Warp Whistle

A quick shortcut to enable rapid travel in an open-world setting. Most often, it allows travel between a set of fixed points, or to those points from anywhere in the game world. In a lot of games, these points are co-located with Save Points. In some cases, using the Warp Whistle is the only way to reach certain areas.

In most cases, destinations become unlocked when the player visits them the old-fashioned way first. There is sometimes a monetary charge for the trip.

Compare and contrast Global Airship. While the Global Airship is awarded late in the game, it has wide-ranging freedom of movement. The Warp Whistle has very fixed destinations, more of which become unlocked in play, but it is generally available at an early point. A helpful comparison: The airship is a private helicopter, and the Warp Whistle is a subway pass.

If the Warp Whistle is available as an item, it may be restricted to usage in "overworld" locations only (outdoor settings like towns or the World Map), and fail to do anything if the player attempts to use it during a Dungeon Crawl. Its in-dungeon counterpart would be the Escape Rope, whose function is limited to teleporting the player out of the dungeon in question (after which, the player may use the Warp Whistle).

Often overlaps with Point and Click Map, in that a Warp Whistle may call up such map (instead of showing a list of known locations) but is not always required to access it.

Also see Sprint Shoes, Warp Zone, Portal Network, Mook Bouncer, Door to Before. Compare Fast Forward Mechanic for skipping over time.

Examples of Warp Whistle include:
  • Donkey Kong Country:
    • The first two games have "Funky's Flights", in which Funky Kong would allow the Kongs to rent his barrel plane to fly to areas around the map. Of course, you could only travel to levels you'd already visited.
    • In Donkey Kong Country 3, getting all the DK Coins in the game allows you to obtain the Gyrocopter, which allowed you to travel to any location on the World Map and access secret areas.
    • Donkey Kong 64 offers you up to five pairs of warp pads in both the overworld and the levels themselves, each pair labelled with a number. There are even warp pads exclusive to Tiny Kong—they have Tiny's face on them, and you'd only use them when you pay a visit to Cranky Kong at a certain point and get the potion required to use them.
  • Zelda series has one in almost every game, usually based on a musical item that is often the central mystical artifact of the game:
    • In the original The Legend of Zelda, use of the "magic whistle" item would transport Link via friendly tornado to the entrance of a random dungeon. Blowing it repeatedly would allow you to get to your destination, or at least closer. Also there was a power bracelet available earlier which allowed Link to go between 4 different hidden doors around the overworld.
    • In The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past, using the Flute-Playing Boy's instrument allowed Link to summon a bird, which could carry you to one of the eight preset locations in the overworld, one of which is the otherwise-inaccessable warp to the Dark World's sixth dungeon . Even before this is acquired, once Link purchases the flippers from the King Zora, he can use the whirlpool vortices scattered throughout Hyrule's waterways as a rapid transport system. These were limited, however, in that any given vortex will only take you to one other vortex, with no way to choose and no randomizing.
    • The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening had a quartet of warp points that could be opened up. "Manbo's Mambo" also allowed you to teleport to the home of Crazy Tracy, or to the beginning of a dungeon you were inside. It's a godsend if you plan to exploit the screen-skipping glitch.
    • The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time's titular instrument had many magical functions that Link activated by playing various songs. Each major area had a temple marked by a dais with a sigil on the ground, and there was a unique song for each that could carry Link there from almost anywhere in the Hyrule overworld. The Shadow Temple could only be reached this way.
    • The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask featured owl statues that could be "awakened" with a sword strike. Thereafter, the ocarina's "Song of Soaring" could be used to transport Link via Perpetual Molt Stock Footage to any statue so awakened.
    • The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games had seeds which could be cracked open to make a friendly tornado. Once in the upper atmosphere you could choose where you wanted to land.
