Am I the only person who gets totally creeped out by Blood Moons in Breath of the Wild?

From the bright red moon rising with the halo, the creepy flute trill, to the sparks and black blobs rising to the eventual stopping off the game whilst the voice of Zelda tells you “The Blood Moon rises once again… be careful Link”.

The entire mechanic of the game is there for a reason. Because Zelda is now open world (and so much better for it) and the laws of physics now apply to many things such as trees, rocks, barrels and such, as well as mobs being killed really remaining killed – it would be very easy for the game to break itself if too much changed.

The game, therefore, has the Blood Moon mechanic which respawns all mobs, resets the trees and other movable items, and essentially reboots the world (although it leaves the completed shrines and the divine beasts intact).

The Blood Moon normally occurs after about two and three quarter hours of overworld play. Visiting Hino at the Duelling Peaks stable will confirm if tonight’s moon will indeed be a Blood Moon.

It’s also quite amusing to find that under the right conditions you can trigger one at any time; generally if you try doing something the game doesn’t like and the game detects anything in the physics which may break the engine and crash it, it will force a Blood Moon immediately.

I’ve noticed that the latter Blood Moon also puts you on flat ground too (I once had one whilst I was up a tree swinging a metal block at a camp of Bokoblins). I presume this is because your location may be what is breaking the physics?

Broken Astronomy

Amusingly, Zelda gets its moon very wrong. I can’t honesty think of a game yet which gets it right!

Zelda games have always had the moon opposite the sun in the sky, regardless of phase.

When a Blood Moon occurs it’s akin to a Lunar Eclipse on Earth, although the halo is more like the Corona of the sun visible during a solar eclipse.

In reality, only the full moon is opposite the sun in the sky.

The crescent should be about 45 degrees at from the sun, the half moon (dichotomy) 90 degrees away, the gibbous phase 135 degrees away, and the full moon (and Blood Moon) opposite.

The moon phases in BotW however are very random. Even Minecraft always puts the sun and moon opposite each other in the sky.

Cartoons can’t get it right though. How many times have you seen an evening based section of The Simpsons with a morning moon? The crescent is back to front!