portal. Instead there is a portal at the gates through which you must go to get there. Even if you pay for a ride there, you still go through that gate.
* ''VideoGame/{{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.
* ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'': The games will turn your ship around if you go too far outside the mission area. Sometimes it's explained (getting too far from the action), on others (like the infinite featureless plane of the Death Star endurance level) it feels a little limiting.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' has points where whenever Altaïr attempts to wander 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''. Not only that, but the wall only blocks Altaïr if he attempts to walk into it at ground level. It's possible for Altaïr to cross over this wall at a higher point (say, by momentum from LeParkour off a nearby building), but the moment you land ''you will die''.
* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestITheSarienEncounter'': The town of Ulence Flats is surrounded by a literal force field that prevents you from walking out (but doesn't obstruct airborne vehicles). Averted in other areas, where they use BorderPatrol such as man-eating sand serpents to discourage going out of bounds.
* ''VideoGame/GliderPRO'': Invisible walls are typically found at the edge of any outdoor area. Ironically, ''visible'' walls have to have invisible rebounder objects placed over them if they're in the middle of the screen.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':
** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': 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." Also combined with InsurmountableWaistHighFence, particularly obvious in parts of downtown: there are piles of rubble you're not supposed to be able to pass, but the actual Invisible Wall is often halfway up the slope, leading to the frustrating situation of you being unable to climb a two-foot block suddenly, despite having easily leapt over noticeably taller barriers just seconds ago. 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.
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' does this egregiously. Several mountain ranges that look like you should be able to jump over them just randomly won't let you. It's understandable when it's there to prevent SequenceBreaking, but in some areas it's pointless and completely arbitrary. Especially when they already have a perfectly good BeefGate blocking the player. There are a few times these do make sense, such as the wire gate at the NCR Mojave Outpost which serves as a gateway in ''Lonesome Road'' after you choose to [[spoiler:'''nuke the NCR's only way into the Mojave''']].