    • The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker had a magical conductor's baton, the titular Wind Waker, that could be used to conduct various songs. There weren't so many as for the Ocarina, but the one called the Ballad of Gales, after Link learns it from the god of storms, allows him to summon a whirlwind that will deposit him and his boat in one of eight areas of the player's choosing. This is different from many other examples, as the exact landing point within the area is somewhat randomized. One of the destinations puts Link down inside an otherwise inaccessible grotto on a sheer-walled island, where he can receive a valued quest-relevant gift from the Queen of the Faeries (Which also rendered this warp point useless for any other purpose).
    • Also in Wind Waker, within the dungeons are pots that must be bombed to open up. If you can open up a pair of similar-colored pots, you can jump into one and spring out the other. This was not only good for leaving the game and returning easily to where you were, but there was usually one outside the boss' door.
    • The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap had a set of transport tiles, opened up gradually across the land as the game goes on. Playing the ocarina would summon a bird to carry Link to them.
    • The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass allowed you to warp from place to place on the sea using golden frogs, which would give you the symbol for a given point after you'd caught them.
    • In The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, a set of portals positioned throughout the world serve as handy rapid-transit. Midna can carry Link through them, but only in his wolf form. Each one appears along with an Inescapable Ambush of shadow creatures.
    • The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks has a series of fixed warp gates set up in various places along the titular train tracks, each of which must be activated by a shot from the Spirit Train's cannon before it can be used, then turned on by blowing your train whistle.
    • The bird statues from Majora's Mask return in The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, letting you warp to any that have been activated.
  • They're also very common in the Super Mario Bros. series, starting with the "Warp Zone" in the original.
    • Super Mario Bros 3, the Trope Namer, referenced the original Legend of Zelda, even down to the tune. The whistles are three hard-to-find, single-use items, that when blown would transport the player to a special warp-pipe-infested map, that could carry him to a later level. Could actually be used to skip most of the game—as demonstrated in this Speed Run.
    • Super Mario World has the Star World, which allows Mario or Luigi to travel between any two of five star-shaped locations on the map once the bonus levels are beaten. This allowed for an even greater game-skip than Super Mario Bros 3's Warp Whistles. Upon reaching the first Star World warp, you were literally 4 levels away (3 if you don't count the one that's barely a screen long) from Bowser's Castle.
    • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga has nine warp pipes throughout the Beanbean Kingdom. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story has Bowser (for Mario and Luigi) and Chakroad (for Bowser)
    • Paper Mario has the Toad Town Tunnels. Usually you use a power, item or character unlocked in an area to open up the pipe to that area.
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has the Rogueport Sewers, which have pipes to the areas you've visited in the same way as the sewers in the first game (complete with them opening up when you get new items/powers/characters).
  • Most Mega Man games of the classic mold had a set of discrete stages, but the Mega Man Zero and ZX series on the GBA and DS have an open world, where any area can be walked to eventually from any other, with some exceptions. In these games, Trans Servers serve as Save Points and a method of getting around faster. In ZX, there are also consoles without transport functionality, used exclusively to save and access missions.
  • Pretty much any Metroidvania Castlevania game will have something akin to the above example's Trans Servers, except without the save function. They take on various forms - Aria of Sorrow had a strange face tile that would suck Soma into it, and spit him out at his intented destination. Order of Ecclesia had a giant goblet thing that had a huge sphere of water hovering over it, and after the warp, the drops fall down to the ground.
    • Harmony of Dissonance has TWO types of warp rooms: rooms that transported you to a set location, and others that were linked together.
  • Nethack has a powerful amulet (Not The Amulet, which is the goal of the game: The second best) known as the Eye of the Aethiopica, which has, among other things, the power to instantly warp the player to other dungeon branches. It can only be used every so often, though.
    • It also contains a Magic Whistle, which warps your pet to your side, provided you and the pet are on the same floor of the dungeon.
  • In King's Quest VI, Alexander receives a magic map which allows him to teleport between the Green Isles. It only works when used at the shore.
