Hub areas have long been a mainstay in role-playing video games.
From the castle of Super Mario 64 to the Nexus in Demon Souls, games have benefited from the presence of a safe central area. Over time, the role of these spaces has evolved from a simple space to link various levels into an area where NPCs congregate and players can level up before getting back to the gameplay.
Let’s take a look at how these spaces have evolved over time and the various ways new games have added to and even subverted the idea of a safe haven.
Hubs as Safe Spaces
In most games, the primary role of the hub is to act as a safe area. There, the danger of losing progress or resources is temporarily relieved. Players can return in between fighting enemies and gathering in-game currency and often provide opportunities to spend their resources. Firelink Shrine in the original Dark Souls comes to mind when one thinks about this kind of hub. As the player navigates the world they meet NPCs and can send them back to the shrine. They can later act as merchants and provide dialogue to inform the player’s next actions.
It’s a place of respite compared to the stress present in the other dangerous areas of the game world, where death and the loss of one’s souls is a constant worry. In games like this that keep the player on edge, it’s important to provide places they can feel safe. At least, for a while.
Hubs as Familiar Sights
Sticking with the Dark Souls franchise, Dark Souls 2 offered a mechanically similar hub in the form of Majula, a small abandoned town by the coast. While DS2 is often considered the weakest of the games in the franchise, Majula is one consistent point of praise the game gets from players. Not only does it provide a safe place with NPCs to talk to and barter with, but also acts as an aesthetically pleasing setting with its own secrets.
Majula includes several areas which start off blocked but can be explored later on as the player gets further into the game. It makes the area more than just a liminal space between dangerous parts of the game and turns it into its own area for exploration. And this kind of innovation on the hub mechanic would not be exclusive to the Dark Souls franchise. Other games would put their own spins on the idea of a safe haven.
Subversion of the Safe Haven
With hub areas as such a staple of the game industry, developers can subvert player’s expectations by changing elements of those spaces. One way that some games do that is to violate the implied safety of these safe spaces by having enemies barge in. Horror games especially benefit from this trope.
Resident Evil 2‘s safe rooms act as a notable example, particularly in the part of the game where you go up against Mr. X. Mr. X follows you relentlessly, often coming around corners at unexpected times or lurching up from stairwells to surprise the player.
But one of the scariest things he can do is attempt to follow you into your safe room. This is a place where you have been conditioned to feel safe, a reprieve from the horrors you are up against. So when you rush back in and try to close the door only to have Mr. X peek his head in after you, it comes as quite a shock.
Of course, in this instance, Mr. X can’t actually get to you, so this acts as more of a fun jump scare than a lasting game mechanic. But other games, including some in the Resident Evil franchise, would build on this idea of an enemy that can always reach you.
Games without a Safe Place
One of the most iconic games that builds on this idea is Alien: Isolation. Infamously, Isolation‘s save mechanic is just as if not more stressful than other parts of the game, since it leaves you vulnerable for multiple seconds to the Xenomorph’s attacks.
In order to save their progress, players must stand in front of a brightly lit panel for several seconds while facing away from their surroundings. The Xenomorph can easily take advantage of this moment of vulnerability and kill you, potentially causing you to lose progress at the exact time you are trying to make it.
In a way, Alien: Isolation perfectly exemplifies how hub areas are important for certain games, as well as how their absence can improve others. The game benefits immensely from the constant feelings of worry that you will get killed by the Xenomorph hunting you. Not just because it is a scary monster: it represents the very real threat of lost time and lost progress.
At the same time, other games would obviously have a huge issue if they tried to use this kind of design. The Dark Souls franchise is also designed to exert some pressure on the player, but it is a more long-form experience and the tension needs to be broken up occasionally.
The Future of Hubs in RPGs
Hub areas will undoubtedly continue to appear in video games. Baldur’s Gate 3, which just came out last year, features an already-iconic moving hub area in the form of your group’s camp. With some encounters that can invade this space as well as plenty of well-written NPCs to occupy it, it’s clear that the developers pulled inspiration from multiple previous iterations of the feature.
And it’s hardly alone. Plenty of more recent games, from The Last of Us II to Hades to Elden Ring have their own versions of a hub. As games continue to evolve off one another, we will likely see the mechanics of the hub shift. But they will all still draw some inspiration from those early titles which defined the space.