* ''VideoGame/MagicalBattleArena'' marks the boundaries of the battlefield with a literal invisible wall: a pink grid-like magical barrier that only becomes visible when you touch it (or try to blow it up), and only that specific spot that you touch. It's visible on the HUD minimap, though.
* ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'': Every combat map is surrounded by a perfectly rectangular one of these. The wall itself isn't invisible, but if you're sufficiently close to it, you'll notice an abrupt change in the texture of the ground, as well as the fact that you cannot walk or ride across this change in texture. It's encountered most often with the highly mobile horse-versus-horse encounters, since the slower infantry don't usually get very far from the center.
* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' tries to avert this by having the military launch air strikes at you if you try to leave the quarantined island, but it's fairly easy to dodge them on foot while running across a bridge, which lets you reach an invisible wall. The camera moves to an overhead view to stop you from seeing any further, but strangely, you can still target enemies beyond the wall - you just can't attack them. There's also a flashback segment where you're recalling what happened before the quarantine came into effect. If you try to leave the island, no military air strike happens, but the invisible wall still keeps you from leaving. Way to tax SuspensionOfDisbelief, guys!
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' is very guilty of this in its hub area, set in the ocean. Trying to swim past the limits of the world just end up with your monkey wading at the same spot over and over.
* ''VideoGame/NiGHTSIntoDreams'' includes a variation of the Invisible Wall combined with an invisible cannon, ala ''Motocross Madness''. The edge of a Dream World is marked by a change in the floor to a strange purple surface, and trying to go on it or over it results in Claris or Elliot being flung back a large distance. ''VideoGame/NiGHTSJourneyOfDreams'' 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/TeamFortress2'': A few fan-made maps feature these on staircases. One server has dubbed them "Stairways to Heaven" because they have to go ''somewhere''. Although maps generally make good use of the InsurmountableWaistHighFence, the Demoman and Soldier are able to send themselves flying all over the place, easily clearing most all of these. As a result, the invisible walls are called in. Can be particularly annoying not having an indication of which rooftops you can access and which are behind unseen barriers. Also, in one map, there are some roadside barriers keeping you away from barren desert. All normal jumps don't go taller than them, but the scout's double jump does. Invisible wall right there.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' plays the trope straight when you're furiously trying to drive a vehicle through a vehicle-sized gap in a roadblock to no avail.
* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'': In the early games, some kind of invisible force field keeps you from wandering off the map in some levels. Probably the most well-known are the barriers around Stone Hill in the original game, and those in Metropolis in the sequel. Most of these examples are [[JustifiedTrope justified]] through the use of little structures basically serving as fence-posts. [[FridgeLogic Though that does make one wonder who put them up, and why.]] Amusingly, with codes you can jump over many of these and walk around outside the borders. Go too far and you'll find that the ground no longer has collision data, and through the floor you'll go.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is full of these. As well as forming the boundary of each discrete area, they're also used internally to railroad the party along a particular path within each area.
* ''VideoGame/Action52'': The fifth level of ''Atmos Quake'' is {{Unwinnable}} due to an apparent invisible wall (or collision detection glitch) at the beginning of the level.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has them, but unless you're an Infected who got bored you likely won't run into them. The game lampshades it when you're close enough by putting up a "Wrong Way" sign. It is quite possible to encounter invisible walls while playing as the survivors, but you would rarely find them. They are a bit more common in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' and are in places such as over a fence or on top of a wrecked bus. This is to prevent players from exploiting the maps by being tossed in the air when knocked over by a Charger.
* ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'': There are several invisible walls. But they also use giant slimy tentacles as walls. You can jump on just about anything, but you can't jump on those tentacles -- you have to find a way around them.
* ''James Cameron's Film/{{Avatar}}: The Game'' usually makes a reasonable use of solid walls and only occasionally abuses a Gentle Slope of Unclimbability, but once you start riding a banshee or flying a helicopter, the invisible walls become your ultimate menace as they appear in the middle of the most obvious route, enemies just beyond range of your gun safely shoot at you from the other side, and your vehicle takes damage as you crash into them.
* ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'': In land 1, before you build the temple or get your Creature, if you try going near the Aztec village or beyond the gates, you get blocked by an invisible wall. It lights up white if you crash into it, but if you don't it's invisible.
* ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' had this as the way to keep players from passing beyond the borders of a zone at any place other than a designated zone transition. Most zones in the game were basically large square or rectangular maps with a wall-like hill around the edge with an invisible wall about halfway up it, and early on, when the game had no maps for navigation it was common for players to navigate by following the zone walls.
* ''VideoGame/ATVOffroadFury'' has an extreme case of this. Similar to the ''VideoGame/MotocrossMadness'' example above, in Freestyle mode, if you go too far, you not only crash into an invisible wall, but also fly a bajillion times farther than you would upon hitting a normal obstacle. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking You also could not quick-reset if you bail through this means.]] These crashes were actually pretty fun to watch... some people didn't even bother trying anything but freeride because they wanted to see if they could ever kill the rider. (They couldn't.)
* ''VideoGame/VampireRain'': You're a stealth operative on the street trying to sneak around the city and avoid all detection, because most of the people in the city are vampires who will rip you in half the moment they see you. Most of the city is rendered at any given time but there are invisible walls all over the place to keep you focused on your next objective, and you likely won't even realize it until you try to cross a street to avoid a vampire and BZZT! "Mission Boundary!"
* ''VideoGame/FableII'': Whenever you try to swim too far away from the land mass, the game gives you an Invisible Wall and says something along the lines of "There is no reason for you to go any farther." Still kills WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief a bit, but at least it's the truth...
* ''VideoGame/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.
* ''VideoGame/FuntimeWithBuffy'': While you can get to the top of the fences if you know what to do, you can't go beyond them to see the rest of the neighbourhood, or to get away from [[LivingToys Buffy]].

