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{{trope}}
A quick shortcut to enable rapid travel in an [[World Map|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 Point
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.
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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
Often overlaps with [[Point and Click Map]], in that a
Also see [[Sprint Shoes]], [[Warp Zone]], [[Portal Network]], [[Mook Bouncer]], [[Door to Before]]. Compare [[Fast Forward Mechanic]] for skipping over time.
{{examples|Examples}}▼
* ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'':
** The first two games have "Funky's Flights", in which [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Funky]] [[Totally Radical|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.
** ''[[
* ''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 (
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Oracle
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** 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 Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
** The bird statues from ''Majora's Mask'' return in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
* They're also very common in the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' series, starting with the "[[Warp Zone]]" in the [[Super Mario Bros. (
** ''[[
** ''[[Super Mario World (
** ''[[
** ''[[Paper Mario (
** ''[[Paper Mario:
* Most ''Mega Man'' games of the classic mold had a set of discrete stages, but the ''[[
* 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.
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** 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
* 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 ''[[
* ''[[Diablo]] II'' has a "waypoint" in nearly every zone (including towns and [[Supervillain Lair|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 [[Capital City|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
** The ''[[Lufia]]'' series.
** ''[[The Riftwar Cycle|Betrayal at Krondor]]''.
* ''[[Morrowind]]'' features intercity travel by silt
** 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
** ''[[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,<ref>As an option on the map screen, it costs money but cuts down on travel-times</ref>
** ''[[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
* ''[[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 ''[[
* ''[[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
* While the ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
* 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 ''[[
* ''[[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.
* ''[[City of Heroes]]''/''[[City of Villains]]'' has several.
**
** Similarly, the ferries of the Rogue Islands.
** More recently, the monorails (and the ferries of ''[[City of Villains]]'') have been changed so that all of them can go to any other. The advanced "Long Range Teleport" power also enables the user to teleport between zones, though it has a long cooldown.▼
*** Toward the end of the game's original run, the monorails and ferries were changed so that all destinations were available from each one.
** The next is 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. (This is now available for purchase in-game.) Then there are the superbase teleporters—as your supergroup gains exploration badges and the beacons they granted, you gain the ability to simply enter your base and use its teleporters to go to any zone you wanted. And the Base Teleporter power frees 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 Mission Teleporter, which originally came in both a temporary version with limited charges, and a permanent version as a veteran reward; the permanent version is now available for purchase. This drops you right on the doorstep of any mission that was actually entered through a door.
** Later came the Team Teleporter, which does the same thing for your entire team at once.
** "Assemble the Team" is a power which let you Warp Whistle everyone else on your team to your location.
** For the clever veteran, there are 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 [[Hub Level|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.
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* [[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 [[Shin Megami Tensei I|three]] [[Shin Megami Tensei II|Shin Megami Tensei]] [[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne|games]] have "Terminal Rooms" in key locations. You can use a Terminal Room to teleport to any other Terminal Room you've already visited.
** They also exist in [[Digital Devil Saga]] and [[Persona 3]], while [[Persona 4]] has ''two'' types: the "square" button on the [[
* ''[[
* 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 [[Bonus Dungeon|BonusDungeons]]. There's also Retreat, a power the hero has by default, allowing you to warp back to the beginning of any dungeon [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|unless there's a plot point otherwise]].
* The seventh installment in the ''[[
* ''[[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 ''[[
* 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** 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 [[
* The White Dragon Wings from [[Lunar Silver Star Story Complete|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 {{spoiler|floor 0}}.
* ''[[An Untitled Story]]'' gives you the ability to warp to any save point you've seen, {{spoiler|but not necessarily visited. Realizing this assumption is false is the only way to get a particular required ability.}}
* ''[[
* 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 [[Player Headquarters|item storage facility]].
* ''[[
* 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 [[Star Trek:
* Later versions of ''[[
** 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
** ''[[Assassin's Creed
* [[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. {{spoiler|Except, later, the one in the Badlands}}
* In ''[[
* ''[[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 {{spoiler|(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.
* [[
* ''[[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
** In ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', these become elevators.
* ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'' has Harpy Wings, which allow you to travel to any previously-visited location (both towns and dungeons).
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Role Playing Game]]▼
[[Category:Older Than the NES]]
[[Category:Teleportation Tropes]]
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:Warp Whistle]]
[[Category:
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