Charlotte Elliott

On YouTube, there is a popular playthrough video posted by RTGame called “Kirby and the Forgotten Land: A Horror Game in Disguise”. It is an exploration of Nintendo’s 2022 game featuring the classic titular character, Kirby – a joyful pink blob who swallows his enemies whole and gains adorable powers. The game lures the player into a lush green adventure, exploring abandoned worlds whilst battling a range of compelling creatures.

On the surface, it’s unquestionably fun. The mechanics are good, the story is engrossing, and The Forgotten Land is overall a well-received game. It just doesn’t turn out the way you expect. 

Kirby lore has always been mysterious. The beginning of crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros: Ultimate (2018) confirms that Kirby is one of Nintendo’s most canonically powerful characters. Analyses over the years have led to deductions that Kirby is indeed a “powerful god”, a “positive outgrowth of the void” and “the cutest cosmic horror”. I could dissect the ambiguous – and surprisingly dark – lore of the Kirby universe for hours. However, it is fascinating how Nintendo never abandons its original mythos. 

The surface impression of Kirby and the Forgotten Land has the ability to be transformed, into an unexpected experience that leads the player into a nightmarish setting. The gameplay becomes slowly more threatening (as one would expect in any standard story closing in on the final confrontation). However, things accelerate after defeating classic boss King Dedede. 

The music goes quiet. Kirby ascends into the laboratory Discovera, while the creatures known as waddle-dees cower and cry. In the smashed-up elevator, a voice cheerily announces that “you are about to be introduced to the ultimate life form, Specimen ID-F86!” However, we know by the dilapidated scene that something is wrong. It is the perfect scene that evokes a feeling of dread. We know we are about to come face-to-face with an abomination. 

Fecto Forgo is a Thing-esque creature of Eldritch imagination. The bulky mass violently absorbs smaller enemies on screen, sucking them into its monstrous form. Declared an “invasive species”, Kirby can only run as it drags its repulsive form down the hallway towards us. 

Fecto Forgo is certainly not the only horror element of The Forgotten Land, nor the Kirby universe. Nonetheless, it is a perfect embodiment of the developers’ willingness to integrate horror elements into games that may be initially perceived as only for children. Although to declare The Forgotten Land as a horror game is rather an exaggeration, it is a testament that demonstrates how the Kirby franchise has never been afraid to transcend from its cutesy expectations, and instead lean into the terrifying possibilities of its own cosmos. 

For more:

RTGame’s “Kirby and the Forgotten Land: A Horror Game in Disguise” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWqhS0ERxA

Reddit forum r/AskScienceFiction “What is Kirby?” https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/a4t6z3/nintendokirby_what_is_kirby/

Image is property of Nintendo (2022).