Pokemon is one of the biggest franchises ever, and the titular creatures are obviously the main attraction. However, it is easy for casual fans to forget just how horrifying some Pokemon can be. Take Dusknoir, for example. While some games depict it as guiding the souls of the dead, its Pokedex entry in Pokemon Sword andShield describes it as consuming victims’ souls or dragging them to the spirit world.
With that in mind, it might be a little unsettling to think that Dusknoir is spying on the players as they explore the game. However, one Pokemon SwordandShield player noticed that the Pokemon appeared to be doing precisely that.
Reddit user Gap_98 recently shared a short video on the Pokemon subreddit. The clip shows their Pokemon Trainer standing in the snow as Dusknoir hovers in front of them. However, as Gap_98 swings the camera back and forth, the Pokemon’s one orange eye appears to follow it. This gives the impression that Dusknoir is looking at the player instead of their avatar. It’s almost like the Pokemon is aware the player character is being steered around by the real person at the controls.
That would have been a clever touch on the part of the developers, adding an extra bit of creepiness to the ghost-type Pokemon. Unfortunately, Game Freak most likely did not intend to let Dusknoir peer through the fourth wall. Instead, it seems to be a side effect of how developers modeled Dusknoir’s eye, which consists of two 3D modeled spheres with one inside the other. This does a great job of simulating an iris and pupil but also makes it appear as if it’s looking directly at the player rather than their character.
Granted, it's not known for sure that this was an entirely unintended consequence. Developers would most likely have noticed this at some point during development and chose to leave it in. For all anyone outside of Game Freak knows, this may be part of why the developers decided to model Dusknoir’s eye in this way. Even those in the subreddit who pointed out that it probably wasn’t intentional noted the creepiness, not that Pokemon is lacking in disturbing content.
Regardless of the reasons, this discovery proved quite amusing for Pokemon Swordand Shield fans on the subreddit. One person joked that Dusknoir knew the player was there. Another quipped that it was slacking off by taunting them from behind the screen instead of doing its job and collecting their soul. Others compared Dusknoir to Shara Ishvalda from Monster Hunter World and Hermaeus Mora from Skyrim, who actually do turn their gaze on the player rather than their avatars.
Pokemon Sword andShield are available now on Nintendo Switch.
