Few things rattle me quite like the low moan of a Redead. As a kid, I would smash the pause button the second one of these things alerted me to their presence. I often panicked and gave up the controller to an older cousin if they were around, and if not, I could easily waste an hour backing out of the area and trying to build my confidence up for an encounter. Ocarina of Time was my first, proper Zelda, and arguably one of the more frightening entries. Even now, as an adult who probably should have found her big girl britches, there’s something about Ocarina of Time’s Redeads and then more horrifying Dead Hand that send my fight or flight into overdrive. It’s for those very reasons I hope we haven’t seen the end of them, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed they’ll find a new home in Breath of the Wild 2.
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With every new Zelda, I go through the same routine of hoping my favorite terrors from Ocarina of Time will return. Much to my delight, Redeads returned in Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess – Tri Force Heroes even had its own version, though there wasn’t much that was spooky about them. However, the horrifying Dead Hand kept its spot as an Ocarina of Time exclusive, which feels like such a waste.
While Breath of the Wild was a brighter, charming world compared to the likes of Ocarina, Majora, or Twilight Princess, its story is certainly one of the far grimmer tales. Despite a beautiful open world, Link feels a bit lonelier than he has in Zeldas past. At a glance, perhaps its art style can be a little misleading, but Breath of the Wild is often anything but hopeful, and its sequel looks like that but dialed up to 11.
It’s not that the original Breath of the Wild itself doesn’t have its own frightening moments, either. Both Redeads and the monstrous Dead Hand feel at home if you drop them into the chaos of a Blood Moon. Or, perhaps the Redeads are your Blood Moon haunts, while a Dead Hand feels a little bit more at home in the depths of a shrine. While I wouldn’t particularly describe any of those as frightening as the Blood Moon, the dark, dank corridors and Monks at the end of each shrine still seem fitting for any of Ocarina’s monsters.
When I look to Breath of the Wild 2 and its teases from two E3s now eluding to something a little more frightening, I can’t help but feel prematurely disappointed if they don’t bring at least the Redeads back, though the Dead Hand is a million times more frightening. When the Shadow Temple’s mini-boss cranes its long neck out, twisting its head to the side as it looks to take a bite out of Link, I feel my soul leave my body. That thing is, without a doubt, the worst creature Zelda has ever thrown at us.
I get that we all want to move on from old designs and not linger too long in the past, but it’s not like Zelda doesn’t revisit a hundred other enemies, and I reckon it’s about time we revisit some of the more frightening bits of Zelda that traumatized a generation. If the horrifying silhouette of the Dead Hand and haunting sound of a Redead left such an impression two decades ago, then surely a modern Zelda can implement the series’ scariest for an entry that looks, and has already proven to be, just as twisted as some of those from the past.
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