  • In Kingdom Hearts, flying the Shoot Em Ups level along a path between worlds allows the Gummi Ship to warp between them directly from then on, once the Warp Gummi had been acquired. Throughout the entire game, as long as Sora has the Gummi Ship, he can exit to it from any save point, then turn right around and select the world he's already on, and enter from any other save point, for a quick way to get around within a world. In the sequel, this is simplified further; finishing the path opens up the destination world on the overworld screen.
  • The Cullis gates from Fable.
    • And by extension, the Guild Seal.
  • The mermaid springs in Okami. Also, certain save points after you purchase a particular item.
  • The ancient transporters scattered around in Breath of Fire III, and the teleport-to-any-explored-town spell in I and II.
  • Diablo II has a "waypoint" in nearly every zone (including towns and enemy lairs), which can instantly teleport the player to any other waypoint in the game. However, as the zones are sorted according to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, only two waypoints are typically used: one in the town, the other in the most advanced zone so far.
    • Diablo III continues this, except you can no longer travel by waypoint back to previous acts.
  • World of Warcraft has flying mounts, which function like waypoints to major cities throughout a single continent, except that the flights cost money and are not instantaneous, as well as ships, zeppelins and a tram which provide free transport. Certain classes can create portals to certain major cities for other players or 'summon' other players. A high-level city contains free portals to old-world destinations. There's also the hearthstones, Astrall Recall (the Shaman spell that is essentially a Hearthstone that doesn't take up inventory space and has a much shorter cooldown period), Teleport Moonglade, all the Mage capital city teleportation spells, and meeting stones. Yet another portal ability, the Death Gate, was created for Death Knights to get back to Ebon Hold for training and Runeforging. Even dungeons aren't immune. The latest raid dungeon Ulduar has teleporters inside it that unlock as you defeat the bosses next to them, although they reset every week.
  • Some games provide both spells that can teleport the character to the outskirts of any town previously visited, and purchaseable items that provide the same effect.
    • Dragon Quest (a.k.a. Dragon Warrior) games. "Zoom" allows you to warp to any city (and some other places) you've already visited on foot. Provided that you have a clear sky above you so the Hero can warp out vertically; if you attempt to use it indoors (or even when standing under something such as a balcony), it will merely result in the Hero crashing his head against the ceiling and tumbling right back down to the ground. The chimaera wing item has the same effect. "Outside" allows the player to warp back to the entrances of dungeons.
    • Phantasy Star. Phantasy Star 2 also had teleport stations. Phantasy Star Online had an item called the "telepipe" which, when activated, transported the player's entire party back to "town"/"base". The 'pipe would stay open until the player who had activated it returned through it. Comes in quite handy when you're low on health/energy and almost out of restoration items, and you know or suspect that there's a boss waiting in the next room.
    • Most of the Wild ARMs games have "Teleport Orbs" or a Teleport spell that lets you revisit old locations. Some only warp to towns, but some let you warp anywhere. Some of the games also have a system of ancient ruins that contain teleporters to other ruins, in addition to the teleport orbs, often used to travel to new areas. And both of the first two games rely on you breaking the teleporters in order to reach a new optional area. In Wild ARMs 1 you have to damage the ancient ruins before teleporting in order to reach the Bonus Dungeon. And in Wild ARMs 2 you have to use the teleport orb while a party member who has been shown to be unlucky with teleportation is in the the front of the party to reach someone who can teach you higher level magic.
    • The Lufia series.
    • Betrayal at Krondor.
  • Morrowind features intercity travel by silt strider—a giant insect, lobotomized and "driven" by manipulating exposed muscle tendons. Passengers ride in the beast's hollowed-out shell. which is just a Tamriel version of public transit.
    • In addition to warps in the form of guild guides (transport to any other guild), Propylon Chambers (each one to two other strongholds, of which there are several - you need an item in order to use these), and mark and recall (if put into an item, a literal warp whistle). And boats. And Intervention spells, which would lead you to one of two types of temple. Not to mention the mods that add insta-teleportation items or teleporting houses or whathaveyou. Morrowind is the most Warp Whistley game ever.
