Pokemon Go map has a “Zelda Dungeon” maze
Niantic/The Pokemon Company/NintendoA Pokemon Go player has discovered a truly unique area, where oddly detailed patterns look like something out of The Legend of Zelda series.
While it’s admirable that Pokemon Go covers most of the world, the map itself is mostly barren, with basic recreations of roads, buildings, parks, and bodies of water. Most of the interesting stuff is contained within aspects of the game, such as landmarks appearing in PokeStops.
It turns out that there are a few hidden gems in Niantic’s virtual world, as spotted by a user on the Pokemon Go subreddit. They found a strange area in Wisconsin, which appeared to show a maze-like path, making out the words “Know The Signs” and “Heart Disease,” with a map in the shape of a human heart.
“That looks like a Zelda dungeon ngl,” one user commented, while another said, “Alien crop circles. Or the best Mario Kart track ever.”
Players quickly discovered that this is a real place you can visit and not some glitch in the Pokemon Go matrix. It’s a corn maze that was designed to raise awareness of heart disease.
“It’s usually a corn maze that was picked up by satellite imagery. There’s one by my work just like this,” one user explained, while another wrote, “I’ve gone to a corn maze in Wisconsin a few years called ‘Richardson’s corn maze’ I wonder if this is what that is. Really cool place in the fall.”
Pokemon Go uses OpenStreetMap as the base for its overworld, so someone must have created the maze in great detail in that program for it to appear so detailed in Niantic’s mobile game.
It’s a shame that more of the Pokemon Go world isn’t that detailed. Imagine if the game could create mazes that match the dungeons seen throughout the series, possibly utilizing the woefully underwhelming Routes mechanic.