Hub-and-Spoke World Access

Hub is a small persistent area holding entrances to larger discrete levels, plus whatever services the game offers. Levels are entered, completed in part, and exited back to the centre, and most can be revisited with new abilities or objectives. Because the hub is where progress is displayed and stored, it does work a menu would otherwise do, and gating becomes a question of which doors have opened.

Super Mario 64 in 1996 needed a way to present many independent 3D playgrounds without a level select screen, and Nintendo EAD used a castle. Paintings on its walls are level entrances, and stars collected inside unlock more of the building. Practical constraints supported the choice, since only one level had to be loaded at a time, and a hub gives the player somewhere to stand while the game changes underneath.

Choice of order is the real product. A hub lets a designer offer several routes without building a truly open world, keeps difficulty selectable without a difficulty menu, and gives repeated visits an emotional anchor. Weaknesses are equally familiar: hubs become long corridors between the parts people want, and their fiction often strains. Later games kept the structure while dressing it as a camp, a ship or a village.