10 Confusing Yet Mind Blowing Levels in Video Games

Sometimes a confusing level in a video game leads to nothing. But sometimes the disorientation yields something big. Hi folks, it's Flemingo, and today on TechyRanx, 10 confusing yet amazing levels in video games. 

10. Ashtray Maze from Control

Starting off at number 10, it is the Ashtray Maze from Control. It is considered by many to be one of, if not the best, moments in the entire game. The ashtray maze is this consistently shifting dimensional corridor, meant to protect the dimensional research wing. Basically, people that go into this thing almost never come out. 

Long story short, the janitor gives you an object of power that lets you traverse this maze. It's not safe, but it's at least possible. What follows is this bizarre, insane combat sequence, where you're constantly moving through this always-shifting location, where layouts are consistently changing in completely impossible ways. Thankfully, it's mostly linear, like, you can't really get lost in it, so you're free to rush through the area, blowing away the many enemies that stand in your way. The whole time this is happening, this song, "Take Control," is blasting which is just awesome and really makes you feel like a badass leading up to the final stretch of the game. It's kinda like the part in the movie where they say the title of the movie. It's cool for that exact same reason. Because none of this really makes any rational sense. It is control we're talking about. That's sort of the point. But it's easily the standout moment of the whole game. 

09. Rock in a Box from 2006's Prey

At number nine is Rock in A Box from 2006's Prey, the original Prey. I could easily say the entire game at this point, because the Sphere Ship that Prey takes place on is both incredibly confusing and mostly amazing. The developers really pulled out all their tricks on this one. 

There are portals, crazy gravity, impossible geometry, and so much more just sprinkled all over this place. Any given area can have multiple weird things going on, like enemies standing in the ceiling, portals that warp you all over the place, or room layouts that morph at the press of a button. All that comes together with the ship's grotesque techno-organic appearance. And it makes navigating some of these areas pretty confusing, but not, I guess, as bad as it looks. It helps that the level design is mostly self-contained and linear. Otherwise, this place would be a real nightmare to try to navigate. 

One of the most amazing parts of the entire game happens on level three, where you enter this room that looks like a rock or a meteor is floating in the middle of a box. Then you go through a portal and you find yourself on that rock, somehow tiny now, and fighting against tiny little enemies. Just to make it obvious what's going on, a standard enemy is standing over the whole thing. Normally they're the same height as you, but this one's obviously enormous. It's a short sequence, but one of the many ways that the original Prey from 2006 really likes to mess with the player. 

08. Hunter's Nightmare from Bloodborne

And number eight is the Hunter's Nightmare from Bloodborne. At first, the world of Bloodborne seems logical enough, but the further you go, that logic starts to break down and things start to make less and less sense. No other area exemplifies that breakdown of logic more than the Hunter's Nightmare, the location of The Old Hunters DLC. Just getting to this place doesn't make a lot of sense. You have to let yourself get caught by one of those many-armed monstrosities that were previously invisible. 

The main area of the Hunter's Nightmares is this twisted and apocalyptic version of the Cathedral Ward, where brutally difficult hunters patrol the streets and rivers of blood flow through the area instead of water. Even if some of them appear to be alive, such as this pitiful husk crawling at an exit, the dead outnumber the living. Go through here and eventually you make it to the research hall, which makes more sense visually, but is not less horrific. 

The transition to the final area is the most bizarre. After defeating the Guardian of the Celestial Clock, you have to walk through the clock face, and somehow you come out in a fishing village. It's called the "Hunter's Nightmare. So it only makes sense that the whole place is made up of dream logic. It's bizarre, and The Old Hunters DLC is probably the pinnacle of Bloodborne, which is saying a lot. 

07. Clockwork Mansion from Dishonored 2

And number seen is the Clockwork Mansion from Dishonored 2. What makes the Clockwork Mansion from Dishonored 2 so different from pretty much every other level in this list is that while this place is very confusing and undeniably amazing, it's not a dream, and there's nothing magical about it in any way. This mansion, which is the home of the Duke's Grand Inventor, Kirin Jindosh, has the main claim to fame here is its transforming rooms. With just the flip of a switch, entire rooms reconfigure themselves; walls become passages; sections of rooms rise and fall; hallways disappear or appear, depending on the configuration of the house. And that's what makes navigating this place so dang confusing. All these transformations are done with very little cheating, like making wall panels appear out of nowhere. 

There's actually an extensive behind-the-scenes area of the house that can be explored. Sometimes you'll just get stuck, but sometimes you can access different areas early, or completely avoid the guards. This level also introduces the difficult to avoid Clockwork Soldiers, who literally have eyes in the back of their heads. So you have to take advantage of whatever you can. Entering a combat state, switching to an alternative tactical mode, It's also visually stunning, and it's so much fun to explore. It can get very confusing at times, especially when you're looking for little secrets or hidden passages. But it's so good that it really doesn't hurt the experience at all. 

06. Anthem from Antichamber

And number six is Anthem. The game is Antichamber. So we're just going to cheat and say the whole thing. It's a puzzle game. And instead of drawing lines on boards or thinking with portals, this game's all about exploring impossible environments and figuring out where to go. 

Compared to Prey, this is on another level. There's no shooting. But there are a whole lot of non-Euclidean environments to explore. Areas connect in totally impossible ways. Certain passages are endless from one direction and become something completely different if you just turn around. Places that should connect don't, and areas that seem totally disconnected are actually right next to each other. That's not even talking about some of the crazy visual tricks this game throws at you, just to be cool. 

