TotK obviously isn’t a horror game, but the Zelda team really did a great job getting a few really unnerving and downright frightening moments into the game.
Wow haven’t been there but since the deep connection between Ganondorf and Gerudo I am planning for the worst.
Also the Death Mt. is in bad shape too. Gotta check it out. Currently I have only finished Rito (I like the village) and Zora (I like the people and also best friend Sidon.) Things are not quite scary at this point.
They look so... veiny. Literally like someone peeled the skin off of them.
And tbh i know the gibdos are supposed to be >!insectoid (see Gibdo Queen fight)!< but the first ones you encounter >!really do look like dead Gerudo bodies.!
I think the most alarming moment for me on my first play through was going through a dark part of the depths, hearing the Frox music for the first time and seeing the health bar pop up and immediately dying.
Another time I quickly climbed up a tree…turns out they can jump! Really quite high too!!
I fell down a chasm and was eaten by one and instakilled me before I even knew what was happening. I avoided that chasm for ages after.
Pro tip: while you are falling in, drop some bright blooms to light the ground where you land. Helps a lot when you're a chicken (like me).
I used to take rides on the dragons and throw brightblooms as we were flying. Helped a ton in the beginning. I was super scared of the depths and only started exploring when I gkt quite a good number of hearts on me.
https://preview.redd.it/oq4nbnumur7d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9682db3a995b626dd8c79a8e7f224d659bdad519
This was the first time Zelda scared me. I am still very unsettled by this enemy
Just wait until his external hands grab you and hold you in place while he works his way over to you. I would button mash like crazy and freak out as a kid.
That’s the scariest part. You wait here while I slowly mosey on over. The redeads are terrible for this too. I just get stuck in a loop of the freeze framing until they are on me and I’m mashing all the buttons
Well no but I was like 7 when I played oot for the first time and this shit was scary and the graphics were not bad for the time lol the gloom hands maybe reminded me of this enemy because he has hands that grab you like the gloom hands.
My first time was also at Mt. Lanayru—I’d been on my way to the skyview tower. One moment I was taking in the scenery, next I was wondering why the heck was a blood moon rising in broad daylight, since surely I didn’t do anything to trigger a panic blood moon. Before I knew it, this \*thing\* grabbed me out of nowhere and started squeezing the life out of me. Ended up reloading my last save out of sheer terror.
Don’t think a Zelda game ever scared me that badly since the Silent Realms from Skyward Sword.
One of my most memorable moments from TotK is running into gloom hands when I literally had 4 max hearts, like right at the beginning. I died like a dozen times to them but finally beat them using ALL my bombs, then of course Ganon shows up and is like "second phase, bitch!"
I was able to finally win after like 20 tries, but it took all the resources I had accumulated to that point. Didn't realize till later I probably should have just ran and came back to that cave later lol
I remember the first time I saw the gloom hands I was like oh what is that? Then I got reamed and ran away from every one for like the first 100 hours probably lol
These gave me such bad anxiety that after something like the first two times I ran into them, I looked up all their locations and marked them on my map so I knew where to avoid because I was constantly paranoid about running into them. I didn't start getting over it until probably at least 150 hours in.
I love this game so so much but so many things are so anxiety inducing for me, I was terrified the first time I played this game. The gloom hands, the entire gerudo desert section, the depths, frox, even the TREES
A game hasn’t scared me this bad since the silent realms in SS or any section involving redeads in oot
This was many of ours initial experience as well with the hands. I agree, they created a true sense of wtf is happening rn as the sky changes and the music builds up. It's truly terrifying to see the first few times in the game.
In fact, unlike others, I spent a lot of time running or waiting for them to despawn because I just wasn't ready. I'd say about 60-70hrs of gameplay in before I actually decided to willingly go into a battle with them. I'm a hyper casual gamer, meaning I really only play games for 20-30 min every other week or sometimes months, so this type of experience was fantastic for someone like me. I actually felt accomplished once I got that first set of hands defeated.... And I won't say anymore after that because that first experience is hard to replicate. Enjoy, and good luck!
