Invisible walls

Video game concept

Players' ability to fully explore and/or utilize their surroundings is thwarted by unexplainable invisible barriers.

140
games
18
platforms

Alternate name: Artificial barriers

Contrasts:
* Illusionary walls
Sometimes these are to circumvent flaws in the game engine that would otherwise cause you to get stuck some crevices, more often as artificial boundary for the area where you're "allowed" to play. For the latter it's usually sign of poor level design or unnecessarily restricting gameplay.

Also cases where some minor rubble that you'd except the character to be able to walk over without effort, especially if in other cases you can do just that.

These are also often present at the borders of watery bodies of various sizes but should be ignored in their case if there's no perceivable reason to actually allow swimming.

Sometimes present at edges of high ledges that would certainly (by common sense) kill the player character if she fell off, these can be considered as representation of the character's common sense (outside of the player's judgement) to not jump off and should not be considered, though they can be included if mentioned. Any similar cases included.

Exactly the opposite of what illusionary walls tag describes, you can't pass through where you expected to.

Does not apply if the barrier is found by glitches, cheating, or a series of difficult or improbable actions to place the character where the developers never conceived it possible.

Popular tags

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Parent groups

Artificial limitations, Visibility

Games by year

89919395979901030507091113151719 20510150

The first Invisible walls video game was released in 1989.

Tripwire Interactive, THQ and 2K Games published most of these games.

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Platforms

Windows 52
PS3 19
X360 18
Linux 15
Mac OS X 12
PS2 5
Wii 5
PS4 2
N64 2
Xbox 2
NES 1
Wii U 1
Xbox One 1
Tandy Coco 1
Switch 1
MS-DOS 1
Stadia 1
GameCube 1