Fan Project Imagines What An Unflooded Hyrule Would Like In The Wind Waker’s Art Style
Posted on July 28 2023 by Sean Gadus
The Wind Waker is one of the most interesting games in the Zelda series. The GameCube game utilizes a cel-shaded art style that divided many fans upon release, but the art style has aged well in comparison to the more realistic graphics of successors like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Additionally, while The Wind Waker is set after the events Ocarina of Time (in the Adult Timeline), the world has radically changed in the time between the two games. The Hyrule that players are familiar with from Ocarina of Time is buried deep underwater, and the player can only explore a few locations in this sunken Hyrule.
Ever since the game’s release, many fans have been interested in what the entire map of Hyrule would look like before the flood, and this has led to many fans creating their own interpretations of the sunken world. Wind Waker: Unflooded is an ongoing YouTube project that aims to reimagine the entire world of Hyrule in the art style of The Wind Waker. This project uses Blender, an open-source 3D computer graphics software, to create 3D models for the different locations in Hyrule. In designing a map of Hyrule, Joe Kendrick (the designer behind Wind Waker: Unflooded) has drawn ideas from a variety of games including Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and even Breath of the Wild. For example, Kendrick’s Hyrule includes both Gerudo Town from Breath of the Wild and Gerudo Fortress from Ocarina of Time.
Overall, the Wind Waker: Unflooded project has been in development for about a year, and the project is about 35% complete. A variety of locations in Hyrule have already been rendered including Kakariko Village, Hateno Village, The Arbiter’s Grounds, and much more. A full list of the Wind Waker: Unflooded videos can be found here.
What do you think of the Wind Waker: Unflooded project? Is there an area from the Zelda series rendered in this art style? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: Wind Waker: Unflooded
Sean Gadus is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. His first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time, and he loves all of the 3D Zelda games from 1998-2011. The final battle of Tears of the Kingdom is one of his favorite final battles in the entire series. He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
