Summary
Given thatThe Legend of Zeldais one of Nintendo’s most recognizable names, one might think that the series would stay on brand and stick to bright, colorful, and appealing environments and themes. However, over the years, Link has seen some of the darkest, most nightmarish places home to the most bone-chilling denizens that Hyrule and beyond has to offer.
As well as the terrifying and intimidating, Link has explored a great deal of bleak locations. There is a fine line between scary (Ocarina’s Hyrule Castle Town post-Ganondorf or the bottom of Kakariko’s well) and “bleak,” but generally, the latter produces contemplative and deeply melancholic feelings and existential dread, as the following places should demonstrate.
7Greatfish Isle - Wind Waker
A Paradise And Sacred Santuary Lost
Link arrives just in time to see the once-prosperous Greatfish Isle completely destroyed by Ganon’s evil. Once a thriving island populated by Hylians and the Jabun (a descendent of Lord Jabu-Jabu, the deity ofthe Zora peoplefromOcarina of Time), the entire island is reduced to splinter and protruding rocks after being hit by an unnatural storm.
Although Jabun managed to escape before the magical storm struck, no other resident, besides a korok, survived. The great dragon Valoo, having forseen the island’s fate, described it as “cursed.” Long after the island was torn apart, an eerie cloud hangs overhead, soaking all who come near with rain.
6House Of Skulltula - Ocarina Of Time
Transformed And Disformed By A Cursed Greed
Spiders can be extremely frightning, more so those with a skull for a back and of gigantic stature. The residents of this seemingly-abandoned house in Kakoriko were cursed into spider bodies long ago due to their greed. They are doomed to hang from the ceiling from webs, their appendages and eyes a mix of skulltula and human.
Perhaps because the cursed family members do not attack (unless provoked), the spooky house takes on an air of meloncholy more than anything else, perhaps as a result of knowing that unless Link is able to destroy all the gold skulltulas,the Skulltula family are doomedto this horrific state, begging for help that may never come.
5Forest Temple - Ocarina Of Time
Home Of Ghosts From Another Age
The Forest Temple, which more resembles a Forest Mansion than a place of worship, is loaded with mystery. Questions surrounding its builders and inhabitants are immediately replaced by a chilling sensation. Besides the disembodied undead and poes residing in its walls, its archetecture feels off somehow. There are scary moments found throughout to be sure, but the quiet places, such as the vine-covered courtyard, feel profoundly bleak.
It is a wonder how anyone could build such high walls and furnish such elaborate rooms without withering away naturally from grief in such a light-choked place. Given how well-armed the Stalfos are within, it may have been some fortress or second home of the Hylian royal familyin some other incarnation of Hyrule. Since the surrounding meadow is said to be sacred, perhaps everything within the walls of this structure, whatever it was, were doomed to die away from the moment the first bricks were lain.
4City In The Sky - Twilight Princess
An Empty Utopia In The Heavens
When players first arrive toTwilight Princess'“City in the Sky,” they may expect to be greeted by flocks of people. However, all that link will find are flocks of birds, or to be more specific, two deformed bird people. These inhabitants, Ooccoo and Ooccoo Jr., are said to be the last of the “sky people,” a tribe who were “closest to the gods.”
Twilight Princess has plenty of gloomy areas, especially thanks to the encroachment of the Twilight Realm. However, there is an air of irretrevable loss that hangs around the whole city from top to bottom. Having been built withtechnologically-advanced steampunk knowhow, the city now hangs around in the sky, nigh-abandoned.
3Frozen Hyrule Castle - Wind Waker
A Kingdom’s Glory Encased Forever In Clotted Time
When Link first descends down and enters Hyrule Castle through the waters of the Great Sea, he discovers not a ruin, but a perfectly preserved tomb. Everything is still, even color, as the area appears gray and lifeless without the living blood of time flowing through it.
Frozen mid-battle by the gods’ flood centuries prior, the castle remains in the same state it did all those years ago, whenthe Hero of Time failured to returnand the royal family abandoned it to the flood to come, its halls filled with knights and monsters locked in eternal combat, their final moments crystallized like a macabre diorama.
2Music Box House - Majora’s Mask
The End Of The Music At The End Of The World
There is nothing more depressing than seeing a symbol of joy in a place of ruin, abandoned and broken. Ikana Canyon’s Music Box House is hauntingly still, as the river powering the box’s mechanism has dried up. Unfortunately, this music had been repelling the mummy-like gibdos, and in its absense, they returned. The Music Box House is occupied by a researcher and his daughter. Having been cursed from the nearby well, the researcher began transforming into a Gibdos.
Terrified, his daughter locked the box and told any visitors to leave. If Link is able to get inside, he will be attacked. Playing the “Song of Healing” will cure the researcher andnet Link a sweet mask, but attacking him will prevent Link from any further interaction (at least until the player resets the time loop), as he daughter will jump in and save her father. Besides the jump scare and surrounding zombies, there is an air of tragedy about the place, which is saying something, considering how dark all of Termina is upon close inspection.
1The Sealed Room - Majora’s Mask
The Last Resting Place Of A Working Scrub’s Precious Little Boy
The moments when Link obtains the transformation masks inMajora’s Maskallinvolve tear-jerking moments, but this area, the bridge between the Lost Woods and Termina, known only as “The Sealed Room,” , is especially sombre. The deku child, frozen and dead by the areas exit, is implied to reside within link’s Deku Scrub mask.
This sad figure is the offspring of the Deku butler, who can be found in the Deku Palace beyond the poisoned Woodfall Swamp, pondering the whereabouts of his missing boy. The Sealed Room is not difficult to traverse, nor are there deadly enemies hiding the scare Link to death there, but it is the very pinical of bleakness inThe Legend of Zelda.