    • Oblivion on the other hand simply gives you a map with markers on it, which at the beginning only has major cities marked, and a marker is added the first time you visit a place. You can then fast travel to that location anytime, although for all intents and purposes the game assumes you walked/rode your horse there and a certain amount of time has passed (though this is a moot point, since none of the player's objectives have a time limit).
    • Fallout 3, also by Bethesda, used essentially the same system as Oblivion, although in this case no locations were marked from the beginning.
    • Daggerfall had a map system, where cities were marked from the start but the player is not limited to travelling to marked locations. Of course, given the sheer size of the map, not using it was rather impractical, so the de facto warp whistles were the various ways to go faster (the time passed mattered in Daggerfall, thanks to time limits for quests) - Recall spells, buying horses, sleeping at inns,[1] going by boat (bought or voyage paid for) or using the Mages Guild' Teleporter service (like the Guild Guides of Morrowind, only a) free, b) requiring a high rank in the Guild, c) teleporting you to any location on the map rather than to another Guild Guide).
    • Skyrim uses the same system as Oblivion, except that the player cannot fast-travel to major cities immediately. However, they can rent rides between these cities on a horse and cart for a price that feels expensive in the first couple of hours, but quickly becomes nominal. Once the cities have been discovered, the player can fast-travel to them like any other location. This seems to have two mild benefits: it makes the player feel they have to "earn" the right to visit each location, either through effort or coin, and it allows players following a "no fast-travel" rule to move between cities without spending about an hour on the journey.
  • The Warp Whistle in Secret of Evermore looks like a Global Airship, but can only land at fixed locations.
  • Guild Wars allows for "map travel", that is, the ability to warp instantly and without cost, to and from any town or outpost one has already visited.
  • The Region Map in SaGa Frontier and practically all the World Maps in the Romancing SaGa series.
  • Rogue Galaxy uses this by a system of Save Points that they call Transporters. These are panels that allow the player to warp to almost anywhere they need—which is a highly recommended style of travel, because Jaster and his friends walk at an unusually slow pace.
  • While the Final Fantasy series generally prefers a Global Airship, some installments feature Warp Whistle like functionality.
    • Final Fantasy X and its sequel do not feature a World Map for the player to roam around on, so the Global Airship functions similarly to a Warp Whistle. To a lesser extent, in a few places, such as Zanarkand and the tomb of the stolen fayth, small stone plates in the ground can teleport a person back and forth from the beginning of the area to the end.
    • Final Fantasy XII has orange Save Points called "Gate Crystals" which allow the player to teleport to other Gate Crystals, for the cost of one warp stone per trip.
    • Final Fantasy XIII similarly has the brown Cie'th Stones, which teleport the party to other such Stones across this vastness of Gran Pulse (for free but only after you complete their respective missions).
  • The HM move Fly in Pokémon, as well as Teleport and Dig to a lesser extent.
    • Fly allows you to warp to any city you've already visited, Teleport takes you to the last Pokémon Center you used; Dig and the Escape Rope item both return you to the entrance of whatever dungeon you may be in but do nothing in the overworld.
    • Also the Magnet Train and S.S. Aqua in Gold and Silver and their remakes, which travel between the Johto and Kanto regions.
  • The subway and the L-train in Grand Theft Auto III, the train and the airports in San Andreas and the taxicabs in Vice City and GTA IV. The later games also allowed you to "trip skip" to mission locations.
  • Metroid Prime 2 enabled, after all Temples were restored, to travel between them by climbing into the Pillar of Light of each one.
  • Metroid Prime 3 finally gives the gunship a use besides saving and replenishing ammo: Cutting back on the incredibly high amount of backtracking in the first two games. There are still only a few areas with open sky access where it can land, including a few at the bottom of mile-long ventilation shafts.
  • By the end of its run City of Heroes/City of Villains had several.
