How Can You Make Backtracking Fun?

It takes forever to make a location in most video games. It sure would be nice if we could reuse it. Maybe even a few more times… Careful! You might be falling into a backtracking trap. Excessive backtracking is so easy for a game to add in, but it can be so painful for players. Turning backtracking from a chore to something that players want to play takes some work, but it's totally possible. Let's talk about the game design approaches that can make backtracking fun.

Featuring:
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
A whole lot of classic Sierra point-and-click adventures
Radiant Historia
Devil May Cry 4
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Donkey Kong 64
Metroid (like, most of them)
Hollow Knight
Wario Land 4
Pizza Tower
Tunic
Outer Wilds

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[MageKirby]

I always appreciate games adding shortcuts that can be create once you explore the area so that when you backtrack, its way faster to access those areas than the first time you have to get there.

[SomethingWellesian]

“The framing is meant to be a joke but it doesn’t quite land right.”

I think this is because the player is the butt of the joke. A wild goose chase like that could be funny in tv or a movie (well, somewhat funny at least), but it would probably be presented as a montage, without needing to follow the characters every step of the way, and it would be the characters, not the audience, who’ve been through the pointless search.

[Alianger]

I tend to like when these things happen:
-New shortcuts are found (surprise and comfort)
-New enemy encounters or events happen on your way back (surprise)
-New traversal abilities make the trip different (recontextualizing)
-(not actually backtracking, but) Looping back around via a different path (sense of progress/a journey)
-There are optional, harder detours for goodies (risk/reward, options)

[Kyrephare]

I swear the old sierra games were built that way so they could sell you the guide. Many of the solutions were so obtuse they were impossible. I love them, but yeah, had to be played with a guide.

[Phirestar]

I think the most important aspect of creating _good_ backtracking is ensuring that the player is making _forward_ progress when they’re retracing their steps, rather than it being a situation of stalling or, worse, undoing the player’s work.

It’s a paradoxical thought, but let me explain. The reason why backtracking works well in games like Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds is due the fact that backtracking to previous locations leads directly into the next section of gameplay or the story. When you defeat the Soul Master in the City of Tears and obtain the Desolate Dive, you backtrack into the Forgotten Crossroads via the elevator shortcut (or newly opened Stag Station) that you unlocked while exploring the City and make your way to where you open the pathway to the Crystal Peak, which is a new area with new content for you to see. Similarly, when the player resets or goes back to another planet in Outer Wilds, they’re now equipped with knowledge that allows them to open up access to new parts of that planet that they previously ignored or didn’t know how to interact with, and leading them further into their goal of reaching the explanation behind the game’s core mystery.

In contrast, the fetch quest example is a case where backtracking is essentially a stall for time, because going back to a previous location in order to fulfill the quest does not introduce any new content. You go backwards to get the necessary item(s) to do the quest, then return back to where you’re able to use them and unlock the next new section of the game. This is a *huge* design issue with many historical quests in Old School RuneScape, and is the reason why the vast majority of players rely on wiki guides to do the quests. You’re asked to backtrack from the quest location to the bank or, worse yet, a completely different part of the game world in order to get the item or items that you need constantly. It’s so bad to the point that the developers just outright added a feature to the in-game quest log where you can right-click a quest’s name and select an option that’ll open that quest’s wiki guide page in your bowser. I’m not kidding: nobody should ever do OSRS quests without a guide. I challenged myself to not look up the required items in advance and just play the quests through naturally, and I gave up after just 26 out of 158 total quests that’re in the game. (Most people likely would’ve gave up much earlier than that, too.)

The way I would describe backtracking being used as forward progress is to take out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and start drawing a straight line across the page. The line represents your progress through the game. When you get to the end of the page, you have hit a “backtracking point” in the game. If you’re backtracking in the latter way, you will draw back _over top_ of your existing line and trace the line through a second time. If you’re using the first example, and you’re making backtracking that creates forward progress, you’ll turn the _page_ over and continue drawing through your existing line, but on the other side of the sheet of paper - on new ground, where the player hasn’t been yet.

If you want backtracking in your game, that is what you to have happen. You want to retrace over your existing line, but from a fresh perspective, in a way that the player is always moving _toward_ the end goal - completion of the quest, completion of the area, the story, etc. - never _away_ from it.

[GADZOOKS]

One example of backtracking in a video game I really like is hotline miami when you have to walk back to the car as it sets the overall tone of the game as the music stops and the focus is the pile of bodies left on the ground which conveys the question "do you like hurting other people"

[jarod]

Babe wake up new Design just Doc'd

[bonkaru]

I’m currently working on a metroidvania, so this videos going to be helping out a lot! Thanks for the great videos Design Doc!

[fernando]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Zelda Phantom Hourglass' Temple of the Ocean King. It's infamous for its backtracking, but I think there's a lot of merit in its execution (not that many agree). I personally enjoy it

[SiliconSlyWolf]

TTYD also had the side quests where you could only accept one at a time, so that added even more back tracking, where if you could at least accept something like 3 at a time, you might have at least less back tracking.

[TwilightWolf]

2D Metroid is usually good with backtracking, because you are going back to an area you have been through before and gave you trouble, but now you have more combat and traversal options that make navigating the old area much easier, plus your new abilities allow you to fetch items you couldn't before and even unlock new passages and shortcuts.