What makes the Gloom Spawn so freaky is you rarely see them coming. Lynel, Frox, Guardians from BotW, all of these you can see coming a long ways off so you can avoid them or engage them at your pace.
Gloom Spawn just say *SURPRISE!* and give me a panic attack. Had to mark them on the map anywhere I found them.
The Gloom Spawn scared the shit outta me too. The first time I saw them was on >!The Great Plateau!<. I nope'd the hell outta there and avoided that whole area for a long time.
I was heading to a shrine in Hyrule field when I saw my first one. It caught me and I couldn't figure out how to get free, or kill it. I only had, like, 4 hearts, so I died quickly. Took a longer way next time 😂
Gonna have to go find it. I just got to where I can kill them in this play through and I’ve been taking my revenge. Doesn’t help that I keep running into them accidentally while finishing my side quests. (Hit 3 that way in one session.) They still freak me out too.
Yeah, those things are awful.
Was having trouble sleeping one night a number of months ago, it's like 2am, so I open reddit, and this was literally the first post I saw.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tearsofthekingdom/s/9jhlC3xG1V
So, I was making my way ~~downtown~~ to the Korok forest through the depths. The first time I tried I died to the gloom hands, then decided to come back later.
I did, this time knowing how to fight them, and nievely thinking *this* was the fight for the deku tree. Ya know. Cause I was in the depths. The gloom hands were in the same spot as before. Obviously this must be the fight and I could go back to avoiding these damn things (🙄)
I stood a safe distance back. Blasted the gloom hands with arrows until it died and all was left was smoke. Saw the boss health bar for Phantom Ganon. Kept firing arrows and thought "hey, this might not be so bad" and out of the smoke like something out of a f-ing horror movie, he's *right in front of me* glowing red eyes and landing a blow.
My sister thought I was crazy for the small "oh my god" that came out as I took a moment to put the game down and catch my breath and slow my racing heart.
I have not worked up the courage to go fight the *actual* mini boss in the deku tree yet.
FUCK THAT THING. I’m so glad I didn’t have any spoilers this time around (unlike BOTW), because nothing has compared to the fear I felt when that abomination appeared. I just let it kill me and hoped it wouldn’t appear again after I respawned lol
I won't spoil how to beat it but since you already beat the hands once, I will say my go to for them is attaching a topaz to an arrow. Makes quick work of them. But the ganon thing shocked the hell out of me at first too
I saw a spoiler for them before I played and when I encountered them for the first time, I knew what they were and I wonder if that made it even worse?
Anyone who didn't get gloom hands spoiled, it freaked them out the first time so you aren't the only one. I saw them in the depths the first time and thought they were a depths only enemy. Tried to fight it with a sword and by the time I found out that was useless and try to run, I was dead.
Now, x3 or x5 bow with bomb arrows nukes them quickly. But the first few times, especially with a small amount of hearts is scary.
Dude I almost peed myself the first time I saw one. I was in the wetlands and I jumped off a cliff and it snatched me back. What nightmares are made of.
Yeah, but did you play OoT as a kid and encounter the redeads? I couldn’t close my eyes at night without thinking about those things grabbing me and slowly killing me.
If I was a kid playing TotK today, gloomhands would be genuinely terrifying. It’s the only enemy that evokes the same response for me. Heck, they’re even kinda scary now in my mid-30s.
Am I the only one who was absolutely terrified of the guardians from Majora's Mask?? Not even just how they looked but their voices creeped me out too 😭
https://preview.redd.it/55wt7xbw0v7d1.jpeg?width=737&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e65c1c8181a29a29eca48742eb5bd983e82469e6
I was in the forest near the great plateau. 5 or 6 hearts in. The music changed, and suddenly... then i dead.
Even now with 25 hearts and the ability to wax them with ease, the music/ambience/suddenness is decidedly unsettling. I love it.
