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Why do RPG's have sewer dungeons?

Generally speaking when you're thinking about developing a video game while considering assets, a sewer space is a much easier to realistically create than say, an open world area.
 
There will always be a need for your little rabble to either escape or infiltrate a stronghold of some kind in these types of games...sewers provide a natural maze-like dungeon experience that provides sufficient cover for your team with grounded justification for its existence.
 
It's been a thing since at least 1988

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animlboogy said:
Cool monsters, creepy vibe, good opportunity for some gross out or horror moments in otherwise straight games, the perfect excuse for some maze-like level design without having to go too abstract... I really don't know what's bad about the concept.

Now if Bloodlines was the only RPG I ever played, I'd probably have a fit at the mention of the word "sewer".
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The concept can be amazing as you say but I feel like they usually come across as the worst levels, probably because the concept is pretty much straightforward and the developers don't put as much effort on them.
 
Just seems to be a common trope in RPGs
Never really bothers me. My favorite sewer dungeon is probably the Valua sewers in Skies of Arcadia. Runner up would be those hellish sewers in Dark Souls 1.
 
I hate sewers since they house enemies that poison you or bats that siphon hp. Only reasons for me. I'm cool with everything else.
 
Falk said:
Wow, for some reason I was thinking of the Xenogears sewer in Dajil for getting into the castle.

Must have blocked the entire prison/sewer section from memory.
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That first one fucking sucked. I'd consider that more of a water pipe system than a straight up sewer though (if there is a difference).
 
animlboogy said:
You have to actually design a sewer. You can auto gen a nice foresty open world playground almost immediately.
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You can auto generate a sewer or similar dungeon probably even easier.

There is really no need for any game to have an actual sewer level, even for the protagonists to enter/exit some other place. It could be just a small place filled with shit that you traverse thru in a minute or two, without always having easy to kill rat enemies or slime monsters or whatnot. It's just a trope that should've died years ago.
 
duckroll said:
Don't understand all this bias against sewers. In terms of being generic and lazy settings in cheap and poorly designed RPGs, sewers are no different from "mountain" and "forest" dungeons. Or even "volcano" or "cave" dungeons.
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Sewers are easier to design because they esthetically already are a bunch of connected, generic tubes by nature?
So are mines. Oh and the here-is-a-bunch-of-f-nothing deserts. You can do a lot more with mountains, castles and forests.

But some sewers are superb.
 
Cause why not? Need an instant dungeon in a city? Plop a sewer one. Especially if the city is generally a good place and doesn't have a baddie castle or something. Sure it can be lazy but it works a lot of the time.
 
arbok26 said:
Oh really? I went in and out of the depths so many times I lost count. I don't hate it, but I don't like the area either. It's the only way to get to Blightown, and then after that you have to return from blightown and that's the quickest way back to the firelink shrine.
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Nope to both of those!

It's possible to skip the Depths entirely by taking the shortcut through New Londo and the Valley of Drakes using the Master Key. And that route is also by far the fastest way back to Firelink Shrine.
 
Digimon Cyber Sleuth, and pretty much all of the Digimon games have sewers, but really, where else are you going to find the poop monsters?
 
Sewers make sense, IMO, as much as traversing cities, rural areas, etc. Think it's just a testament to the design team. I think FFVII's sewers were amazing. Breath of Fire IV did a great job too with this dingy aesthetic. Pokemon always did a nice job of making caves and crap seem interesting because of the varied Pokemon you'd find within. Boring sewers just means lacking design.
 
Cindi Mayweather said:
There's also the sewer in the prison when you meet Rico and fight that insane sewer boss.
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As much shit as the Kislev sewer section gets at least it had a neat murder/monster mystery built into it

Also the (short) Solaris sewer section that is inexplicably as clean and shiny as street level

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Also not an RPG but the sewer/subway section was probably the highlight of the pile of trash known as RE6

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...because of one particular shot with impressive lighting and shadows that I cannot find a shot of :|
 
I tried to count the number of sewer dungeons in Deus Ex, but it is too difficult.

Battery Park has one.
Hell's Kitchen has one.
NSF safehouse has one (right?)
The airport has one
Hong Kong has one if you count the escape route from Versalife
The shipyard has one
Paris has at least one (?)
Vandenberg has one (?)

