So… the Trial of the Sword. It’s everywhere on the Internet at the moment, being the biggest part of the Breath of the Wild DLC. But we’re not here to talk about that. No, we’re here to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the boundary of that test to end all tests.
You might have thought the Trial of the Sword was meant to judge your mettle and determination, but you were wrong. In reality, the Trial of the Sword exists to protect a certain mysterious place from the eyes of Hylians, a place so hauntingly peaceful it requires a seemingly random and very hard to replicate glitch to access.
Reddit user Sharkystheshotty discovered this area during the third medium trial. According to his recollection, he “flew up with my glider on trial 3 on the Medium trials near where the floating chest was on the wall by the corner.” Upon doing so, the fabric of time and space broke down around him (he glitched through the wall) and he found himself standing in this strange and beautiful land, isolated and detached from the woes of the world… and with no way to get back to the Trial of the Sword. He had entered… the Twilight Zone (sorry, that just popped into my head).
There’s just something eerie yet wonderous about these empty never-meant-to-be-seen places. Take all the game objects, enemies, and NPCs out of the normal game world, and this is what you’d end up with, yet the feeling these areas evoke is unique. Maybe it’s their forbidden nature, of knowing you are where you aren’t supposed to be.
Maybe it’s the idea that there might be something to discover here, though your inner voice knows there isn’t. Maybe it’s the mystery of why this place exists in the first place or the sudden separation from the action of the proper game world. Whatever the case, out of bounds maps are, and will always be, fascinating.