%%* ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'': Used, though for the most part they're in context.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'': The Fuchsia City Gym has a Gym puzzle of invisible walls. However (until the remakes, at least), there are slight pattern differences in the floor tiles that determine tiles which have invisible walls on them. If one plays the original games on a Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, or Game Boy Advance SP, the invisible walls can be seen.
* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam II'' has a lot of invisible walls to prevent the player from escaping the stage or falling off. ''Serious Sam I'' uses teleport triggers instead and jump pads for those who still manage to get out.
* ''VideoGame/ForzaMotorsport4'' has on on the ''Series/TopGear'' test track. If you go backwards over the hump on Gambon corner fast enough, you hit an Invisible Wall coming up from a wall that seems to be about a foot high.
* ''VideoGame/TheCrew'' has invisible barriers that, when passed, allows players to enter Canada or Mexico for a only a brief moment before their car stalls and respawn back in the United States.
* ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' has an Invisible Wall around the edge of every zone. While they may not be explained, you at least get a warning that you're about to reach it -- the screen suddenly goes black and white, and just a bit blurry.
* ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon 3'' has many, many places you should be able to get though, boxes you should be able to jump on and surfaces you should be able to climb, only for you to bounce off mid air if you attempt to.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has a mixture of Invisible Walls mixed with natural barriers (a 100-foot-high wall or the depths of the ocean, for example), but sometimes the wall is seen in places that should be logically explorable, or the wall is extended a bit too far away from the steep mountain your character has come up against.
* ''VideoGame/MicrosoftFlightSimulator'': Flying too far north and possibly south results in the plane hitting an invisible wall, beyond which the terrain is very low-res. Interestingly, the plane does not actually "crash" into the wall; instead, physics turns off for the plane, leaving it hanging in the air, until the plane is no longer in contact with the wall.
* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' mostly avoids them by having reasonable barriers, but they become very obvious if you decide to explore the coastal areas a bit more after getting the [[WalkOnWater Water Tablet]]. In certain spots there are even islands you can see but not get to because Ammy just won't advance past a certain point.
* ''VideoGame/LEGOAdaptationGame'': Certain games, such as ''DC'' and ''Marvel Super Heroes'', have these surrounding their respective open worlds. In the case of Manhattan, the walls cut halfway across the bridges, where a construction worker informs you that the bridge is under maintenance. Keep trying to cross for long enough, and he'll confide in you that nothing exists on the other side. LEGO Batman ''really'' pushes this in the level ''Flight of the Bat''. To progress through the level you need to take out obstacles like billboards and walls of flame. The only reason you ''can't fly right around them'' is you either hit an invisible wall or Bats turns the Batplane around. The only reason you can't fly over or under them is you can't change altitude.
* ''Videogame/{{Dishonored}}'' has these covering the non-physical boundaries of each stage, along with [[BorderPatrol swarms of fish or rats]] that devour explorers who go near the edge.
* ''Videogame/SunsetOverdrive'' actually has [=FizzCo=]-branded Invisible Walls around Sunset City, [[BreakingTheFourthWall as per the game's style]]. [[FridgeBrilliance It is actually justifiable though]] as [=FizzCo=] have likely put them up to contain the OD outbreak and maintain the conspiracy. Oddly, [[MindScrew the walls are totally visible when you get close to them]].
* ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' has you run into what appears to be one of these in the Biosphere, but almost immediately afterwards you run into a control panel that reveals that it was a real wall -- the {{skybox}}es in the ship's artificial biomes are holograms of some sort. Occasionally you will have to disable them to reveal an actual door to leave the room (presumably the panel locks the doors automatically when it turns on the holograms). It later plays it straight with an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nS1ADTJY0 infuriating Missile Tank]].
* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' has this in both Hyperspace and Quasispace. Once you arrive to the borders of the maps of both dimensions you cannot go further away.
* ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'': These are plot-relevant. The main characters run into invisible walls while exploring the TV World Yasogami High School, which trap them and prevents them from exploring further. The only way to pass these walls is to beat another person who is trapped within the same room.
* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': The levels without walls are relatively common, but if you try to stray too far from the puzzle area, you are treated to Elohim's BrokenRecord announcement (above). If you push on, you die. The explanation to that is [[spoiler:you can only exist within the boundaries of the simulated world, which are pretty limited]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Another}}'': There are more than one, and they keep you from exploring the city, or going onto the road.
* ''VideoGame/BeyondTwoSouls'': A variation. While there ''are'' invisible walls in several places, usually if a character wanders away from the areas the devs intended, they'll briefly stop to collect themselves and turn around.
* ''Videogame/SunlessSkies:'' Rather than the BorderPatrol methods ''Videogame/SunlessSea'' used, when you're heading too far outside a star system the locomotive will automatically stop at the invisible wall, with a mark in your logbook that only an infinite, starless black void seems to stretch forth in that direction. Since "starless" means not even the laws of physics or anything resembling them apply in there, it's likely the captain hitting the brakes; you explicitly need the protection granted at Singh-Jenkins relays to avoid being torn apart by the sheer nonexistence or [[EldritchAbomination the things that don't exist in there]].
* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': On Tatooine, the explorable areas of the planet's deserts are surrounded by a series of glowing posts. They don't physically prevent your passage, but you can only walk past them for a metre or so before a message pops up pointing out that traipsing off into the endless desert is not a good idea.
* ''VideoGame/Gift2001'': Sometimes pretty nasty ones preventing Gift to a fireplace, for example. [[spoiler:Also a very prominent one near Lolita's house]].
* ''VideoGame/FreshMintyAdventure'': There's one at the bottom left of the Cave of Wonder stopping Minty from riding a Timberwolf too far left of the tree branch.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has invisible walls surrounding the edges of the Gerudo Desert and the ocean. Trying to go beyond the borders has the wall stop you with the game telling you that you can't go any farther. The north and northwestern parts of the world map are separated by a massive chasm that's too large to cross -- attempting to glide across inevitably ends with Link plummeting into the abyss. There's also an invisible barrier in the sky if you somehow manage to get Link high enough in the air.

