Summary
- Open-world games have hidden shortcuts for fast travel to balance freedom and convenience.
- Metal Gear Solid 5 offers fast travel with balloons & boxes, making missions quicker.
- The Sims 3 allows zeneport meditation for Sims to teleport after meditating.
Open-world games offer players the glorious promise of a continuous, loading-screen free landscape that goes on for miles and miles. This limitless freedom is exhilarating for the first few hours, but after a while, a way to quickly load in another location can be somewhat preferable.
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Perhaps as a way to satiate both the need for the illusion of space and the convenience of skipping directly to a destination, some sneaky developers have laced their massive worlds with a hidden interstace of secret shortcuts that only the most eagle-eyed travelers will spot.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - Balloons & Boxes
A Special Delivery Full Of Venom
Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain
- Released
- September 1, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Stealth, Action-Adventure, Shooter, Adventure
While the recently-resuscitated (and punished) Snake begins his mission to rebuild Mother Base in Afganistan with nothing but a white horse, the open-world design of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain allows him to eventually procure just about any vehicle, animal, object, and person with the help of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system. While Snake can call a helecopter back to base, this can be time consuming and locationally restrictive. Eventually, Snake will be able to attach a balloon to huge objects, such as tanks and cargo containers.
Doing so is a fast and easy way to exfiltrate out of a hot zone during a mission, but it can be tricky to pull off, as soldiers will shoot down the balloon if they see it. There is also another secret fast travel option: the classic MGS gadget, the cardboard box. If Snake can find delivery locations (marked by the orange platform and sign) and steal their invoice sheets, he will unlock them as fast travel spots. Simply slapping their address on his box on one of these platforms is a quick way to get around the map.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Dawnguard) - The Ferry Network
Skimming The Sea Of Skyrim
Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 93 /100 Critics Rec: 99%
- Released
- September 1, 2015
- ESRB
- m
- Developer(s)
- Konami, Kojima Productions
- Publisher(s)
- Konami
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Stealth, Action-Adventure, Shooter, Adventure
Fast travel is available to players in Skyrim from anywhere, provided they have already visited the place they wish to load to. However, there are ways to get around besides going there on horseback or on foot. One way to skip all of Skyrim's scenic vistas is by carriage, which teleports players to a city for a small fee.
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Skyrim may be mostly mountains and snowy fjords, but there are coasts with ferrymen that offer the Last Dragonborn passage across the sea. These ferrymen can be found in Windhelm, Dawnstar, and Solitude. Perhaps because the feature was added during the "Dawnguard" expansion, it is not widely know about, but it makes for a nice change of pace on a new playthrough.
Minecraft - Ender Pearl Stasis Chamber
The Fastest Way Back To Spawn Besides Dying
Minecraft
- Released
- November 18, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
Thanks to Nether portals, the elytra, and some wacky redstone inventions, Minecraft players have been finding a way to break the game's speed limit for over a decade. Besides cheats, the ender pearl stasis chamber might be the fastest transportation method available. The only problem is that it is one-way only and comes with a few caveats for use. The premise for the mechanism is that thrown ender pearls, an item that teleports players wherever it lands, float on bubble columns in water blocks.
Throwing one onto bubbling water causes it to be suspended in the air until it touches solid ground. A redstone piston or water bucket dispensor can be used to retract the water, causing the pearl to fall and recalling the player. This only works if the pearl lands on a loaded chunk, but thankfully, the spawn chunk (the player's origin) is always loaded. A day / night sensor is one way to yank back to base before night arrives and the monsters come out, but redstone clocks and other useful redstone designs can be used to trigger other recall conditions.
Just Cause 3 - Portal Silos
Stargating Across Medici
Just Cause 3
- Released
- November 30, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Third-Person Shooter
Travelling around in Just Cause 3, whether it be via car, parachute, or wingsuit, is the central joy of the game, besides creating explosions and chaos. However, the game's map is enormous, and getting from one corner to another can be quite time consuming. Thankfully, there are helpful (and inexplicable) portals in Insula Dracon, Insula Fonte, and Insula Straite that connect with one another.
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The portals are found at the bottom of silos and can only be accessed once a code has been entered to nearby panels. The code for Insula Dracon (on the mountain above the Porto Darsena base in Trio, written on nearby silo plans, is 1-4-3-4-2-1. The silo code in Costa Sud is 1-4-3-4-2-1, and the Feno silo code is 2-3-3-2-2-3. The routes are somewhat limited, but it is the fastest way to get across Just Cause 3's map.
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind - Dwemmer Propylon Chambers
A Fast Travel Method As Mysterious As The Dwarves
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Released
- May 1, 2002
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood, Violence
- Genre(s)
- RPG
Morrowind is famous for its lack of handholding when it comes to travel and exploration, although there are three main ways to get around, if the player can find them in the open world: silt striders, boats, and mage guild teleportation. There are also mark and recall spells that allow players to set their own teleportation tagets, and intervention spells are a one-way ticket to temples. However, Morrowind contains an obscure fast-travel option known only to scholars of Dwarven lore or long-vanished Dwemmer themselves.
It may not be quite as useful as the other transportation methods, but it is cool nontheless. Every Dwemmer stronghold, barring one, Kogoruhn, contains a "propylon chamber," which allows anyone with the correct propylon index (essentially a ticket to one of the two adjacent chambers) to travel instantly. Bethesda's official "Dunmer Strongholds" mini-DLC gives Morrowind players the chance to earn the master index, allowing free travel between every stronghold.
The Sims 3 (World Adventures) - Zeneport Meditation & Tranquil Transferance
Transcending Not Just Body And Mind But Location, Too
The Sims 3
- Released
- June 2, 2009
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Crude Humor, Sexual Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
After two generations of being stuck inside, The Sims 3 finally allowed Sims to leave the house and explore their beautiful, idyllic surroundings. The "World Adventures" expansion pack expanded those surroundings even further, not just physically but mentally. Sims that engaged in meditation, an activity gained by studying marial arts, could gain the ability to teleport to anywhere on the map.
Sims must mediate for around four hours until they are able to shift from one place to another, but Sims that are particularly good at zeneportation can gain the "tranquil transferance" power, which allows them do zeneport much faster and after much less meditation time.
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