What Worlds and Portals Are in The Cursed Library?

Updated

The Cursed Library (cursed.epic.net) is an interactive horror experience built around a single goal: find the six portals hidden in the library, each leading to a dark, disturbing world. The site's "Worlds" menu lists eight names — Library, Ogre, Hidden, Wolf, Little Red, Night, Bluebeard, and Kafka — but the library itself is the hub you start in, so the six portals correspond to the remaining themed worlds. The exact one-to-one mapping between portal and world name isn't spelled out on the page, so treat the list as the set of scenes you can encounter rather than a confirmed portal-by-portal index.

The worlds listed on the site

World What to expect
Library The starting hub — the cursed library you explore and turn around in
Ogre A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Hidden A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Wolf A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Little Red A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Night A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Bluebeard A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals
Kafka A dark world reached through one of the hidden portals

The names point to fairy-tale and literary horror territory — Little Red and Wolf, Bluebeard, and Kafka — which fits the site's description of "dark and disturbing worlds hidden in this cursed library."

How the worlds work as scenes

Each world is presented as a scene you enter and then leave, not a page you scroll. The on-screen controls confirm this structure:

  • Click and drag to turn around — you look around the library to spot portals.
  • Enter world — once you find a portal, you go through it.
  • Previous / next scene — you move between scenes within a world.
  • Go back / Quit world — you return to the library.
  • Toggle minimal experience — a stripped-back viewing mode.
  • Open / Close info panel — credits and details.

So the loop is: explore the library, find a portal, enter its world, move through that world's scenes, then quit back to the library to hunt for the next one.

Practical notes before you start

  • Turn your sound on. The site asks for this explicitly, and the experience includes music, poems, and narration, so the audio is part of the worlds rather than optional background.
  • Click anywhere to start after the loading screen.
  • You need to find the portals yourself. The page doesn't mark their locations; discovery is the point.
  • Expect to revisit the library. Since you quit each world back to the hub, plan on returning between worlds to continue the search for all six.

Who made it

The credits identify Karim Maaloul (concept, illustration, code), Stevie J Jones (music, poems, narration, code), and Jules Maxwell (music, voices), presented as "An EPIC Agency Experiment." That context helps set expectations: it's a short, art-driven interactive piece rather than a large game with saved progress or menus beyond the scene controls listed above.