* Used in some stages of ''Gauntlet II'', resulting in them looking all-but-empty.
* [=E1M4=] of ''VideoGame/MonsterBash'' has one preceding the dragon guarding the exit until all the pets are found.
* Used with and without explanation in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''; some urban missions are explicitly described as taking place in neighborhoods which have been isolated with portable forcefield units, but other urban missions, as well as tasks in the Spirit World, have transparent boundaries for no known reason. (And strictly speaking, these walls aren't invisible when you're close up to them; then they're transparent blue.) The "War Walls" separating the various zones serve a similar purpose, although they're visible and again have an in-game explanation.

* In one episode of the game review show ''Reviews On The Run'', Tommy Tallarico memorably breaks into a long rant about the invisible walls in ''Bomberman Jetters''.
** In the past, Victor Lucas has shown [[BerserkButton immense displeasure toward invisible walls]].

** However, the ultimate example is probably the first area in The End of the World. It is literally an entire invisible MAZE. As in, it is a huge empty area full of invisible walls. Your only clue of how to navigate it is the random bits of rock at the center of each intersection, which form arrows pointing in the direction you have to go. The battle zones are similarly invisible, but during said battles the maze is visible.

* Invisible Walls keep you from plummeting to your death in any of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'s'' dangerous looking chasms. You can fly over them with the dragon, but you sadly can't dismount into them.
* Most strategy games have these at the border of the map. The more recent ones tend to show terrain beyond that point to make it less obvious and the map more realistic.
** In ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'' the player's inability to move the mouse pointer outside the world limit makes it impossible to order units off it. However, should you order bomber planes to attack an enemy object that's close to the limit, they'll cheerfully fly off it and come back raining death. They can't land outside the world, though; tell them to stop and they'll first come back, and then land.
** Similarly, ''[[VideoGame/WarCraft WarCraft 2]]'' almost plays this straight, with the one exception of whirlwinds, which are able to move at least a short distance off the edge of the map and then return.
** In ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'', the edge of the map is ''literally'' the edge of a map.
** ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' has a variation of this: The map is spherical (but you can't travel to the poles) but certain areas are designated as "Permanent Terra Incognita" and cannot be explored (includes the interiors of Africa, Australia and the Americas.)

** In addition to the corridor levels in ''VideoGame/StarFox64'', during the "all-range mode" segments, reaching the edge of the map causes your ship to automatically turn around.
* ''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. The hub-world's castle grounds and separated garden, ruin the illusion though.
** Still, [[http://speeddemosarchive.com/Mario64.html#SS100p some gamers]] have encountered invisible walls in random, unexplained places not related to the edge of a world.

* In the N64 game ''VideoGame/SnowboardKids'', you could do a jump and veer off to the side of the track, then hit an invisible wall in the middle of the sky and slide right back down.
* The action scenes in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' often have these to prevent you from running past the enemies you're supposed to shoot, or punching out an ImmuneToBullets boss.
* In the first ''Return Fire'' 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.
* The ''VideoGame/GundamVsSeries'' added these in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED: Alliance vs. ZAFT'', and for once it's actually a good thing. Past iterations of the series had the outer limits of the stage be a line that, if crossed, forced your HumongousMecha to auto-pilot itself back into the stage, which was time-consuming, left you open to attack, and lead to an annoying sound ("You've left the mission area, please return!"). The use of Invisible Walls speeds up gameplay greatly, and they don't significantly reduce the size of the stages, so it ends up working out well in the end.
* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' uses invisible walls in a very FourthWall-nudging way. The Reapers make the Reaper's Game more interesting by blocking off sections of Shibuya, forcing you to run as they want you to. Some of the walls are lowered by completing tasks assigned by Support Reapers -- everything from defeating Noise in a certain fashion to bringing them food to answering a PopQuiz. Later in the story, a character gains the ability to smash holes in them, allowing you to cheat your way out of the game-within-a-game.
** And if you run into one, it briefly becomes a BeehiveBarrier.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto: San Andreas'' had a unique way of confining the player to certain areas of the game. Certain parts of the state are closed off to traffic with the use of barriers, but if you manage to go past the barriers (swimming, use of a boat, or flying a plane for example), you'll instantly get a high warrant level. Even if you use a cheat or the Pay n' Spray in the restricted areas, the warrant levels never go away until you go back where you're supposed to be. The barriers will disappear as you make progress in the storyline.
** ''GTA 3'' and ''Vice City'' had invisible walls in the ocean. If you kept trying to leave the city, an invisible wall would bring your boat or plane to a stop. ''San Andreas'' allowed the player to go as far as they wanted. However, the farther out you go will equal to the same amount of time it will take to travel back.

