UE5 project reimagines Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the style of Studio Ghibli

A YouTuber named RwanLink recreated Castle Town from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as a Studio Ghibli film and released a digital short to show off their efforts. This is to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary and the YouTuber made the environment and characters in Unreal Engine 5, putting in over 600 hours of work to complete the project. It was a one person job, aside from the music, as reported by Eurogamer.

It's got a gorgeous opening cinematic in the style of, you guessed it, Studio Ghibli, which is followed up by gameplay in Castle Town. The gameplay recalls Wind Waker, obviously, and even newer cel-shaded Zelda titles like Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild. There are Gorons, Gerudo, Hylians aplenty and, oddly, some ladies who look pulled straight from the Renaissance. The big bad himself, Ganondorf, also shows up.

The gameplay looks a bit choppy, but it's still extremely impressive. There are dozens upon dozens of NPCs just about everywhere, many more than would be present in an actual Zelda game. The music is on-point and it just looks, well, cute and fun to explore, like a Zelda title should.

This project comes just a couple of weeks after the official announcement of a live action Zelda movie. Some fans were a bit displeased with the whole idea of a live action film at all, as animation seems to be the best way to do the story and characters justice, particularly something that draws from Studio Ghibli. Still, we'll see when the film releases if director Wes Ball, from the Maze Runner films, can pull a cucco out of a hat.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ue5-project-reimagines-zelda-ocarina-of-time-in-the-style-of-studio-ghibli-173030994.html?src=rss