How to Unlock Secret Kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey

How to Unlock Secret Kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey

Posted in mario odyssey

Super Mario Odyssey contains a number of delightful kingdoms, each one having a beautifully crafted explorable area, Power Moons to collect, and in certain cases, a boss fight to progress. In this guide I'll explain how to unlock the secret kingdoms in the game that are required for 100% completion.

Before we go any further, it's important to realize that this post does contain some spoilers so if you don't want to know anything about secret kingdoms and how to find them, then I recommend turning away now!

In total there are 14 well known kingdoms in the game, with three extra kingdoms hidden behind end-game secrets.

Main Kingdoms



The 14 kingdoms which are required to complete the main story are:

  • Cap
  • Cascade
  • Sand
  • Lake
  • Wooded
  • Cloud
  • Lost
  • Metro
  • Snow
  • Seaside
  • Luncheon
  • Ruined
  • Bowser's
  • Moon


The Importance of Power Moons



Power Moon - Love by the Lake

Every kingdom in Mario Odyssey has a certain number of Power Moons for players can find and collect. Moons can be hidden behind boss fights, objectives and puzzles. Mario has to use his acrobatic maneuvers and transformational skills (via Cappy) to claim most of them.

Thankfully, the game is fairly helpful in guiding you through the process of collecting Power Moons. Of course you don't get exact directions to each and every Power Moon but you do have contextual audio clues and menus displaying lists of Moons per kingdom.

What most new players don't realise is that it's impossible to collect every Power Moon on your first run. You must wait until the endgame before NPC's and certain relics called "Moon Stones" appear - which in turn reveal even more Power Moons to collect.

These extra Moons are essential for unlocking the secret kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey. See below.

How to Unlock Secret Kingdoms



Bowser Capture

Once you reach the final kingdom (the Moon) and defeat the final BOSS (Bowser) you essentially open up the endgame part of Mario Odyssey. Upon beating the BOSS, the first secret kingdom to be unlocked is the "Mushroom Kingdom" - a large open world with many Power Moons to collect.

Before end-game there isn't a lot of pressure to collect all of the Power Moons, with players being able to collect the bare minimum to unlock the next kingdom each time.

However, the endgame activity is certainly more demanding as you'll be given the chance to go back and visit previous kingdoms with the objective of finding additional Moons that are unlocked via Moonstones. You can also replay boss fights for a chance to win multi-moons again.

Unlock Requirements

During end-game there are three major milestones that will unlock new kingdoms:

  • Collect 250 Power Moons - unlocks the "Dark Side" of the Moon"
  • Collect 500 Power Moons - unlocks "Darker Side" of the Moon
  • Collect ALL Power Moons - unlocks Delfino Island (unconfirmed)


Collect 250 Power Moons - Unlocks Dark Side of the Moon



Dark Side of the Moon

The first secret Kingdom is unlocked by collecting 250 Power Moons. By now the majority of these will come from rewards from Toadette who offers you Power Moons in return for completing challenges or mini-milestones in the game. You can also buy Moon's using yellow coins that you collect on your travels - with 100 coins converting to a single Moon.

The extra moons are required to power the Odyssey, allowing the flying ship to travel to the dark side of the moon, opposite to where Bowser was trying to wed Princess Peach.

On the dark side there is a giant boss rush tower where you fight all four (and the mech) with no extra health. As you might expect the fight is much harder than normal.

So far it appears there are 25 Moon's to collect on the dark side of the moon.

Collect 500 Power Moons - Unlocks Darker Side of the Moon



Darker Side of the Moon

Most were expecting a Delfino Island unlock when reaching 500 Power Moon's but I'm afraid it's in fact the "Darker Side" of the Moon which is unlocked at this Milestone.

Equivalent to the Champion Road levels from previous Mario games this is a very tough lava level with no checkpoints and very difficult obstacles.

Collect ALL Power Moons - Unlocks Delfino Island



Yoshi Island - Classic game

The well known home of Yoshi, Delfino island is a tropical place inhabited by Piantas, Sunflower kids and all the memorable creatures we associate with Yoshi.

This unlock has yet to be confirmed so stay tuned for confirmation and more details.