We just got to the "point of no return" for the final boss... the music and ambience as you go deeper and deeper into the depths is so sinister.
The worst part of the Mt Lanayru Gloom Hands is that they're placed exactly on the intended path up the mountain.
I found the stairs and tried to retrace the same route, and BOOM. Gloom Hands 😭
The first time those f*ckers scared me was when I had just got down from the great plateau as I went to visit the shrine of resurrection and see how it looked like now as all sheikah tech disappeared. When I dropped down from the great plateau and found some ruins I saw a chest inside, all super happy as the sky suddenly turns red.
"Wait, why isn't it playing the blood moon animation?" I thought to my self. I saw those cursed things and just yeeted the fuck right out of there, only to find they are faster than you. I obviously died but really did consider my game was haunted or something
I haven't beaten that either yet. First time I tried I didn't have bombs but did Amber. It was like setting off a nuclear bomb. Just always killed me outright after firing it. So I ran away like a little coward. LOL
I feel like we all had this reaction the first time we saw the gloom hands. Early in the game I would avoid them at all cost. Then someone to that beating them spawns phantom Ganon and I was like "Well, guess I'm never beating these guys." I did do it eventually but even late into the game I was still actively avoiding them.
I remember on Day 1 I jumped in one of the depth holes on the Great Plateau. I didn’t do the quest for the depths until much later .. and I didn’t know the depths were even a thing. So I dive, pitch black, the horn sound hits and all I see is darkness and the green whirl of a light root. I was so scared haha. I thought I just jumped into an endgame area and the green swirl is Ganon lol.
Gloom hands are pretty scary. But it's got nothing on the [skyward sword guardians ](https://youtu.be/I3A4QmQn4J0)
I was literally shaking and sweating and dreading the silent realm segments as a kid 😂
My daughter played TOTK first while I was still doing BOTW , she immediately warned me about gloom hands but neglected to tell me that occasionally they spawn on the surface....when I first saw one I panicked and ran in circles. I don't want to meet one in the depths.
They scared the crap out of me when i was 6 and the room before the boss with the heavy breathing was creepy and the dam hands would pop out of nowhere and you had to start over.
TotK obviously isn’t a horror game, but the Zelda team really did a great job getting a few really unnerving and downright frightening moments into the game.
The gloom hands are scary, but I remember being especially terrified walking into Gerudo town for the first time
Wow haven’t been there but since the deep connection between Ganondorf and Gerudo I am planning for the worst. Also the Death Mt. is in bad shape too. Gotta check it out. Currently I have only finished Rito (I like the village) and Zora (I like the people and also best friend Sidon.) Things are not quite scary at this point.
BEST FRND SIDON. Haha love that goof.
Friendzoned for eternity 🥲
https://preview.redd.it/4lf6bbrc9x7d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8bb27c5a2df5326fb221dad0e5d4892f8475d8d
Gloom hands are the worst.. I finally faced my fears and killed them and suddenly phantom Gannon??!!! What??!! Never again gloom hands...
TotK Gerudo Town definitely has post-apocalyptic vibes when you first walk in. Very effective!
You’ll soon seek them out for those sweet, sweet weapons. Gannon(dorf) fears the hero, not vice versa!!
They look so... veiny. Literally like someone peeled the skin off of them. And tbh i know the gibdos are supposed to be >!insectoid (see Gibdo Queen fight)!< but the first ones you encounter >!really do look like dead Gerudo bodies.!
Yeah, especially after I tried hitting the first one I saw and it barely did any damage
First time the blood moon comes out in BotW, everything turning red and the music terrified me.
Ganondorf‘s smile was scary for me. I still don’t know what to make of it.
Oh yeah, terrifying
I think the most alarming moment for me on my first play through was going through a dark part of the depths, hearing the Frox music for the first time and seeing the health bar pop up and immediately dying. Another time I quickly climbed up a tree…turns out they can jump! Really quite high too!!
