The 10 Coolest HIDDEN Levels in Recent Video Games

The Final-Final Test Badge Marathon “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” (2023)

The “Super Mario” series is always good for including a secret final level, one that is undeniably a masterclass both in design and making you question your platforming skills. The Final-Final Test Badge Marathon from “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” is such a level. You can only unlock it after you’ve collected every Wonder Seed, every Flower Coin, and reached the top of every flagpole across all levels. It’s essentially a series of obstacle courses, each of which has you use one of the Badges you earn throughout the game. It isn’t as hard as other final levels Mario and co. have endured, but it’s still plenty challenging. Of course, it’s also a ton of fun, blending its difficulty with Nintendo’s signature, delightful charm.

Grand Slam “Ion Fury” (2019)

The oldest game we’ll talk about today, 2019’s “Ion Fury” is a love letter to old school PC shooters like “Duke Nukem” and OG “Doom.” Following a boss fight within the fourth level of the game’s third zone, you’ll find a piano. Playing specific notes in a certain order, which you find on a computer in the previous level, gets you a key card that opens a door close to the level’s exit. This all gets you into the hidden level, Grand Slam. As you might expect, the level is a sports arena teeming with tons of enemies. It’s really fun running around a dystopian baseball diamond, food court, and other areas, unleashing hell. And the level has its own neat secrets for players to track down as well.

The Phon'Qi Caverns “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” (2023)

The planet Koboh is home to a ton of quests in “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor,” many of them optional. One that might be easy to miss only shows up after you’re brought there for the fourth time. You’ll find a Prospector outside Doma’s shop, who mentions having nightmares about the Phon’Qi Caverns. Following this rumor is the only way to access this area of the map, which is home to a lot of tough enemies. These include a couple lightsaber-wielding, force users, as well as a really cool fight against a Rancor. It’s a great place to test your combat skills, but there’s also plenty of loot to be had, like an upgrade to your map that highlights all unlooted chests.

The Jungle “Baldur’s Gate 3” (2023)

You can find most areas in “Baldur’s Gate 3” just by exploring. But the Jungle is more well-hidden. In Act III, you’ll find the Circus of the Last Days. One of its employees is Akabi, a djinni who runs a magically rigged Spin the Wheel game. It costs 500 gold to play, and everything you can win is useless, unless you cheat the cheater to win the jackpot. A DC 20 Perception check tips you off that he’s cheating. You can pickpocket the ring allowing him to do so by passing a DC 15 Sleight of Hand check or, as a Bard, distract him with a DC 15 Performance or Persuasion check. Akabi won’t be too happy about the outcome, and will transport you to a jungle full of dinosaur enemies. This is the only way you can find this area, and its enemies don’t appear elsewhere. So, the lone party member will need to handle things alone. It’s an interesting way to hide an area, and the reward of Nyrulna, a legendary trident that returns to your hand after you throw it, is more than worth the visit.

Eidos 9 “Stellar Blade” (2024)

There’s a really cool secret level tied to Lily, the technician who upgrades your gear in “Stellar Blade.” Each time you find collectibles, like data slates and documents, you add to her progress bar. You don’t have to collect everything, but once the bar reaches 100 percent, and you’re about to head from the Great Desert to Spire 4, Lily will ask to visit Eidos 9 where you’ll find her atelier. Traversal in this place is both really fun and pretty dangerous. Grinding around on the roller coaster rails, which is just a cool design for a level, is great, but there’s also polluted water that will kill you after a few seconds. Your main objective here is to destroy cocoons that are protected by monsters, but there’s a lot to explore and, of course, several outfits for Eve to collect.

The Crater “God of War Ragnarök” (2022)

You might raise an eyebrow to this one, considering most of us probably found it anyway. But even the game refers to it as a Hidden Region, and you can miss it if you don’t follow a specific side quest, and that’s good enough for us. After completing ‘The Creatures of Prophecy’ in Vanaheim, you’ll find Lunda’s weird pig dog pet thing, Helka, by the nearby Mystic Gateway. After following her for a while as a side quest, she leads you to a cliffside where you get a hint towards the location of the missing Birgir, one of Freyr’s allies. Using their mystical flying boat, Kratos and Atreus will set out to rescue him before being attacked by a dragon, causing them to plummet into the Crater, a humongous, completely optional area. There is a ton to do here. Bosses to face, puzzles to solve, loot to collect, lore to track down, and, of course, a friend in need of rescuing. The only problem is that the game throws this at you right as you’re gearing up for the climax.

The Unmoored World “Dragon’s Dogma 2” (2024)

During the climax of “Dragon’s Dogma 2,” you can either choose to walk away, receiving the Bad Ending, or fight your big bad dragon antagonist, which leads to your celebratory coronation. However, during this scene, instead of sitting on your throne to end the game, you can find the Pathfinder, who gives you the option to go back in time. If you accept, you’ll be taken to the climax once again. While riding the dragon to the final fight, using the Empowered Godsbane Blade on yourself causes you to both crash, and you later awaken in the Unmoored World. This is kind of cheating, since it isn’t a level or area, but it is a complete recreation of the world. All the water is gone, which reveals previously inaccessible locations, and a dense fog continuously creeps in, blocking access to familiar places. There are also new quests, and much more powerful enemies. Everything looks apocalyptic, which is fitting since you then have to prevent the end of days. It’s a pretty cool way to approach secret post-game content.

The Haligtree “Elden Ring” (2022)

The Haligtree dungeon is now pretty famous, as is the boss fight against Malenia that lies at the end. But before it gained fame, the method of actually finding it was pretty obscure. It involved collecting two halves of a medallion, one of which was found in Castle Sol and the other held by an old man disguised as a pot in the Village of the Albinaurics. You then had to present it at the Grand Lift of Rold to open the Consecrated Snowfield, which presented you with a puzzle, the solution of which was also obscure, before you could actually get inside. It’s a stunning location, though; a gigantic tree you descend down with majestic castles and some really challenging enemies. The tree leads you to Elphael, an impressive keep housing plenty of loot to cherish, if you can survive, that is.

Laser Hell “Split Fiction” (2025)

Hazelight’s latest fantastic co-op adventure, “Split Fiction,” wants you to experience all it has to offer. But even it includes a secret level most players missed at first. In the ‘Maximum Security’ section of the ‘Isolation’ chapter, players will find an elevator with a string of binary code above it. You’re meant to each stand on one button inside that takes you to the next area. But if one player enters the code using the buttons, the right one standing for 1 and the left standing for 0, you’ll be taken to a hidden challenge. There are five rooms featuring different laser obstacles, and getting through them is, without a doubt, the hardest part of the game. In fact, it’s so hard that director Josef Fares recorded a video message, inviting the first duo to conquer it to visit the studio and check out the team’s new game.

Great Master Challenge “Astro Bot” (2024)

It’s completely worth collecting all 300 bots and 120 puzzle pieces in the base game of “Astro Bot,” just for the fun of it. But if you do so, you’re also rewarded with a secret final level called Great Master Challenge. Now, “Astro Bot” doesn’t tend to be very hard. But this level is an exception. There isn’t really any safe space that won’t fall out from under you, or be swarmed by enemy attacks and other hazards. Just like the rest of the game, though, it’s an extremely well-designed obstacle that feels incredible to play thanks to the DualSense controller. At the end, you’re rewarded with one final bot, modeled after Chop Chop Master Onion, a deep cut nod to “PaRappa the Rapper.” If there’s an awesome secret level you found in a recent game that we forgot to mention, let us know about it in the comments. 

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