In celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, content creator RwanLink shared his ridiculously impressive animation that effectively turns an N64 game into a Studio Ghibli short film. The YouTuber notes that he created the environments in Unreal Engine 5 and that it took him over 600 hours to complete the video.
For all of this to come together, RwanLink created four full environments and over 30 characters, all of which fans of the classic game should recognize. Throughout the video, we see Link, Talon and Malon from Lon Lon Ranch, Princess Zelda, Impa, and even Ganondorf. You can watch the entire thing below, with a short introduction from the creator:
If you stick around after the animated short ends, you can go on a 3D tour of the environments RwanLink created for the short. The castle town really does look like a modern-day reimagining of the Hyrule Castle so many of us spent hours running around in 1998.
“I’m absolutely blown away by the amazing response to the video I uploaded just 24 hours ago and I can’t thank each and every one of you enough,” RwanLink wrote on X on Wednesday, as the video topped 400,000 views. “To everyone who watched, liked, commented, and shared the video – your enthusiasm has been contagious, and it means the world to me! I’m grateful for the love and positivity you’ve brought to this unexpected journey.”
Remarkably, Nintendo just announced earlier this month that a live-action movie based on The Legend of Zelda is currently in the works. Wes Ball (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) will direct and Derek Connolly (Jurassic World) will write the adaptation.
\