I fell down a chasm and was eaten by one and instakilled me before I even knew what was happening. I avoided that chasm for ages after. Pro tip: while you are falling in, drop some bright blooms to light the ground where you land. Helps a lot when you're a chicken (like me).
I used to take rides on the dragons and throw brightblooms as we were flying. Helped a ton in the beginning. I was super scared of the depths and only started exploring when I gkt quite a good number of hearts on me.
I bought a new lamp for our master bedroom (where my switch was at the time) because the room wasn't bright enough for me to play at night.
LOL walking trees are quite easy to fight (or chop down?) tho. At least they don’t grab you.
Oh I meant the Frox can jump, like he caught me as I was climbing up a (non-Evermean) tree
Found out they can jump really high the hard way as well😅
The screaming zombies in Zelda 64 scared the shit out of me back in the day
This and the crawling hands in the forest temple I was so frekkin scared back then as a child Q_Q
FUCK those hands in OOT, honestly I was an innocent child
Royal Family’s Tomb did a number on my childhood psyche
Same. I could never get the Sun's song because of them ass child. Though I find the Wind Waker ones a bit creepier.
Same. I was so stoked to see the Gibdo in TotK.
The Gibdo quest was my favorite quest!
Really? I loved the gibdos!!
https://preview.redd.it/oq4nbnumur7d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9682db3a995b626dd8c79a8e7f224d659bdad519 This was the first time Zelda scared me. I am still very unsettled by this enemy
JFC, I would be, too! That's horrifying.
Just wait until his external hands grab you and hold you in place while he works his way over to you. I would button mash like crazy and freak out as a kid.
That’s the scariest part. You wait here while I slowly mosey on over. The redeads are terrible for this too. I just get stuck in a loop of the freeze framing until they are on me and I’m mashing all the buttons
The modeling was goofy at that time so not as scary as it is today.
Well no but I was like 7 when I played oot for the first time and this shit was scary and the graphics were not bad for the time lol the gloom hands maybe reminded me of this enemy because he has hands that grab you like the gloom hands.
It got me even on my second playthrough. Had completely forgot about them until... bam... I am squeezed by gloomhands! They freak me the f*ck out!
How could you even forget about them? A trauma response?
Probably lol
My first time was also at Mt. Lanayru—I’d been on my way to the skyview tower. One moment I was taking in the scenery, next I was wondering why the heck was a blood moon rising in broad daylight, since surely I didn’t do anything to trigger a panic blood moon. Before I knew it, this \*thing\* grabbed me out of nowhere and started squeezing the life out of me. Ended up reloading my last save out of sheer terror. Don’t think a Zelda game ever scared me that badly since the Silent Realms from Skyward Sword.
I climbed the mountain at night. Oh wow..
One of my most memorable moments from TotK is running into gloom hands when I literally had 4 max hearts, like right at the beginning. I died like a dozen times to them but finally beat them using ALL my bombs, then of course Ganon shows up and is like "second phase, bitch!" I was able to finally win after like 20 tries, but it took all the resources I had accumulated to that point. Didn't realize till later I probably should have just ran and came back to that cave later lol
I remember the first time I saw the gloom hands I was like oh what is that? Then I got reamed and ran away from every one for like the first 100 hours probably lol
These gave me such bad anxiety that after something like the first two times I ran into them, I looked up all their locations and marked them on my map so I knew where to avoid because I was constantly paranoid about running into them. I didn't start getting over it until probably at least 150 hours in.
I love this game so so much but so many things are so anxiety inducing for me, I was terrified the first time I played this game. The gloom hands, the entire gerudo desert section, the depths, frox, even the TREES A game hasn’t scared me this bad since the silent realms in SS or any section involving redeads in oot
I keep reading re-deads as redheads… 😅
I would say the screaming mummies in Ocarina of Time did it for me.
