Everyone loves 2D Zeldas. Everyone also loves 3D Zeldas. But what about 3D-2D Zeldas? Best of both worlds, in our opinion.

Prolific YouTuber CodyCantEatThis makes a lot of videos with titles like "I made (video game) but with (interesting twist)": over the last year, that's included Minecraft but made of LEGO, Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. in 3D, and Super Mario Odyssey, but it's "cursed".

Zelda 3D Map
Image: CodyCantEatThis

Cody's latest video, "I Made The Legend of Zelda but it's 3D", is a faithful recreation of the first Zelda game, in 3D (in case you couldn't figure that out from the title). Using Unity and ProBuilder, a plugin for easy 3D modelling, Cody creates the outlines of the overworld, and adds in items, details, and enemies with Magicavoxel.

In the game — which you can see a playthrough of below — you can collect rupees, spend them on potions, kill and be killed by enemies, and even enter caves to meet with strange old wizards. The dungeons and boss fights aren't accessible yet (or maybe ever) because Cody hasn't figured out how to make bosses yet, and because that's a massive amount of extra work.

And, of course, this is a recreation of a Nintendo game, so Cody won't be releasing it, unfortunately. But who needs to play the game itself when we can entertain ourselves instead with a fun fact: did you know there are 1843 bushes in the Legend of Zelda overworld? Madness.

(Thanks to FaroreAbhorsen for tipping us off to this video in the comments!)

[source youtu.be]