10 Confusing Video Game Levels Everyone Got Lost In

No seriously, where am I meant to be going?

final fantasy 10 bevelle cloister of trials
Square Enix

Everyone loves a good sprawling video game level. Whether they be large open-world hub maps or maze-like singular levels, there's nothing quite like getting properly lost in a video game.

Well, unless you do it wrong, at which point you'll just piss everybody off to no end.

A good sprawling video game level manages to balance feeling large while still making sure the player knows where to go. This can be done via waypoints, a map feature, or smart-level geography.

A bad one does none of these things, plops you down in the middle of a gigantic maze, shrugs its shoulders, and leaves you to figure it out like a pixelated absentee parent.

These 10 levels, for one reason or another, do little to nothing to help the player find their way around.

10. The Foundry - Doom (2016)

final fantasy 10 bevelle cloister of trials
iD Software

Unlike other levels in Doom (2016), The Foundry is a massive, sprawling level with multiple different pathways. It's kind of a precursor to what iD Software would do with Doom Eternal.

And thank god they had time to practice with this level, because if all of Doom Eternal's levels were like The Foundry, it would've been intolerable.

The Foundry is a massive maze of corridors and hidden areas, every inch of which you have to scour in order to progress the game. While Doom's detailed map feature does make this a somewhat tolerable experience, and is the reason it's down here at the bottom of the list, the repetitive metal hallways and winding branching paths mean you'll often be going in directions you've already turned upside down.

But hey, at least The Foundry subscribes to the progression philosophy of the rest of the game: if there are demons, you're going the right way. So while confusing, it isn't totally unbearable.

The same cannot be said going forward.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?