So, most levels in the game have sewer dungeons? Deus Ex the official king of RPG sewage confirmed?
 
It's basically the water dungeon in most RPGs, even when you can fight other water creatures on the ocean and on beaches. Also allows for the introduction to or variation on status affects.

The Xenogears dungeon really sucks because of the encounter rate along with the fact the game never explicitly tells you there is a map or even a map button. It's one of a small number of dungeons with maps, including the final dungeon. I think I spent 2-3 hours there before realizing I had a map and could easily find my way to the boss.
 
It's a staple environment of computer, videogame, and tabletop RPGs. How else can you have creepy dark places filled with monstrous threats sitting underneath the heavily fortified cities, castles, and prisons of your average fantasy campaign? You gotta sneak in or out somehow. It's an easy location type to map out on graph paper, too.
 
I love Xenogears, but the Kislev Sewers is what I dread every time I want to replay it. The entire Kislev story arc is so long and drawn-out, and you can't do anything except progress to get out of the damn place. Easily the worst section of an otherwise fantastic game.
 
It's probably a holdover from fantasy fiction and table-top RPGs where the environment can be described to convey an oppressive amount of creepy and gross.

I would argue that it doesn't translate as well to the video format where it just looks blandly monotonous and brown.
 
It's an easy trope.

I imagine the design meetings go something like this:

"OK, we need another dungeon here. It's been like 2 hours of nonstop exposition."
"Well, the party is still in the city, so a dungeon doesn't really make sense...unless"
"Sewer Dungeon it is."
 
They're easy to make (like ruins), as they're mostly just blocks, repeated textures, and maybe a stream of water going throughout a maze. You can then fight rats and poorly drawn sewage monsters.

Usually making the level a maze, and having floodgates adds for interesting puzzles, that normally couldn't have any context to support their existence.
It also gives you the ability to connect 2 unrelated surface world environments together, which works very well unless you abuse it. (I'm looking at you, Dark Souls 2.)


Timeaisis said:
It's an easy trope.

I imagine the design meetings go something like this:

"OK, we need another dungeon here. It's been like 2 hours of nonstop exposition."
"Well, the party is still in the city, so a dungeon doesn't really make sense...unless"
"Sewer Dungeon it is."
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And it's easy.

Like, really easy.


Benefit of the doubt given, it's also a classic trope worth revisiting for the sake of nostalgia.
 
duckroll said:
Don't understand all this bias against sewers. In terms of being generic and lazy settings in cheap and poorly designed RPGs, sewers are no different from "mountain" and "forest" dungeons. Or even "volcano" or "cave" dungeons.
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It's probably because moutains, forests, and caves are natural so the player's attention isn't drawn how often they repeat.

Sewers are artificial usually something the player characters go out of their way to find rather than just something that comes up, so they're a lot easier to notice, despite basically just being caves with a bit more water and paved walls.

Sewers also tend to used in much more specific ways as far as narrative goes, in that they're typically used as an excuse for how underdog player-characters can enter highly secured areas.

Too many guards at the front of the castle? Bet there aren't any in the sewers.

The treasure vault is impenetrable? Luckily a sewer tunnel runs right under it.

That hi-tech lab has a complex security system that'll trap you and alert the authorities? Well I hope you like shit-water, cuz guess where we're going.
 
I have zero problem with them, but I do have a dislike for any dungeon that is the "status-effect" dungeon. I usually associate sewers with being that dungeon.
 
I think out of all the RPGs with these dungeons that I've played, Xenogears' sewers were by far the worst. That fucking ridiculous encounter rate, those limited camera angles, the length and design of the sewers themselves...uuuuuuugh. Those elements combined made them un-fun.
 
My least favorite sewer area of all time isn't even in a RPG. Xbox Ninja Gaiden's sewer area went on forever.
 
Toxi said:
My least favorite sewer area of all time isn't even in a RPG. Xbox Ninja Gaiden's sewer area went on forever.
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Yeah the Aqueducts weren't particularly bad or anything. In fact they were rather easy, but they were the longest and most tedious area in the game by far.
 
I very much enjoy sewer/aqueduct dungeons in RPG's Eternal Sonata and Bravely Second had them.

Honestly I think I like them because you always expect the worst, but I'm always so pleasantly surprised with the outcome
 
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