* In ''VideoGame/{{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.
** ''Gothic II'' avoids invisible barriers overland (it just has [[GravityBarrier unclimbable mountains]]); but if you swim too far into the ocean, you just get eaten by a [[BorderPatrol sea monster]].
* In ''VideoGame/HelloNeighbor'', these prevent you from exploring the background neighborhood. Interestingly enough, in Alpha at least they aren't insurmountable, since they are not infinitely high and there's a glitch that allows you to levitate via jumping in a trash can. Go high enough, and you can jump over the barrier and explore the rest of the map.

** ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic The Hedgehog 3]]'' pulls the Invisible Wall at the first Launch Base Act 2 boss. You SHOULD be able to jump to that ledge but you can't, and until Robotnik jumps into his machine, you can't do anything to him. Annoying, considering that the invisible wall disappears once he's been defeated.

** When you're taken into the past by a lens flare in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', you may see these little structures that are basically a roof and four supports at the corners. You can't go under them. Perhaps this is because it's easier to define an object as being simply this high, that wide, and that long rather than defining all the details of the shape of that object, especially when there's no reason to do so. It's still a little strange.

** ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Sonic '06]]'': The second hub city had giant invisible walls on the streets between buildings, with no indication that you can't go over there on your map. The game often ropes you into doing side quests by having the police [[NPCRoadblock block the way]], even though you can jump over, move around, and in at least one case, walk BEHIND the officer in question.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' mostly averted this once Flying mounts came out with its two main maps, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. However, this trope kicks in full force in Outland, and the Draenei and Blood Elf starting zones. In Instances, each of which is its own isolated mini-map, you aren't actually supposed to run into invisible walls (many of them are dungeons of some kind anyway), but they're still there as a backup, just in case you manage to actually surmount the InsurmountableWaistHeightFence. Outland has invisible walls and an invisible ceiling for flying mounts.
** There are certain Instances that DO have invisible walls, notably those featured in the Caverns of Time. These contain a replica of a present-day zone as it was at some point in the past. If you leave the standard play area, a mist forms around you, essentially warning that you can't go much farther. And then you hit the invisible wall, forcing you to turn around.

* The ''VideoGame/{{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.
* Al of the StarWars ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'' games will turn your ship around if you go too far outside the mission area. Sometimes it's explained (getting too far from the action), on others (like the infinite featureless plane of the Death Star endurance level) it feels a little limiting.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' has points where whenever Altaïr attempts to wander 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!
** Not only that, but the wall only blocks Altaïr if he attempts to walk into it at ground level. It's possible for Altaïr to cross over this wall at a higher point (say, by momentum from LeParkour off a nearby building), but the moment you land ''you will die''.
* In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestITheSarienEncounter'', the town of Ulence Flats is surrounded by a literal force field that prevents you from walking out (but doesn't obstruct airborne vehicles). Averted in other areas, where they use BorderPatrol such as man-eating sand serpents to discourage going out of bounds.
* Invisible walls are typically found at the edge of any outdoor area in ''VideoGame/GliderPRO''. (Ironically, ''visible'' walls had to have invisible rebounder objects placed over them if they were in the middle of the screen.)
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' has these in much the same way ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' 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." Also combined with InsurmountableWaistHighFence, particularly obvious in parts of downtown: there are piles of rubble you're not supposed to be able to pass, but the actual Invisible Wall is often halfway up the slope, leading to the frustrating situation of you being unable to climb a two-foot block suddenly, despite having easily leapt over noticeably taller barriers just seconds ago.
** 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.

* ''VideoGame/KirbyAirRide'' has one around every course, a well as the city in City Trial mode.
** The City Trail mode has an odd one, though. Though there are the normal invisible walls around the sides of the map, if you go at them from a high altitude you'll go through them. However, all you can do outside of the invisible walls is ride around on water, and if you continue going away from the city you'll reach another set of invisible walls which can't be bypassed. What's odd about the invisible wall system, though, is that in some places there are small ramps outside of the first invisible wall which will bring you back into the map instead of getting stuck at a wall, meaning the developers [[DevelopersForesight anticipated]] people bypassing the walls.

