On the surface, the Kirby series is the quintessential wholesome platformer. From the pink puffball himself to the enemies he encounters in every stage, seemingly everything in the series has an adorable veneer to it.
However, that mask of cuteness hides a lot of entities and concepts that are surprisingly dark for such an unassuming franchise. A lot of this is hidden behind secret information for the biggest of fans to find, but some of it is shown plain as day for even newcomers to see. Some of these elements are not only dark, but explicitly disturbing to look at and discover.
8 Morpho Knight
Many Kirby games feature an orange butterfly that either lands on Kirby, or is seen flying in the background. This used to be a completely innocuous background detail, but as of Kirby Star Allies, this butterfly was revealed to have been Morpho Knight all along.
Little is known about Morpho Knight currently, but in both its appearances it has been shown absorbing another character in order to transform from the aforementioned butterfly into its knightly form. There are implications that it is some kind of being that overseas death and great battles, but the mystery around it only makes it creepier.
7 Marx
At the beginning of Kirby Super Star, Marx presents himself as a helpful character, telling Kirby how to stop the sun and moon from fighting each other. As it turns out however, Marx was the one who made the two fight to begin with, all to trick Kirby into helping him summon the wish-granting machine known as Galactic Nova.
Once he obtains power from Nova, Marx takes on his true form. Marx takes his jester aesthetic to the extreme, and his boss fight in Super Smash Bros Ultimate shows off his many bizarre antics. He can create black orbs from his eyeballs, turn his wings into veins, grow dark vines from the ground, and even rip himself in half to create a black hole.
6 Fecto Forgo
The Kirby series has a strong history of disturbing final bosses, and the main villain of Kirby and the Forgotten Land continues this trend. Fecto Forgo is the malevolent half of Fecto Elfilis, the final boss of the game. Before it regains its original form, it takes the form of a fetus-like creature in a tube, with bulbous eyes and shredded ears.
It not only looks disturbing, but also is said to have traveled dimensions, conquering worlds before it was captured by the former inhabitants of the forgotten land. It even brainwashes other villains in the game to get them to do its bidding, and at one point takes on an amorphous blob form to chase after Kirby.
5 Max Haltmann’s Story
The premise of Kirby Planet Robobot is that the Haltmann company has attacked Kirby’s planet, seeking to mechanize the whole planet and its inhabitants. It’s eventually revealed that the company’s CEO has a tragic reason for doing this.
After attempting to revive the advanced computer known as Star Dream, Haltmann’s daughter Suzy was lost in another dimension, causing her father to become madly obsessed with perfecting Star Dream and wishing for her back. So much so, that he doesn’t even recognize her when she returns of her own means. Due to his actions, Haltmann ends up being puppeted by Star Dream, and has his mind and soul erased when Kirby defeats it.
4 The Ancients
Dead civilizations are a fairly common and intriguing story element, and it might surprise some to know that the Kirby series has some of its own. ‘The ancients’ in particular, are the creators of much of the powerful artifacts seen across the series.
It was them who made Nova from Kirby Super Star, and Kirby Star Allies reveals that they may have committed a genocide against a separate faction of their own people. Even stranger, there are implications that Kirby and Meta Knight are ancients, begging the question of what happened to make them the last survivors, especially when the ancients were seemingly so powerful and advanced.
3 Shiver Star
This level from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards has chilled fans since the game first released. On his planet hopping adventure to retrieve the crystal shards, Kirby eventually makes his way through shiver star, a planet that seems oddly familiar to players.
The overworld model looks strikingly similar to a frozen over version of the earth. The stage also includes seemingly man-made structures, but is completely devoid of life, save for strange creatures kept in tubes, and a robot boss. The game says that the former inhabitants seem to have left, but if this truly was earth at one point, it’s likely that a great deal of humanity did not survive whatever happened to turn Shiver Star into an ice planet.
2 Zero/Zero 2
In the older Kirby games, Zero was a fairly iconic antagonist. It took on several forms, but it is best known for being the final boss of Kirby's Dreamland 3, where it is the source of a mysterious black mass that attacks dreamland in an attempt to swallow it whole.
Zero appears to be the source of other villains like Dark Matter, and even Kirby’s friend Gooey. It and Zero 2, which bears many similarities to it, are mysterious beings that seek to bring other life forms under their influence, most often through mind control and body stealing.
If that wasn’t disturbing enough, their true forms are white orbs with singular red eyes that are even shown bleeding during their battles against Kirby. And if there are 2 of them, there could very well be more out in the universe.
1 Void
The final boss of Kirby Star Allies is Void Termina, a form of Void that is said to have been created by feeding it with negativity. However, the implication is that Void can be born into a multitude of forms depending on the circumstances of its birth.
Based on the several forms Void takes during its fight with Kirby, it’s implied to be the source of other villains like Zero, Zero 2, and Dark Mind. Or, at the very least, it somehow has the ability to copy these beings and their powers. It even takes a form reminiscent of Kirby himself, implying that if it manages to absorb enough positive energy, it could become just like Kirby. Or, maybe Kirby is a version of Void that already did.