Video games are an impressive artistic and technical achievement: artificial, immersive worlds born out of the imaginations of their creators. Some game worlds attempt to imitate reality, while others are so fantastical as to be almost entirely alien. Still, an immersive game world requires cohesive design, and even the most outlandish game worlds are littered with the mundane when reduced to their individual parts - like that humblest of portals, the door.
Doors in video games are often no more than barriers between spaces. They create choke points in online shooters, or separate the safety of a home base from a hostile environment in survival games. Most buildings in a massive open world game will probably have some sort of door, whether accessible or decorative. Just as they are in life, the doors of game worlds are ubiquitous.
Some, however, are more special than others. Doors often symbolize a new section of a journey or a portal to another place or time. A door can be opened to reveal something unknown, or closed to seal away something sacred. While they're mundane more often than not, they can occasionally become integral to the identity of a game, recognized as notable set pieces in their own right.
Iconic Video Game Doors - Ocarina of Time
The Door of Time in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time marks an incredible turning point in the game, and opens the way for one of gaming's celebrated moments. Though Link has already come so far in his journey, opening the Door of Time and pulling the Master Sword from its pedestal reveals that the game is really just beginning. Leaving the Temple of Time seven years in the future and finding the destruction Ocarina's Ganondorf has wrought on Hyrule causes the most effective type of whiplash. The entire game is turned on its head after opening the Door of Time, where Link's quest is no longer about preventing a catastrophe, but saving Hyrule from one that has already occurred.
Iconic Video Game Doors - Fallout 3
When the player sees this ramshackle door in Fallout 3, they have just exited Vault 101 through a more technologically impressive door that seals the vault's entrance. This simple gate, however, is the player character's literal and figurative emergence from the cave. Despite the orders of the Overseer, the Lone Wanderer escapes Bethesda's introductory Fallout 3 setting, a vault in which they've been confined their entire life, to push past this final barrier and reveal the desolate landscape where their adventure will truly begin.
Iconic Video Game Doors - Resident Evil
The iconic doors of Resident Evil don't just come from a single game, but have become recognizable because as a recurring motif. The earlier Resident Evil games featured opening doors as loading screens between rooms, and traversing the maze-like worlds of Capcom's early survival horror titles meant watching dozens of doors open on the screen. Resident Evil 7 was a triumphant return to the series' roots, and thus also prominently featured doors throughout the labyrinthine halls of the Baker house.
Iconic Video Game Doors - BioShock Infinite
The BioShock series is known for its game worlds. The descent to Rapture and the ascent to Columbia are both memorable moments, but BioShock Infinite has the most impactful door opening. Booker DeWitt sees Columbia at a distance when taken to the sky in a rocket, but doesn't get a close look at the city until his baptism and subsequent stroll through a garden. The true scope of Columbia is revealed when DeWitt opens a door to a stunning vista of the floating city.
Iconic Video Game Doors - Dark Souls
Defeating the Asylum Demon in Dark Souls grants the player the Big Pilgrim Key, which opens the huge door that leads to the rest of the game. Even the tutorial area in the Undead Asylum can be unforgiving for new players, and opening the big door at its end grants the sense of accomplishment the series is celebrated for. One truly feels like the Chosen Undead upon leaving the Asylum, at least until the long journey's bleak realities are uncovered by the punishing hours that follow.