Tears of the Kingdom been gone for the weekend, and y’all, it’s getting grim out there. While I expected players to get wild and weird with their creations and was totally thrilled to see that it only took about 24 hours for the first flaming phallus to reach my timeline, player creations have taken a decidedly unexpected and worryingly dark turn.
It’s about the Koroks, you see.
As in Breath of the Wild, the two forest spirits litter the land in remote places and strange configurations. Lift a prominently placed boulder here or chase a moving leaf there to reveal a jolly little creature that’s glad you took the time to play its cute hide-and-seek game. You will also be rewarded for your time and cleverness with a Korok seed that you can trade in to increase your weapon inventory. But in this game there are additional missions you can complete, reuniting Koroks, laden with unwieldy backpacks, who have become separated from their friends.
The challenges are using toK‘s new powers for you to craft airplanes, trainsAnd cars to help the beleaguered travelers get from point A to point B. But some players don’t want to help the Koroks and choose to, well…
Search for “korok” on TikTok and you’ll get tons of videos of players slaying these tiny, helpless creatures. Some of these cases of horrific abuse are, of course, accidents, with the Koroks falling victim to the precocious vagaries of physics and user error.
But deliberately abusing Koroks has turned into its own emerging activity in Tears of the Kingdom, with players surpassing themselves to create the most gruesome torture devices. I have seen unimaginable horrors. I have seen them burnt, blasted, towedand crucified.
Fortunately, as immortal, benign spirits, Koroks can’t actually be killed. If you chase them into the abyss, they immediately jump back to the nearest solid surface. And they don’t seem to feel any pain, saying soft “Phews” and “I have to go to my friend!” spray! if you roast them alive. Yet these are Koroks, you monsters! They are honey! They know nothing and they have never hurt anyone! Maybe Ganon has a point. Maybe we should listen to him. Because I’ve seen the face of evil, and it’s not him.
