Tears of the Kingdom Players Horrified By Chuchu Concept Art

A familiar monster from The Legend of Zelda series came so close to looking a lot different, as concept art of the Chuchu from Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom has resurfaced, horrifying fans who had never seen its original design. Luckily, the creators of The Legend of Zelda series decided to tone the design down, making it less unsettling to the audience.

The Chuchus are the slime monsters that Link encounters all around Hyrule, who drop useful jelly that can be used to make different Elixirs. There are several kinds of Chuchu, each with different attacks and elemental affinities, all producing their own kinds of jelly and all with their own strengths and weaknesses. The player will want to gather as much jelly as possible, as it’s also used to upgrade some of the armor sets in the game.

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The Chuchu Concept Art In The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Was Horrifying

The Chuchus that appear in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom resemble blobs of jelly with red and yellow eyes. The original rough design idea appeared in a book called The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Creating a Champion, which was posted to the Breath of the Wild Reddit by a user named Glass_Whereas8028. Fans were dismayed to see that the original Chuchu had a set of puffy red lips, like the Rolling Stones logo.

This unused design is reminiscent of an iteration of the Chuchu from an earlier entry in The Legend of Zelda series. In Majora’s Mask, the Chuchu had large red lips and white teeth, despite being slime monsters. They also had mouths in The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, though their lips weren’t as prominent.

The exact reason why this design is so discomforting is hard to pin down, with some claiming that it makes the Chuchu’s too human in their appearance, whereas they’re normally just blobs with eyes. Fans also had some very inappropriate remarks regarding adding a mouth to the Chuchu, which we won’t repeat here.

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Video game characters always go through design changes, with discarded ideas seen in things like the Tears of the Kingdom artbook or the Final Fantasy Ultimania guides. It’s strange to think that some of the most iconic heroes and villains in video game history almost looked very different, with the humanoid Chuchu being one of many examples of what could have been,