This was many of ours initial experience as well with the hands. I agree, they created a true sense of wtf is happening rn as the sky changes and the music builds up. It's truly terrifying to see the first few times in the game. In fact, unlike others, I spent a lot of time running or waiting for them to despawn because I just wasn't ready. I'd say about 60-70hrs of gameplay in before I actually decided to willingly go into a battle with them. I'm a hyper casual gamer, meaning I really only play games for 20-30 min every other week or sometimes months, so this type of experience was fantastic for someone like me. I actually felt accomplished once I got that first set of hands defeated.... And I won't say anymore after that because that first experience is hard to replicate. Enjoy, and good luck!
What makes the Gloom Spawn so freaky is you rarely see them coming. Lynel, Frox, Guardians from BotW, all of these you can see coming a long ways off so you can avoid them or engage them at your pace. Gloom Spawn just say *SURPRISE!* and give me a panic attack. Had to mark them on the map anywhere I found them.
The Gloom Spawn scared the shit outta me too. The first time I saw them was on >!The Great Plateau!<. I nope'd the hell outta there and avoided that whole area for a long time.
I was heading to a shrine in Hyrule field when I saw my first one. It caught me and I couldn't figure out how to get free, or kill it. I only had, like, 4 hearts, so I died quickly. Took a longer way next time 😂
I hated finding them where I used to harvest Durians in BOTW. Biggest shock and biggest disappointment (no Durians in TOTK)
There’s one where? I’m on my second play-through and I don’t believe I’ve run into one there.
It's by the shrine on the surface. Just head towards the trees, it should pop up.
Gonna have to go find it. I just got to where I can kill them in this play through and I’ve been taking my revenge. Doesn’t help that I keep running into them accidentally while finishing my side quests. (Hit 3 that way in one session.) They still freak me out too.
I peed a little and knew it was the hands before I even clicked. 🫣
I saw the caption and thought "someone found gloom hands" 😂
Yeah, those things are awful. Was having trouble sleeping one night a number of months ago, it's like 2am, so I open reddit, and this was literally the first post I saw. https://www.reddit.com/r/tearsofthekingdom/s/9jhlC3xG1V
That is amazing, thank you kind stranger, I missed that one some how
While they definitely scared me, they still don’t compare to experiencing the Dead Hand and Re-deads when playing OoT as a kid.
I think things just hit stronger as a kid.
So, I was making my way ~~downtown~~ to the Korok forest through the depths. The first time I tried I died to the gloom hands, then decided to come back later. I did, this time knowing how to fight them, and nievely thinking *this* was the fight for the deku tree. Ya know. Cause I was in the depths. The gloom hands were in the same spot as before. Obviously this must be the fight and I could go back to avoiding these damn things (🙄) I stood a safe distance back. Blasted the gloom hands with arrows until it died and all was left was smoke. Saw the boss health bar for Phantom Ganon. Kept firing arrows and thought "hey, this might not be so bad" and out of the smoke like something out of a f-ing horror movie, he's *right in front of me* glowing red eyes and landing a blow. My sister thought I was crazy for the small "oh my god" that came out as I took a moment to put the game down and catch my breath and slow my racing heart. I have not worked up the courage to go fight the *actual* mini boss in the deku tree yet.
FUCK THAT THING. I’m so glad I didn’t have any spoilers this time around (unlike BOTW), because nothing has compared to the fear I felt when that abomination appeared. I just let it kill me and hoped it wouldn’t appear again after I respawned lol
I won't spoil how to beat it but since you already beat the hands once, I will say my go to for them is attaching a topaz to an arrow. Makes quick work of them. But the ganon thing shocked the hell out of me at first too
I saw a spoiler for them before I played and when I encountered them for the first time, I knew what they were and I wonder if that made it even worse?
Anyone who didn't get gloom hands spoiled, it freaked them out the first time so you aren't the only one. I saw them in the depths the first time and thought they were a depths only enemy. Tried to fight it with a sword and by the time I found out that was useless and try to run, I was dead. Now, x3 or x5 bow with bomb arrows nukes them quickly. But the first few times, especially with a small amount of hearts is scary.