You'd think with that kind of description that the game would be incredibly frustrating to play, or that you could easily get lost. And I guess it's confusing, yes, but they did somehow make it work. 

05. Milkman Conspiracy from Psychonauts

And number five is the Milkman Conspiracy from Psychonauts, the iconic level from the first game, and for good reason. 

This is a game all about exploring the fractured minds of various characters and either solving their problems or just figuring out what's going on, I guess. And one of the most messed up minds belongs to this guy, Boyd Cooper. The inside of his head is a paranoid thriller, set in a twisted version of suburbia infested with G-Men trying to find the milkman. These guys all have some pretty hilarious dialogue where they try to blend in as normal people, and it's way funnier than it sounds. Like, trust me on that one. 

As you explore the place, the gravity shifts around pretty randomly. which pulls you in different directions and takes you to new areas. And while all that's going' on, you've got to find different tools to fool the G-Men into letting you get past them. There's a lot going on, to say the very least. But it's safe to say The Milkman Conspiracy is an absolutely brilliant series that is both a little disturbing and very, very funny.

04. Mission 18 from Devil May Cry 3

Mission 18 from Devil May Cry 3 is ranked fourth. In previous Devil May Cry games, Hell mostly came from the Doom School of level design. Darkness, walls of meat, that sort of thing. It was creepy, but it was basically what you would expect. DMC3, however, changed things up pretty dramatically. 

When you go to Hell, or the Demon World, or whatever it's called in this game in Mission 18, instead of finding yourself in a meat forest or whatever, you appear in this spooky, monochromatic world filled with floating platforms, portals, and bizarre architecture. It's a surreal and mysterious place that looks like some kind of unholy combination of a Salvador Dali and MC Escher painting. Bonus points if you have any idea of what I just said. To be clear, I get no bonus points. No, I know what I'm talking about, to at least some extent. Anyway, for some reason, you have to fight the entire chess set on a chess board at this level. Because why not? Why wouldn't ya? 

03. Outer Keep from Super Castlevania IV

And number three is the Outer Keep from Super Castlevania IV. Let's get a little 16-bit representation on this list, with an absolute classic. Super Castlevania IV came out a month or so after the Super Nintendo hit American store shelves. And because of that, the developers really wanted to show off a lot of new features that were possible for the system. So, there's a lot of Mode 7, to say the very least. And while it does make a whole lot of sense, it does make for a really cool-looking level. I don't really know what the outer ring is supposed to be. It's just another castle before you get to the real Dracula's castle. But this place is filled with little weird tricks and traps. 

The first area is the most basic, with simple rotating platforms and a mini boss skeleton that I guess tries to lick you. It seems to be it. The next room, though, that's where stuff gets really weird. You go into a room lined with spikes, which starts to rotate in place somehow. Probably the most annoying part of this level is right here, when the game throws a bunch of Medusa heads at you. Because the wrong move means instant death on the spikes below. And after that, it's onto the famous cylinder room. The background's a big spinning texture, and you're walking on these wooden blocks that fall over once they hit the edge of the screen. I have no idea what this place is, what it's supposed to be, or what's supposed to be happening. 

However, take a look at those Mode 7 graphics! This is what you would say if you were incredibly old, like myself. 

02. Silent Hill Historical Society from Silent Hill 

And number two is the Silent Hill Historical Society from Silent Hill 2 In terms of pure weirdness and confusion, this is a much more understated level than most of the other entries on this list. What makes it so amazing is how utterly impossible and creepy it is while still being a pretty recognizable location for the most part. 

It starts off as a sensible place. A small house made into a historical museum for the town of Silent Hill. Other than a few really creepy paintings, it looks like a real place until you enter the back room, and you find this burnt-out wall that inexplicably has a stone staircase behind it. For whatever reason, the passage goes on just a little too long before exiting out into an area that kind of looks like a prison. That leads to a room containing nothing but a hole they have to jump into to proceed, which takes you to the bottom of the well, which seems to be completely walled up. But you can knock down a section of bricks to reveal a door. You keep going. Eventually, you get to a door that opens up to an impossible vertical hallway that you have to fall into. And everything up until this moment in Silent Hill 2 makes some degree of sense, spatially at least. 

This is the moment where everything completely breaks down, and it becomes very unsettling when you first experience it. Killing a person ain't no big deal! Just put the gun to their head. Pow! 

01. Escher Labs by DUSK

And finally, at number one, are the Escher Labs by DUSK. Most people that play DUSK for the first time expect some cool Quake-inspired levels, but I don't think anybody expected this. Most of the game through the first act is pretty much what you would expect, a fun, sorta creepy throwback FPS with some cool levels, but in the second act, woof, stuff changes up pretty dramatically. 

The Escher Labs is a sequel to The Infernal Machine, an extremely creepy, mostly combat-free game. It's a normal enough level at first, kind of a standard lab setting. But things start to break down pretty quickly with these doors showing up that weren't there before, rooms getting mirrored for some reason, and things that completely break down and go full MC Escher. 

Aha! Remember I said that before? I said it again. The way this level uses backtracking is actually pretty brilliant. Because it constantly subverts your expectations and messes with your spatial awareness in a way that's fun but not so frustrating and confusing that it makes you not want to do it anymore. It's just the right level of frustrating and confusing. All told, it's pretty short. But it's such a fun surprise of a level that it really sticks with anyone who played the game. It's one of these many levels that showed DUSK was a game that wasn't just copying the greats of yesteryear. It was a great game in its own right. 

And that's all for today. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think. I'm Flemingo. You can follow me on Twitter at @TechyRanx. We'll see you next time, right here on TechyRanx.