Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players may have found truth behind mysterious Area Zero symbols

Upon visiting Area Zero in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet post-game a strange set of mysterious symbols carved into the earth grabbed the community’s attention almost immediately. Now, more than a year after the game’s release, it seems we finally have an answer for what these markings are referencing. 

Initially, sleuths looking into the crop circle-like designs located deep within Area Zero thought they could be hinting at something featured in one of the game’s DLC expansions or some hidden content that no one had been able to piece together. As it turns out, neither deduction was true, as the strange symbols tie directly into something you can do at any point during the main game.

If you head to the hidden cave best known as the spawn location for Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant in Area Zero, you can look down upon the four circular symbols tied together by intersecting lines and a singular square in the middle. According to a map drawn by content creator Sifu, if you place the circles over the Paldea map and follow those lines to their endpoint in each circle they act as markers for four key locations that players might have trouble finding—the shrines of the Treasures of Ruin. 

For players who don’t know of the Treasures of Ruin, they are a new quartet of Legendary Pokémon added in Gen IX with unique lore tied to Paldea. Each of the four was sealed away by a former king of the region, being locked away in shrines scattered across four distinct areas. In each of those areas, which are depicted by the circles in the mysterious symbols, there are colored stakes you can find and pull out of the ground.

Once you pull out 10 stakes of the same color, the shrine connected to those stakes will unlock and release the sealed Legendary Pokémon into the world again. The catch, however, is that you need to track down the shrine’s location to encounter the Pokémon.

Now, based on this new information, you can use these symbols in Area Zero to properly hunt down the shrine once you unlock it or you can complete Raifort’s history classes to get the information and some additional lore.