You’re probably used to all the cliche level designs that come up game after game: the volcano level, the snow level, the one where you have five minutes to escape the island before it explodes. But how about the one where you’re inside the intestinal tract of a living, breathing creature? Normally being eaten by something in a video game means game over. End of the line. Try again.
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But sometimes being a massive monster’s snack is just the beginning. Some games love to put you in a sticky situation, and there’s nothing quite as sticky as the digestive system of the giant creature that just swallowed your character whole.
10The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - Jabu-Jabu’s Belly
Link’s no stranger to weird locales and elaborate dungeons, but it’s out of the ordinary to find the Hero of Time stuck inside the fleshy walls of an entire creature. That creature in question is Lord Jabu-Jabu, whose belly serves as the third dungeon inThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Link’s adventure inside the bowels of Jabu-Jabupits him against lethal bubbles, long gangly tonsil-like appendages and the writhing electrified jellyfish-like boss of the dungeon. There’s even a painstaking escort mission where Link’s forced to help Princess Ruto navigate the whale’s maze-like belly.
9God Of War 2 - The Colossus Of Rhodes
The second entry in theGod of Warseries kicks off in spectacular fashion, pitting Kratos against an animated Colossus of Rhodes. The entire first act is a cat-and-mouse chase between you and the Colossus hellbent on taking you out.
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This sequence of fights culminates in Kratos busting through the Colossus’s metal frame and scaling its body from the inside. It’s a less organic ordeal than those that come later in the series, but, mind you, this is the same entry with an entire area dedicated to climbing the titan Atlas, inside and out.
8Gears Of War 2 - Riftworm
When the Delta Team fromGears of War2 find themselves in the dead center of a mile-long riftworm, they have no choice but to traverse its rocky insides in a level appropriately named ‘Intestinal Fortitude.’ The backdrop features mobs of smaller enemies, a character death, and an escape sequence from a pile of digested rubble.
Despite the characters commenting on the bizarre anatomy of the worm, there are plenty of sinewy walls and fleshy bits to tear through. The whole affair is fast-paced, suitably disgusting, and a bit more… sphinctery than similar stages in other games.
7Kingdom Hearts - Monstro
Sora and the Disney gangfromKingdom Heartsare no outsiders to strange worlds and their inhabitants, so it’s not really a huge departure from the norm when their Gummi Ship is swallowed by Monstro, the whale of Pinocchio fame.
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It’s appropriately less graphic than you’d expect from the inside of a whale, offering a more colorful, kid-friendly, and bubbly experience. The location was revisited in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, though as a fabricated flashback to the events of the first game, it doesn’t really count.
6God Of War 2018 - Jormungandr
God of War 2018 may have been a soft reboot for the series, but it certainly kept the games' penchant for making Kratos fight his way through the literal belly of the beast. It showcased what that looks like in the modern age of gaming by having Kratos and Atreus fight their way through the inside of the world serpent Jormungandr.
The journey through the world serpent is relatively short, given the snake’s supposedly the length of the entire plane. Still, it’s a well-crafted level full of meticulously placed, half-digested platforms, complete with an escape-route regurgitation.
With a journey as harrowing as Isaac’s in theDead Spacetrilogy, it was only a matter of time before the main character found himself swimming around the insides of some otherworldly being. That would be The Nexus, a variation of the Hive Mind fought at the end of the first game.
Thankfully, your time inside the beast is short-lived. Once swallowed, you’re tasked with shooting down some cyst-like nests on the Nexus’s interior before drowning in its fluids, after which Isaac’s forcibly sucked out of the creature as it falls to its death.
4Final Fantasy 10 - Inside Sin
Sin is an ever-looming threat inFinal Fantasy 10, a colossal beast that supposedly manifested to punish the people of Spira. The final leg of the heroes' journey takes place within Sin itself.
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Sin’s insides (sinsides?) feature less viscera and organic matter and more random encounters and boss fights. It’s within Sin that Tidus and crew square off with recurring antagonist Seymour for the final time. The trek through Sin’s enigmatic insides builds up to a final boss battle against Titus’s father, as well as Yu Yevan, the very essence of Sin’s lifeforce.
3Devil May Cry 3 - Leviathan
Devil May Cry3 knows how to have a good time, even if some of its antics are a bit outlandish compared to previous entires. Take, for example, the seemingly random flying whale that consumes Dante after his first climactic encounter with brother/antagonist Virgil.
The stage is essentially a boss battle against three pulsating organs, complete with mobs of normal enemies to get in the way. Once Dante’s done wailing on the Leviathan’s heart-like body parts, he escapes the beast by bursting out of its eye in a fountain of blood.
2Borderlands 2 Captain Scarlett DLC - Leviathan
Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty was the first DLC introduced forBorderlands 2. It’s a bare-bones tale of treasure, betrayal,and, of course, pirates, and concludes with back-to-back boss battles, one of which takes place inside the other.
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The first of these fights takes place within the Leviathan itself, who ambushes you on the overworld and swallows your Vault Hunter whole. You’ll sqaure off against Captain Scarlett’s pet Roscoe in a pool of stomach acid, after which the Leviathan spits you back up to face you head-on.
1God of War 3 - Inside Gaea
There goes Kratos, fighting inside the body of some enormous mythological being again. The final clash between Zeus and Kratos in God of War 3 takes places within the chest cavity of Gaea, who Kratos struck down earlier in his quest to tear down Mount Olympus.
The original trilogy’s finale is admittedly more focused on Zeus than the interior of Gaea, but a large glowing heart makes for an exciting backdrop to the exhilarating multi-part boss battle. Even more so when Kratos uses the Blade of Olympus to pierce through both Zeus and Gaea’s heart at once.