Xenoblade 1 also does backtracking really well, since NONE is required to beat the game. You are constantly moving forward in that game if you're just following the story (you will never be sent back to Colony 9 for story reasons after you leave it, Saihate is just a pitstop before the events of the Eryth Sea and Alcamoth with the first big twist, and you only go back to the Fallen Arm and Colony 6 for story reasons but the Junks is right there to take you to the next area you cannot access otherwise). And yet, the game is full of backtracking for the side quests, which are all optional, meaning you will be backtracking out of choice and not necessity! Having fast travel really helps too, and the fact you can then face stronger enemies you had no chance of dealing with before now that you are 20 levels stronger also give you an incentive to go back to previous areas.

[rairai]

One of my favorite backtracking elements in games is from Skyward Sword's sandship. Exploring the ship, having to go back and forth to find keys, and changing what time the ship is in is amazing. It's almost two dungeons in one, as it's either set in the past or present.

[WhiteFangofWar]

Metroid is normally the poster child for good backtracking with how newly unlocked tools in your kit open up new paths and locations, but even the Metroid Prime series caught some flack for their respective endgame fetch quests, with the first one having the worst. It also had the most backtracking period with forcing you to depart and return to the Phazon Mines no less than 3 times before you could find its boss. Compounding the problem were respawning enemies who didn't get appreciably easier with new weapons like many 2D Metroids; you still can only use Power Beam to deal with Chozo Ghosts even if the X-Ray lets you spot them faster.

[Vulcanfaux]

Ahhh, since you kept showing it, I thought you were gunna talk about it. That re2 remake was pretty good. The backtracking felt good too. Since every time you returned to the RPD it was full of even more zombies and lickers and eventually Mr. X. Also makes playing the 4th survivor even more crazy when you eventually play that and had to run through the sewers and the RPD.

[chandlertheramhandler]

Interesting that you showed the backtracking sequence in Skyward Sword, but didn’t comment further on it. If I recall correctly, in the fetch quest for water you showed, when you re-enter the forest temple, it is infested with new enemy types that weren’t there the first time round. Additionally, the water dragon area only opens up to the player after you’ve already been to 2 completely new areas on the map and completed an entire dungeon each from those areas. There’s also the fast travel in Skyward sword which doesn’t expect you to walk all the way to the temple and all the way back again, you can just teleport straight to and out of the temple. I think overall, this was quite a decent implementation of backtracking, that allows the player to revisit an older area without causing too much trouble or boredom for them!

[E_Fig]

This video gave me a great idea for a level in one of my many game ideas. Kind of like Subspace Emissary levels with a Pizza Tower escape sequence. Thanks for the idea, and congratulations on 300k. This channel has helped me so much with understanding game design better.

[Bobb]

Halfway through Guacamelee 2, reality starts to collapse which basically means black instant--death boxes spawn everywhere. Gaps that you could just jump over before now have a box above them too high to jump over, so you need to use the chicken slide move. Some gaps have boxes that prevent you from jumping _too_ high. It changes the way you navigate the entire world.

[payumayu]

I'm a bit surprised that it wasn't mentioned at all since Survival Horror games are also a prime candidate to use backtracking as a very effective tool.

Those games revolve heavily around resource management and you have to plan ahead. Travelling back and forth on a limited map helps with this kind of planning and decisions made in the past also won't just disappear. None did it better than the original Resident Evil mansion (and its remake). _Should I save my bullets and just try to slip past these zombies? But then I will also have to run by them again on my way back. I might lose a lot of health. I should check the map, maybe it's better to clear this path if I need it more often._ You get the idea.
But that's not the only thing, backtracking can also help with the Horror part by exploiting the false sense of security that a known place might provide. _Hey I've been through this corridor several times before, it's totally safe!_ ...aaand this time something suddenly comes bursting through the windows. And after getting caught off guard like this once, you start to get paranoid and suspect something looming around every corner. Suddenly it doesn't matter anymore if you visited an area before and you just have this constant feeling of threat which creates a wonderful atmosphere for a horror game.

[andrewphilos]

The best games make the act of movement and exploration fun, so that backtracking essentially means more of that thing you already like. Super Mario 64 involves exploring the same levels 6 or 7 times, but moving Mario around the map is so much fun that it's like being asked if I want more dessert. Of course I do! also gives me this sensation with its gravity-flipping motion mechanic.

In making this point, I also notice how the early levels of Super Mario 64 that feel like lived-in worlds are the most fun to navigate multiple times, whereas the levels that feel like glorified obstacle courses are, in my opinion, the least fun to retrace. Tick Tock Clock is maybe the biggest offender of this--having to climb up the gears and windings over and over again is kind of a pain.

[leegaul]

One mechanic I'm working on for a long term project of mine is having changes occur in various environments depending on in-game date and plot progression. I took inspiration from games like Harvest Moon, where seasons would change the environment, and even what you could do during that time of the year. I've also played RPGs where they would have major changes happen in towns you already visited, once you moved forward enough in the game. This way if they place a backtracking required quest in that location, the player returns to something aesthetically different, with a new set of activities they can do that weren't there before. This allowed that game to have a smaller game world, but feel like it was a lot.