Dark Souls

A locked door plants a question the player carries around. Sen's Fortress works as a locked-door mystery: players wonder what is behind it and how they will ever open it.

Super Metroid's golden statue room, Hollow Knight's black egg and Tunic's keyless stone gateway lodge the same unresolved question. "A locked door is inherently mysterious because the player is left to wonder what's behind it - and to wonder how they'll ever open it."

Illusory walls make players suspect every wall. A wall that vanishes in smoke when struck reveals a question players did not know they could ask, and from then on every wall looks suspicious.

The Witness's world-drawing reveal and Fez's controller codes work the same way. "suddenly the entire path that you've traveled becomes littered with question marks."

Rushed late content can hurt more than cutting it. Lost Izalith and the Bed of Chaos were cobbled together to meet the deadline, and Mark Brown argues the game might have been better without them.

"In that case, it might have been better if they were just cut from the game."

Dark Souls puts a real risk on the currency players earn. Dying drops all your souls, the currency for levelling and shopping, where you died. You must reach your body again, and dying on the way loses them for good, so carrying 20,000 souls makes every step of the run back tense.

A big stash feels dangerous to carry and makes players desperate to find a bonfire. The game popularised corpse-running, which now appears in dozens of games. "every step feels dangerous"

Walking between areas teaches players how the world fits together. In Dark Souls you walk from place to place instead of riding elevator cutscenes, which makes the layout more natural to remember than Metroid Prime's world.

Its many routes also suit second playthroughs and speedruns, and it revived the idea of a mysterious map.

Permanent shortcuts reward players for pushing through once. The first elevator back to Firelink Shrine opens a permanent shortcut, a model for letting routes stay open once the player has proven themselves.

This keeps early difficulty while cutting boring backtracking on revisits. Hollow Knight's lifts and the Forgotten Crossroads gate follow the same pattern.

Hollow Knight's shade shows how a corpse run can discourage exploration. Hollow Knight's shade holds your money and halves your mana, tempting players back to where they died again and again instead of trying other routes.

In Zelda 1, by contrast, a player who dies can easily abandon an area and look elsewhere. "this is one way that Hollow Knight sadly discourages exploration through its design."

Walking between areas teaches players how the world fits together. In Dark Souls you walk from place to place instead of riding elevator cutscenes, which makes the layout more natural to remember than Metroid Prime's world.

Its many routes also suit second playthroughs and speedruns, and it revived the idea of a mysterious map.

Varied areas help players build a mental map. Dark Souls gives its locations distinct looks, which helps players organise the world's layout in their heads, the same way Symphony of the Night's distinct areas do.

The four Lord Souls can be collected in any order. Dark Souls opens its late game by letting players tackle the four Lord Souls in any order, like the five pieces of Vlad in Symphony of the Night.