    • First was the monorail in Paragon City. Initially a pair of transit loops that took you among five or six neighborhoods each, with one and later two zones being reached by both. This serves as a faster alternative to simply walking between city zones. The stations also served as safe havens, since they are guarded by uber-powerful drones that vaporized any baddies chasing you.
    • Similarly, the ferries of the Rogue Islands.
      • Toward the end of the game's life, the monorails and ferries were changed so that all destinations were available from each one.
    • The next was the Pocket D VIP pass—people of a certain level or who'd bought certain expansions got a power that teleported your character to an Inn Between the Worlds that provided connections to a few other zones. Then there were the superbase teleporters—as your supergroup gained exploration badges and the beacons they granted, you gained the ability to simply enter your base and use its teleporters to go to any zone you wanted. And the Base Teleporter power freed you from having to run to (or even find!) the Base entrance in a zone.
    • With the addition of Ouroboros and the flashback system, Ouroboros itself became a convenient waystation that could be reached from literally anywhere and could send you to most any zone.
    • The advanced "Long Range Teleport" power also enables the user to teleport between zones, though it has a long cooldown.
    • The Mission Teleporter (which came in both a temporary version with limited charges, and a permanent version as a veteran reward) would drop you right on the doorstep of any mission that was actually entered through a door.
    • Later came the Team Teleporter, which did the same thing for your entire team at once.
    • "Assemble the Team" was a power which let you Warp Whistle other people to your location.
    • For the clever veteran, there were far easier ways to get about than rushing between trains.
  • Banjo-Kazooie has four pairs of Warp Cauldrons, which must both be activated before they can be used. Banjo-Tooie instead uses a network of Silos in Isle o' Hags and warp pads within the real levels. (The warp pads are not just for the player's convenience: they are practically necessary for solving some of the game's Timed Mission puzzles.)
  • Going through the Hive in the early game of Planescape: Torment can get irritating. Thankfully, some shortcuts become available at about the midway point.
  • I Wanna Be the Guy has one room where you can warp to any area you been to, assuming that you beat the area boss.
  • Freelancer has three kinds of Warp Whistle: Trade Lanes, which travel within solar systems, Jump Gates, which connect different systems, and Jump Holes, which are natural Jump Gates. Trade Lanes can be disrupted, however.
  • All of the Might and Magic games have the spell Town Portal, which (as the name indicates) creates a portal to the city of choices. In the five DOS games you could pick any town on the map from the beginning of the game. In later games the spell only gave you a choice of which town to go to at higher levels. The 3rd, 4th and 5th game also had the Magic Mirrors, which could teleport you to various places around the world, although in the 3rd game you had to find the words of passage by thoroughly exploring the world (in World if Xeen most of the words of passage were on the map that came with the game)
    • In the same games, there was also a spell called Lloyd's Beacon, which would allow you to pick a spot to set a beacon so you could return to it later. It's pretty much a customizeable warp whistle.
  • Dark Sun had various obelisks scattered around its world. Each one could be activated by putting its corresponding gem in it. Once this is done the party can teleport back to this obelisk at any time.
  • Tabula Rasa has warpgates between planets and dropships between bases on the same planet, but one must physically travel to a given warp point before being able to use it, reasoned as a security measure to insure that their enemies can't infiltrate the portal network. But since the enemies are the buglike Thraxx, one might argue it'd be easier just to not let anyone bug-like use the ships.
  • The three Shin Megami Tensei games have "Terminal Rooms" in key locations. You can use a Terminal Room to teleport to any other Terminal Room you've already visited.
  • Tales of Symphonia has "quick jump" points scattered throughout the game, most often in places the player backtracks through after having cleared previously. Lloyd, in a bit of Breaking the Fourth Wall, even wonders aloud why there isn't a quick jump in a particular area of the game Tower of Mana. Naturally, the other members of the party have no clue what he's referring to...