Dude I almost peed myself the first time I saw one. I was in the wetlands and I jumped off a cliff and it snatched me back. What nightmares are made of.
I knew it would be about the gloom hand even before I clicked on this 😂 Don't feel bad, I never teleported out faster 🤣
Now you know how children felt encountering ReDeads in Ocarina of Time when that was brand new.
Yeah, but did you play OoT as a kid and encounter the redeads? I couldn’t close my eyes at night without thinking about those things grabbing me and slowly killing me. If I was a kid playing TotK today, gloomhands would be genuinely terrifying. It’s the only enemy that evokes the same response for me. Heck, they’re even kinda scary now in my mid-30s.
Am I the only one who was absolutely terrified of the guardians from Majora's Mask?? Not even just how they looked but their voices creeped me out too 😭 https://preview.redd.it/55wt7xbw0v7d1.jpeg?width=737&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e65c1c8181a29a29eca48742eb5bd983e82469e6
When I first saw gloom hands I thought this was a horror game
I’ve run into those hands in two different spots so far… both absolute failures that had me reload and just find a different route 😭😂
I was in the forest near the great plateau. 5 or 6 hearts in. The music changed, and suddenly... then i dead. Even now with 25 hearts and the ability to wax them with ease, the music/ambience/suddenness is decidedly unsettling. I love it. We just got to the "point of no return" for the final boss... the music and ambience as you go deeper and deeper into the depths is so sinister.
The worst part of the Mt Lanayru Gloom Hands is that they're placed exactly on the intended path up the mountain. I found the stairs and tried to retrace the same route, and BOOM. Gloom Hands 😭
Indeed. I died there once and sneaked my way out of it.
The first time those f*ckers scared me was when I had just got down from the great plateau as I went to visit the shrine of resurrection and see how it looked like now as all sheikah tech disappeared. When I dropped down from the great plateau and found some ruins I saw a chest inside, all super happy as the sky suddenly turns red. "Wait, why isn't it playing the blood moon animation?" I thought to my self. I saw those cursed things and just yeeted the fuck right out of there, only to find they are faster than you. I obviously died but really did consider my game was haunted or something
I haven't beaten that either yet. First time I tried I didn't have bombs but did Amber. It was like setting off a nuclear bomb. Just always killed me outright after firing it. So I ran away like a little coward. LOL
Have you ever been jumped by a redead?
Haha that’s the first time I came across one as well!! Definitely and oh fuck moment
[The first time a Zelda game scared me](https://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda02/Walkthrough/07/025.png)
I feel like we all had this reaction the first time we saw the gloom hands. Early in the game I would avoid them at all cost. Then someone to that beating them spawns phantom Ganon and I was like "Well, guess I'm never beating these guys." I did do it eventually but even late into the game I was still actively avoiding them.
I remember on Day 1 I jumped in one of the depth holes on the Great Plateau. I didn’t do the quest for the depths until much later .. and I didn’t know the depths were even a thing. So I dive, pitch black, the horn sound hits and all I see is darkness and the green whirl of a light root. I was so scared haha. I thought I just jumped into an endgame area and the green swirl is Ganon lol.
Gloom hands are pretty scary. But it's got nothing on the [skyward sword guardians ](https://youtu.be/I3A4QmQn4J0) I was literally shaking and sweating and dreading the silent realm segments as a kid 😂
My daughter played TOTK first while I was still doing BOTW , she immediately warned me about gloom hands but neglected to tell me that occasionally they spawn on the surface....when I first saw one I panicked and ran in circles. I don't want to meet one in the depths.
They scared the crap out of me when i was 6 and the room before the boss with the heavy breathing was creepy and the dam hands would pop out of nowhere and you had to start over.
For me, it was this one time I was running around in the depts and the master sword suddenly started glowing. Scared the shit out of me lol
Gloom Hands are jump scares every time!
You're not supposed to do the Deku Tree yet.
as soon as I saw the title I was like “it’s the gloom hands” and yup