Shrine of Worship

The Shrine of Worship is a massive structure located near the center of the Forbidden Lands. It serves as the hub of the game, as Wander is returned to the Shrine after defeating a colossus. Even though the Shrine is in the center of the Lands, it is the first area that Wander actually sets foot in; the only entrance to the Lands is an enormous bridge, spanning halfway across the entire lands, that leads directly to the Shrine.

There are two "rooms" in the Shrine. The first room Wander enters is a cylindrical room with a spiral ramp winding around its edge, which Wander walks down to get to ground level. This room also contains a shallow basin of water. In addition to being important to the plot, the basin is where all Time Attack rewards will show up once unlocked.

The Shrine of Worship can be seen from nearly any other place in the Forbidden Lands.

The second room is the main hall of the shrine, containing the altar where Mono is placed, the idols representing the sixteen colossi, and a great sunlit aperture in the ceiling of the main hall where Dormingives orders.

The Secret Garden

Mono in the Garden at the game's conclusion.

At the end of the game, Agro and Mono try to exit the shrine, only to find that the giant bridge has collapsed. They notice, however, a path to their right, which leads them to a beautiful courtyard filled with fruit and various animals (including some not previously seen in the Lands). This location has been referred to as the "garden" or "secret garden" by fans.

It is possible for Wander to climb up the temple (see below) and explore this area. However, none of the animals mentioned above are present, and consuming the fruit will actually lower both Wander's maximum health and stamina considerably. Fumito Ueda, the game's director, puts this in a positive light, however: "The fruit in the ancient land was set to get you closer to non-human existence. The (secret garden's) fruit was set to return you to a human one.

The Garden is, unfortunately, the highest the Shrine can be climbed. The Shrine was not meant to be climbed any higher in the final game; those who have tried to climb higher through various glitches, cheats,

The top of the shrine is not textured in the final game, but it was in this early demo, suggesting that a climb to the very top of the shrine was originally planned.

or other exploits found that much of the ground had no collision detection, and that still higher geometry had no texture mapping (beyond, obviously, what is visible from the distant LOD model of the Shrine).

This was not always the case, however. Early builds of the game had a fully-textured top-half of the Shrine; apparently, it was originally planned for Wander to be able to climb all the way up to the top. Since something of that large a scale and so low a development priority was not worth the time required to implement it, however, the idea was scrapped.

Climbing up the Shrine

It is possible to climb up the Shrine all the way to the other side of its northern (back) entrance. From there, you can go to the garden or run all the way across the bridge to the Lands' main entrance. You cannot exit the Lands, however; a mysterious gust of wind will force you back. Jumping diaganolly up the path conserves stamina, as it takes almost no stamina to jump diaganolly.

Video walkthrough

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Image walkthrough

Wander surveys the northeastern wall of the massive Shrine. The entire climb, as well as the path to the secret garden, can be seen in this shot.

Notes

• It takes approximately 8 and a half minutes to run the entire length of the bridge.
• There are 37 fruits to shoot down in the garden. If your health and stamina are maxed out, however, not even this will be enough to return them to the way they first were.
  

  The cylindrical room with the basin; Wander and Agro can be seen in the picture

  

  The Shrine's main hall