* Every combat map in ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' is surrounded by a perfectly rectangular one of these. The wall itself isn't invisible, but if you're sufficiently close to it, you'll notice an abrupt change in the texture of the ground, as well as the fact that you cannot walk or ride across this change in texture. It's encountered most often with the highly mobile horse-versus-horse encounters, since the slower infantry don't usually get very far from the center.
* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' tries to avert this by having the military launch air strikes at you if you try to leave the quarantined island, but it's fairly easy to dodge them on foot while running across a bridge, which lets you reach an invisible wall. The camera moves to an overhead view to stop you from seeing any further, but strangely, you can still target enemies beyond the wall - you just can't attack them.
** There's also a flashback segment where you're recalling what happened before the quarantine came into effect. If you try to leave the island, no military air strike happens, but the invisible wall still keeps you from leaving. Way to tax SuspensionOfDisbelief, guys!

* ''VideoGame/NiGHTSIntoDreams'' includes a variation of the Invisible Wall combined with an invisible cannon, ala ''Motocross Madness''. The edge of a Dream World is marked by a change in the floor to a strange purple surface, and trying to go on it or over it results in Claris or Elliot being flung back a large distance.
** ''VideoGame/NiGHTSJourneyOfDreams'' 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.
* A few ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' fan-made maps feature these on staircases. One server has dubbed them "Stairways to Heaven" because they have to go ''somewhere''.
** Although maps generally make good use of the InsurmountableWaistHighFence, the Demoman and Soldier are able to send themselves flying all over the place, easily clearing most all of these. As a result, the invisible walls are called in. Can be particularly annoying not having an indication of which rooftops you can access and which are behind unseen barriers.
*** Also, in one map, there are some roadside barriers keeping you away from barren desert. All normal jumps don't go taller than them, but the scout's double jump does. Invisible wall right there.
* They're everywhere in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', though most of them involve using the levitation code on a Game Shark to get to places you couldn't normally go. You can however reach the one behind the windmill at Kakariko village using the cuckoo in the windmill. Sometimes you can hookshot or shoot your arrows at invisible walls without realizing it.

** 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 TAS-ers 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 painfully straight with the ridiculously high barrier surrounding Hyrule Castle.
*** In the original Japanese release, sunken Hyrule had barriers that were made to prevent players from leaving the path to Ganon's Castle and exploring the incomplete fields beyond. However, they weren't high enough to prevent some clever players and their Deku Leaves, so in the International versions, the walls were made higher.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' Nintendo did their best to hide them, but you can sometimes encounter them with the Beetle (which has a way of timing out faster than normal when you start to explore an area [[DevelopersForesight the developers don't want you to]]).
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has invisible walls surrounding the edges of the Gerudo Desert and the ocean. Trying to go beyond the borders has the wall stop you with the game telling you that you can't go any farther. The north and northwestern parts of the world map are separated by a massive chasm that's too large to cross. There's also an invisible barrier in the sky if you somehow manage to get Link high in the air.

* In the early ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'' games, some kind of invisible force field keeps you from wandering off the map in some levels. Probably the most well-known are the barriers around Stone Hill in the original game, and those in Metropolis in the sequel. Most of these examples are [[JustifiedTrope justified]] through the use of little structures basically serving as fence-posts. [[FridgeLogic Though that does make one wonder who put them up, and why.]]
** Amusingly, with codes you can jump over many of these and walk around outside the borders. Go too far and you'll find that the ground no longer has collision data, and through the floor you'll go.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Action52}}'', the fifth level of ''Atmos Quake'' is {{Unwinnable}} due to an apparent invisible wall (or collision detection glitch) at the beginning of the level.
* In the early ''Franchise/SilentHill'' games, invisible walls prevent you from falling into BottomlessPits. Not so starting with ''VideoGame/SilentHill3''.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has them, but unless you're an Infected who got bored you likely won't run into them. The game lampshades it when you're close enough by putting up a "Wrong Way" sign.
** It is quite possible to encounter invisible walls while playing as the survivors, but you would rarely find them. They are a bit more common in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' and are in places such as over a fence or on top of a wrecked bus. This is to prevent players from exploiting the maps by being tossed in the air when knocked over by a Charger.
* In ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'', there are several invisible walls. But they also use giant slimy tentacles as walls. You can jump on just about anything, but you can't jump on those tentacles -- you have to find a way around them.
* ''James Cameron's Film/{{Avatar}} The Game'' usually makes a reasonable use of solid walls and only occasionally abuses a Gentle Slope of Unclimbability, but once you start riding a banshee or flying a helicopter, the invisible walls become your ultimate menace as they appear in the middle of the most obvious route, enemies just beyond range of your gun safely shoot at you from the other side, and your vehicle takes damage as you crash into them.
* In ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'', land 1, before you build the temple or get your Creature, if you try going near the Aztec village or beyond the gates, you get blocked by an invisible wall. It lights up white if you crash into it, but if you don't it's invisible.