  • Rare non-game example: in the comic book The Authority, the titular superhero organization has access to an interdimensional ship that can open portals for them to and from anywhere from the ship, when someone on the ship's chosen crew (the Authority, in this case) says, "Door." The Authority soon realize the potential of such, and quickly jump on the opportunity to get the drop on anyone, anywhere, tackling not just other supers but the armies of aggressive nations and acts of genocide, to name just a few such problems.
  • Cartoon Network Universe:Fusionfall has two: the SCAMPER (from Kids Next Door) and monkeys that fly using jetpacks (from the Powerpuff Girls). While you need to register by speaking to the attendant at both ends for both types, only the SCAMPER could cross area boundaries.
  • Golden Sun has the late-game Teleport-psyenergy, which teleports you between the towns when on the world map and lets you access BonusDungeons. There's also Retreat, a power the hero has by default, allowing you to warp back to the beginning of any dungeon unless there's a plot point otherwise.
  • The seventh installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series allows Larry to simply pick a point on the map and skip all the tedious walking between.
  • Ultima Online has the mage spells Recall, Mark, and Gate Travel. Mark lets you save your current coordinates on a small item called a rune. Recall lets you instantly travel to any location you have a rune for. Gate Travel lets you open a moongate connected to that location, letting you and anyone else instantly travel back and forth for the duration of the spell.
    • The Ultima series has usually had these, starting from the second game's "Time gates," and the Moongates from the third onward, keyed to the phases of the moons. The fourth and fifth games have the Gate Travel spell, allowing the player's party to move to the location of any moongate. The sixth has the Moonstone, an inventory item that opens a special gate to any other moongate - and the moongates are movable by the player.
  • MOTHER and EarthBound put a unique twist on the concept with PSI Teleport α and, just in EarthBound, PSI Teleport β. Teleport α has you run along a straight line to build up energy before you can teleport to your selected location, but if you crash into any obstacle in your path, you stop (pitch black and covered in soot) and the move fails. Teleport β, on the other hand, is also known as the 'Tornado Teleport', as you run in an outward spiral pattern, and so are less likely to run into something.
  • The most recent Red Faction allows you to teleport to any safehouse in the game after you buy the upgrade.
  • In Suikoden Viki and the Blinking Mirror acts as a warp Whistle, instantly teleporting the characters to any town or major area in the game. A godsend with the game's awkward/slow overland travel.
  • The portable Harvest Moon games - starting with Friends Of Mineral Town have the Teleport Stone, which allows you to teleport any unlocked area on your main map.
  • Exit Fate gives you an item that brings you back to your base, and it's possible to get a teleporter installed there that lets you go anywhere you've already been.
  • EVE Online lets space-owning alliances in 0.0 deploy "jump bridges" to connect systems that would otherwise take several normal jumps to reach.
    • Moving a character's respawn point to the destination and then committing suicide can be a very fast way to travel. This is limited by monetary cost and the fact that most useful respawn points will only be in the list after going there and leaving an item, or having a corporation office there.
  • The MMORPG RuneScape has a ton of these in various forms, from the magic skill, to quest rewards, to intentionally failing a minigame, among other things. Very much needed, as it's a huge world that would take hours to traverse on foot.
  • The White Dragon Wings from Lunar: The Silver Star (and subsequent remakes) allow instant travel to previously visited towns.
  • Tower of the Sorcerer has a rare sighting of this trope in a tower: the Orb of Flying, allowing you to visit any floor you've previously been to, except floor 43 and floor 0.
  • An Untitled Story gives you the ability to warp to any save point you've seen, but not necessarily visited. Realizing this assumption is false is the only way to get a particular required ability.
  • Mitsumete Knight R: Daibouken Hen has a warp system that allow you to warp to any town of the game with a statue by touching said statue, but the system needs to be activated first by gathering the Slates of Earth, Sea, and Sky, and placing those three Slates in an ancient machine inside the Pyramid.
