Fan-made Ura Zelda project cancelled

By now, most of us are probably pretty familiar with Ura Zelda. Originally designed and planned as an expansion for Ocarina of Time alongside Zelda Gaiden, this game was going to include new, alternate, and more difficult dungeons and would be released on the Nintendo 64 disk drive. It was eventually cancelled and only surfaced partially in Ocarina of Time Master Quest while its brother Gaiden evolved into Majora’s Mask.

For years now, a fan project was in the works to bring Ura Zelda back for Zelda fans everywhere. The project was based on what little information was known about the game combined with elements of Majora’s Mask, Master Quest, and the project creators’ own input. Unfortunately, it was recently announced that the project was cancelled. Jump inside to see a video about the project as well as some more information on it.

In light of the project’s cancellation, all internet presence for it has also been removed. The project creator, Zeth, took down his YouTube profile as well as the main website for the project. Officially, the project is dead.

There is some hope, though. Numerous former team members have come forth willing to reveal what they have so the internet can still get a glimpse of what this project carried. However, without the source that is likely held by Zeth, it is unlikely we’ll be able to see this particular version of the project continued.

One of these former team members has been very outspoken in discussions on Zelda Informer, going so far as to imply Zeth was the biggest problem with the project and that its failure was bound to happen. According to this former team member, “…management was poor, and it eventually got to the point that Zeth unjustly removed people from the team, for… poor reasons.” In response to another user’s comment, he elaborated on the project’s end:

“The project really started to croak when it was decided that it would make its move to the MM engine; at that point, progress practically flat-lined, and little was being done for such a large period of time. Even when Zeth was not having some setbacks, most of his free time was spent, as I said, playing videogames.”

Of course, this is only one side of the story. It is perfectly possible that there is more behind its cancellation than this team member is letting on, and without Zeth’s input this is all fairly one-sided.

What are your thoughts on this? Were you looking forward to this fan project, or were your expectations relatively low? Do you think it will be continued again, or do you find it more likely we’ll see another, different project take its place? Let us know in the comments!

Source: Zelda Informer