* ''VideoGame/ATVOffroadFury'' has an extreme case of this. Similar to the ''VideoGame/MotocrossMadness'' example above, in Freestyle mode, if you go too far, you not only crash into an invisible wall, but also fly a bajillion times farther than you would upon hitting a normal obstacle. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking You also could not quick-reset if you bail through this means.]]
** These crashes were actually pretty fun to watch... some people didn't even bother trying anything but freeride because they wanted to see if they could ever kill the rider. (They couldn't.)
* One of the most egregious examples was ''VideoGame/VampireRain''. You're a stealth operative on the street trying to sneak around the city and avoid all detection, because most of the people in the city are vampires who will rip you in half the moment they see you. Most of the city is rendered at any given time but there are invisible walls all over the place to keep you focused on your next objective, and you likely won't even realize it until you try to cross a street to avoid a vampire and BZZT! "Mission Boundary!" So annoying.
* In ''VideoGame/FableII'' whenever you try to swim too far away from the land mass, the game gives you an Invisible Wall and says something along the lines of "There is no reason for you to go any farther." Still kills WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief a bit, but at least it's the truth...

* Quite gratuitously used in ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'', though for the most part they're in context.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing'', one can climb over the slopes (no matter how steep) where the walls would be and continue to drive into the white void.

* The Fushia City Gym in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' has a Gym puzzle of invisible walls. However (until the remakes, at least), there are slight pattern differences in the floor tiles that determine tiles which have invisible walls on them.
** If one plays the original games on a Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, or Game Boy Advance SP, the invisible walls can be seen.

* Most {{racing game}}s have these when you get your car airbourne and attempt to jump over a wall or barrier of some sort.
** ''Forza Motorsport 4'' rather pointlessly has on on the ''Series/TopGear'' test track. If you go backwards over the hump on Gambon corner fast enough, you hit an Invisible Wall coming up from a wall that seems to be about a foot high.
** ''VideoGame/TheCrew'' has invisible barriers that, when passed, allows players to enter Canada or Mexico for a only a brief moment before their car stalls and respawn back in the United States.

* [[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]] 3 has many, many places you should be able to get though, boxes you should be able to jump on and surfaces you should be able to climb, only for you to bounce off mid air if you attempt to.
* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'', the game has a mixture of Invisible Walls mixed with natural barriers (a 100-foot-high wall or the depths of the ocean, for example), but sometimes the wall is seen in places that should be logically explorable, or the wall is extended a bit too far away from the steep mountain your character has come up against.
* Invisible walls can be found, surprisingly, in ''VideoGame/MicrosoftFlightSimulator 2002''. Flying too far north and possibly south results in the plane hitting an invisible wall, beyond which the terrain is very low-res. Interestingly, the plane does not actually "crash" into the wall; instead, physics turns off for the plane, leaving it hanging in the air, until the plane is no longer in contact with the wall.
* While ''{{VideoGame/Okami}}'' mostly avoids them by having reasonable barriers, they become painfully obvious if you decide to explore the coastal areas a bit more after getting the [[WalkOnWater Water Tablet]]. In certain spots there are even islands you can see but not get to because Ammy just won't advance past a certain point.
* The newer ''VideoGame/LEGOAdaptationGame''''s'' such as DC and Marvel Super Heroes have these surrounding their respective open worlds. In the case of Manhattan, the walls cut halfway across the bridges, where a construction worker informs you that the bridge is under maintenance. Keep trying to cross for long enough, and he'll confide in you that nothing exists on the other side.
** LEGO Batman ''really'' pushes this in the level ''Flight of the Bat''. To progress through the level you need to take out obstacles like billboards and walls of flame. The only reason you ''can't fly right around them'' is you either hit an invisible wall or Bats turns the Batplane around. The only reason you can't fly over or under them is you can't change altitude.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' has you run into what appears to be one of these in the Biosphere, but almost immediately afterwards you run into a control panel that reveals that it was a real wall -- the {{skybox}}es in the ship's artificial biomes are holograms of some sort. Occasionally you will have to disable them to reveal an actual door to leave the room (presumably the panel locks the doors automatically when it turns on the holograms).
** It later plays it straight with an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nS1ADTJY0 infuriating Missile Tank]].

