Gaming Pet Peeves: Backtracking

Running is one of the few ways I enjoy exercising, but I can never maintain a consistent regiment because I tend to get very bored running in the same locations and seeing the same sights over and over again.  Whether on a treadmill staring at the same spot on the wall, running on a track in an endless loop, or even finding an awesome trail and running it one too many times, I always tire of it after awhile.  I think this is what makes it even worse when I have the same feeling in video games.  At least with running in real life I'm helping myself stay healthy.  In video games, running through the same area repeatedly has zero benefit whatsoever.

I understand one reason why backtracking exists.  Game developers don't have enough time or resources to create infinite lands for us to explore and would rather spend those on creating a quality game and/or cinematic experience.  That doesn't make it any less lazy to make players travel through the same empty areas over and over again with nothing new to experience.  At the very least, players should be able to fast travel to previous locations they've visited.  I especially find this frustrating when the map visibly looks like it's setup to fast travel, like the cubes on Fez.  I'm not convinced the gameplay mechanic made famous in Metroid games where you can't access areas until you've found the right ability/weapon/gadget is a good reason to backtrack either.  Sure, it makes the game less visually linear, but functionally it's still linear only now the player has to run through the same area they already visited, killing the same enemy, making the same jumps, etc.  This also means that either the game or the player has to keep track of what the player was unable to access or they'll be just wandering aimlessly through places they've already visited, which is even worse.

There is really only one time I can think of that makes backtracking worthwhile and that's when the previously visited area has changed somehow.  Maybe you saved a town from an evil despot, so when you come back, the town has flourished (or maybe even gone into utter chaos from lack of leadership).  Maybe the bad guy destroyed something in retaliation for your actions.  Maybe destroying the orc encampment made the goblins more brave, so they invaded the forest you traveled through to get to the orcs.  These are amazing reasons to backtrack.  The level most likely won't have changed, but there is something new to see and experience.  Even if the level does change, it's still based on the same geometry, so there is much less work for the environment artists to do for even more payoff than a whole new area since players will feel like they are having an impact on the world.