Techno Wreckage

A high-tech area that is abandoned and in disrepair. Expect to see exposed wires, damaged wires that screw with the power, bad lighting that is most likely powered through the damaged wiring, and at least one puzzle devoted to restoring power. Don't expect to see sentient Mooks here; you may find rats or some fantastic vermin that have been chewing the wiring, various mutant monsters, and security drones (that will only turn on after the above mentioned "restore the power" puzzle), but expect your biggest foe to be the environment. Scary all around (or at least it keeps you on edge). This one is rarely found in linear titles, because a key factor in these levels is exploration.

Examples of Techno Wreckage include:

• Ghostbusters has Shandor Island. Granted, it's not high-tech by our 21st Century standards, but Egon notes that Ivo Shandor was considered the paranormal expert of his time. There's a lot of fun stuff to look out for here, like open vats of highly toxic black slime (with ghosts and other assorted beasties emerging from the Black Slime portals), cosmic machinery powered by said slime, loads of Iron Maidens, and an astral orrery with a Juvenile Giant Slor imprisoned underneath. If that's a Juvenile Slor, you'd hate to see how big they get when fully grown...
• Deus Ex has the Ocean Lab, where after Illuminati sabotage half the place is submerged, turrets automatically fire at anything and can't be turned off (in the rest of the game they only attack after an alarm activates) and MJ12 experiments have been released from their cages. Walton Simons who follows you here, is the only human (at least, living human) other than JC Denton in the whole underwater segment.
  • The Nameless Mod has both Shadowcode's level and Deus Ex Incarnate. The first is one that you are actually trying to shut it down completely. The 2nd also contains both lava and is underground
• The abandoned ship in Super Metroid is a typical example, with everything listed above.
  • There's also the crashed Space Pirate frigate in Metroid Prime, and the GFS Valhalla in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The Valhalla probably takes the cake among the three as far as scariness goes, what with freaktastic music, corpses everywhere (with scans revealing how they died), dreadful Phazon monsters in every room, and more Metroids in this one area than has been seen in the entire franchise except possibly Tourian in the original game.
  • The B.S.L of Metroid Fusion starts becoming technowreckage the longer Samus is there, culminating in her ramming it into a planet. Worse, the WHOLE game takes place inside it.
• 2300 AD in Chrono Trigger has pretty much everything listed above.
• The Glow in Fallout is a typical example, with no other NPCs except the security bots (that are inactive for the most part, and can be turned off at the same console the power is activated through) and a friendly computer AI (that provides some interesting back story) and it's highly radioactive all around (lingering to play chess with the AI is considered harmful). The two abandoned vaults also qualify. The Sierra army depot in the sequel also qualifies.
  • Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas provide more abandoned vaults, alongside with Apocalyptic Logs to detail exactly how bad things went.
• Warhammer 40,000's Space Hulks are Techno Wreckage Ghost Ships.
• The Tower of Geddon from Chrono Cross.
• Several environments in Xenosaga probably qualify, as well, including every time you visit Miltia.
• The 1st Edition Traveller adventures Annic Nova and Death Ship, with the title derelict ships which the PCs explore.
• The Morrow Project adventure Prime Base. The PCs must enter and restore the title base to working order.
• Star Trek Generations. The Amargosa observatory is Techno Wreckage after the Romulans get through with it.
• Both System Shock games consist entirely of Techno Wreckage, except for when you enter a Womb Level inside a Techno Wreckage, and when you hack in Cyberspace, from an interface in the Techno Wreckage.
• The Secret Of The Nautilus, a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, is set in the abandoned Nautilus, the only humans being the player and a madman trying to bring it down.
• Skies of Arcadia has a very light version of this in the early areas of the final dungeon. As these outer areas have been exposed to the elements for centuries, they have decayed dramatically. the deeper you go, the more clean and pristine the tech becomes.
• The Lost Colony Level in Sonic Adventure 2.
  • The Bad Future levels in Sonic CD are a result of Dr Eggman taking over the Little Planet.
• Possibly averted in La-Mulana, where most of the ruins are...well, in ruins, but one of the few areas not in ruins—the Tower of the Goddess—appears to be a high-tech area in pristine condition with futuristic interior lighting and even monitor screens still running.
• The abandoned gas mines on Ord Ibanna in Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer, which also qualify as a World in the Sky.
• In Gradius Gaiden, one level takes place in a wrecked Bacterian Mothership.
• The Derelict Ship in Adventures Of Rad Gravity.
• Non-videogame example: the lowest levels in any high-tech city in Star Wars. Coruscant is essentially a pristine ultra-hi-tech city standing on a layer of decaying buildings and destroyed electrical conduits. Nar Shaddaa is even more so, in that even its highest levels aren't pristine at all, and the decay starts from the second level downwards - the lowest levels are filled with sewage, destroyed pipework and mutant abominations.
• These sorts of wreckages are strewn about the New Zealand film The Quiet Earth in its visual composition, and also affect the plot...or action, however little there is.
• More or less everywhere in The Dig.
• In one of the Norby books, the titular robot and his companion end up prisoner in an underwater city belonging to the enigmatic Invaders. After a few adventures they end up accessing the deeper, forbidden levels of the city, where they find that not only is the whole area long abandoned, in severe disrepair and leaking all over the place, but the survival of the newer side of the city is entirely dependant on the progressively failing machinery housed in the old area. The Invaders go "uh-oh".
• The Space Junk Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy is a subversion. It's a deep space debris field that feels peaceful and idyllic, having its own Unkempt Beauty.
• Portal 2 starts with the first game's Enrichment Center in this state (thanks to the Chell and the player last time round, and an indefinite period of neglect), though GLaDOS clears up a lot of it during Act One.
• One of the early dungeons of Opoona is the destroyed wreckage of a dome that's been overrun with monsters.
• City of Heroes and City of Villains had the various "abandoned base" and "abandoned office building" maps, although the former are better examples of this trope. Both were prone to bare and sparking power lines, dim lighting, crumbling walls, and open fires, and guaranteed to be populated with your favorite enemy type. Some abandoned bases were partially collapsed, had upheaved and unlevel floors, corridors filled with earth and rocks, and even broken elevators that required you to jump down their shafts to get to the next level.
• Tabletop Games example: The original Dungeons and Dragons module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks revolved around a "dungeon" which was actually a jettisoned section from an alien starship.