* These are plot-relevant in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena''. The main characters run into invisible walls while exploring the TV World Yasogami High School, which trap them and prevents them from exploring further. The only way to pass these walls is to beat another person who is trapped within the same room.

* ''VideoGame/{{Gift|2001}}'': Sometimes pretty nasty ones preventing Gift to a fireplace, for example. [[spoiler:Also a very prominent one near Lolita's house]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Parodied in an ad for ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater Tony Hawk's American Wasteland]]'', in which the titular skater runs into one of these. In live action.

* In the movie ''Film/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.

* "Literature/InTheWallsOfEryx" by Creator/HPLovecraft is a sci-fi horror tale about an alien maze built of these. A person trapped in the maze would die of thirst while looking at a nearby lake.

* ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun''. Dick Solomon is trapped in an invisible box by his EvilTwin. When he tries to get out, he quickly realises the horrible implications. "My God... [[AnythingButThat HE'S TURNED ME INTO A]] [[EveryoneHatesMimes MIIIIIME!]]"

[[folder: Film -- Live Action]]

[[folder: Literature]]
* The arenas used for ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' are surrounded with forcefields that repel anything that runs into them. Of course, the Gamemakers have plenty of other ways to shepherd wayward Tributes back towards the middle.
** ''Catching Fire'' also has one that traps [[spoiler:Katniss and Finnick]] with the jabberjays sounding off the cries of their loved ones in pain.

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

[[folder: Roleplay]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]

[[folder: Web Video]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

!!Video Games:

!!Non-Video Game

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Kevin and his gang encounter an invisible wall in ''Film/TimeBandits'' while on the beach. It turns out to be an optical illusion; smashing it reveals the EvilTowerOfOminousness behind it.
-->'''Kevin:''' So this is what an invisible barrier looks like.
* In the movie ''Film/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.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* The arenas used for ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' are surrounded with forcefields that repel anything that runs into them. Of course, the Gamemakers have plenty of other ways to shepherd wayward Tributes back towards the middle.
** ''Catching Fire'' also has one that traps [[spoiler:Katniss and Finnick]] with the jabberjays sounding off the cries of their loved ones in pain.
* 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.
* "Literature/InTheWallsOfEryx" by Creator/HPLovecraft is a sci-fi horror tale about an alien maze built of these. A person trapped in the maze would die of thirst while looking at a nearby lake.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In the short-lived ''The Cosby Mysteries'', Bill Cosby's character confronts the murderer with his evidence. Naturally she tries to shoot him, only to find there's a screen of bulletproof glass between them.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 "Orphan 55"]], the walls of the environmental dome Tranquillity Spa is secretly built inside of are hidden by holograms, with this effect, as shown when Graham bumps his head on the wall while trying to walk around an area where the hologram's been temporarily deactivated to show a breach.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E105ValleyOfTheShadow Valley of the Shadow]]", after Philip Redfield learns that there is something unusual about the town of Peaceful Valley, UsefulNotes/NewMexico, its mayor Dorn activates an invisible wall to prevent him from leaving. His car crashes into it and his dog Rollie is killed, though he [[BackFromTheDead is brought back to life]]. Later, Philip very reluctantly agrees to remain in town and another invisible wall is erected around his house.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "I of Newton", the demon creates an invisible wall so that Sam can't escape his classroom.
* In a sort of inversion, newsman Les Nessman of ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' would ''really'' like a private office, but it's not in the budget, so he surrounds his desk with taped lines on the floor. Les acts, and expects everyone else to act, as if these were invisible walls, and gets annoyed if anyone enters his "office" without "knocking" ... or comes in through a "wall" instead of where he's decided the "door" is supposed to be.
* ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun''. Dick Solomon is trapped in an invisible box by his EvilTwin. When he tries to get out, he quickly realises the horrible implications. "My God... [[AnythingButThat HE'S TURNED ME INTO A]] [[EveryoneHatesMimes MIIIIIME!]]"

[[AC:Roleplay]]
* In ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'', invisible walls cover every exit of Rogers High School while the MassSuperEmpoweringEvent is happening. However, it only affects the students who are being given superpowers; normal people are [[InvisibleToNormals blind to what's happening]] and can walk through the walls freely.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* In ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'', Morgan le Fay builds an invisible wall around Arthur at Mordred's request.
* In ''Theatre/{{Godspell}}'', Judas starts to change his mind about the betrayal, but finds that invisible walls are cutting off every direction he can go except the one leading to Jesus.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]

[[AC:WebVideo]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]