  • Spiderweb Software added this to their Exile and Avernum games, starting with Exile III and getting simpler and easier to use in each later game. In Exile III, the portals were expensive, one-way and their destinations limited to the major capitals. In Avernum 4, the portal system was free and extremely convenient, allowing the player to travel from and to every previously visited city within moments via a central portal chamber, which also made a neat item storage facility.
  • La-Mulana has the Grail item, which can be obtained in the first dungeon level. Its function is to instantly transport Lemeza back to the overworld, or any level whose tablet has been read, though backside areas require a certain pair of ROMs to be equipped. Besides saving time wandering around the ruins, it's a useful method for escaping from spike traps and such, but it doesn't work at all in the Dimensional Corridor.
  • Transwarp abilities in Star Trek Online. At first, the only destination is Earth Space Dock, but via leveling up your noncombat diplomacy, other destinations become available - including K-7 and Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately all destinations share a rather long cooldown, so these tend to be saved for "emergencies".
  • Later versions of Jump Start Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island include a map that allows you to warp to any location on it. Earlier versions not only didn't have this feature, but also did not have a map at all, resulting in many frustrated nine-year-olds wandering around the island with no idea where they are.
    • There was a map, actually, but it wasn't included in the game itself. Instead, it was inside the user's manual.
  • Red Dead Redemption allows you to quick-travel to previously-visited destinations at campsites or stagecoaches.
  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood features several tunnel entrances scattered around Rome, which allow the player to move quickly through the city after they have been renovated.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has links at the top of the page allowing you to go to any location you can access from the Main Map, plus The Mall of Loathing as a bonus.
  • Red Faction: Guerilla has this option, to allow you to fast travel to any of the safe houses. Except, later, the one in the Badlands
  • In DuckTales (1987): The Quest for Gold, it's possible to build a time machine that lets you skip the frustrating flying stages.
  • Divine Divinity has a unique take on the concept, with a set of two portal pyramids. When you're given one of them, you can acquire the other by teleporting to it (which is in a locked room of a nearby catacomb, surrounded by skeletons). Either pyramid can be set down on the floor anywhere, or thrown anywhere a normal item can be thrown. Afterwards, the player can either set down the other pyramid and use it as a two-way portal, or activate it in his hand and teleport without leaving a way back. This has several immediately useful applications, not least of which is the ability to get over narrow impassable terrain features. And, with a bit of luck, certain open windows.
  • Completing George's sidequest in Deadly Premonition nets you a Police Radio that lets you warp to important landmarks and buildings around Greenvale.
  • The first game in the Dark Parables series has a very restricted one of these. A "mysterious arcane symbol" is drawn on the ground in one section of the castle courtyard; later, activating an identical symbol in the alchemist's tower of the castle proper enables the player character to warp at will between those two spots. Its usefulness is arguably limited, but it's still a nice surprise.
  • Borderlands has the "New U" stations that allow for character customization, respawning, and, after the network is reactivated, instant transportation to any "New U" station that the player has visited.
  • EV Nova has hypergates, devices that allow ships to travel to another hypergate in another star system instantaneously, which saves a lot of travel time.
  • The Simon the Sorcerer games, especially in the first and the third. The first features a magic map in your inventory that, when used at any place of the world, allows you to instantly appear in a few specific parts of the world (useful especially to travel around the maze-like forest). The third features two sets of scattered magic phonebooths, one around the countryside and other inside the city, and entering any of them allows you to appear at any booth belonging to the same set. Later on the same game, you get a rainbird that, when summoned, rides you from anywhere in the world to anywhere where there's a platform with a picture of a bird (they're scattered around the countryside and the city, and a few in areas not reachable by other way).
  • In Mass Effect 1, the Citadel has consoles ("Citadel Rapid Transit") placed at major points of interest that allow the player to transit to any other console on the station.
  • Monster Girl Quest Paradox has Harpy Wings, which allow you to travel to any previously-visited location (both towns and dungeons).
  1. ↑ As an option on the map screen, it costs money but cuts down on travel-times
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