The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has aged gracefully enough (we think), but what would it look like running on a modern game engine - say something like Unreal Engine 5?
If you haven't already seen RwanLink's previous video - showcasing a stunning recreation of Kakariko Village at the end of last year, the self-taught artist Unreal artist has now released a "next gen" look at Lake Hylia running on the same engine.
While the character art and models could use with some work and might lack in terms of animation, the environment on display is absolutely stunning.
It's also worth noting that there's no actual game here, it's more of a concept - and what you'll see in the video below is a lengthy cutscene followed by a barebones showcase of Link running around. Just don't expect weapons, enemies, NPCs, or anything else like that.
Here's a bit more about it, courtesy of RwanLink's YouTube channel:
"In this new episode of Zelda Oot Next Gen I will recreate the famous Lake Hylia.
This lake is beautiful and full of mysteries so I wanted to recreate this feel by imagining how it could look like with the visual of a film.
"The goal of this series is to reimagine these different environments as if they exist in real life using the Unreal Engine 5 and also to become a better artist in general. As a director, I also plan to present each of them with a cinematic. Even though I'm not a game developer, I also take the time to learn how to code to have a playable character and show you those environments from a third person perspective."
What do you think of this Unreal Engine 5 demo of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time? Tell us down below.
[source youtu.be]
Comments (78)
That Link model is...woof though.
Wow, this game demo really shows the power of the GameCube!
Wow! I wish Nintendo could deliver these graphics to Switch 2 but I highly doubt it.
@HotGoomba Lmao I've come to look forward to reading your comments. Please keep 'em coming.
@Yosher But where did it go D:
Just makes me want a new wave race on powerful hardware.
hmm looks like a random lake with an Art direction thats not fitting to zelda
When'll people say "NINTENDO HIRE THIS MAN!!!!!"
It may not be AAA levels of perfect, but as a passion project, this is pretty rad.
Honestly, I'd like the next Elder Scrolls to look like this.
@VoidofLight Nintendo, HIRE THIS MAN!!!!
Looks like an unreal engine game. Come on, at this rate, everyone wants all the games to look the same.
Oh, the fan favourite game Zelda 64, I remember that. Anyway, the video looks nice and all, as the hobby project it is. It's a bit like recreating these old games in Minecraft. Impressive, but we don't want an actual Zelda game to look like that.
I'm fine with the 3DS remake.
Let's face facts, Nintendo games won't look this good until the year 3000
@VoidofLight HA was about to say that
Wow, that is gorgeous
Looks like he has already solved the Water Temple
Yeah, while I love project like these, it will always remain just that, a fan fantasy... I don't think we'll ever see a Zelda game like this. With the way they're handling the art direction with Breath of the Wild, I think cell shading will probably be here to stay for the time being.
Maybe by 2040 with Nintendo's always a gen or two behind on graphics policy we might see something like that.
@nkarafo I believe they could. After all its an UE5 engine and look at how Mario's Odyssey looks at times like the wood level and now scale that up to a next gen switch.
Maybe it might not reach exactly that level or maybe not 4K but all in all it should be doable
@GrailUK That's my issue with all these Unreal Engine fan remakes, they lose the unique style and charm of the source material in favor of just looking like the typical big-budget UE game. This demo might be visually impressive, but it just looks like a generic fantasy game. You could replace Link with just a generic fantasy hero and you'd never guess the environments were meant to look like Zelda. Nintendo games have a very special charm to their art that's never even attempted to be replicated in these types of projects, and I don't get why people insist these look better than the official projects. More graphical power doesn't automatically mean better if it just winds up looking like every other game on the market.
Looks pretty boring and generic.😐 Also, why is Link cross eyed?
My problem with these reimaginings of Nintendo games in Unreal Engine is that they sort of become bland and soulless. I mean it looks pretty but I'd take a low resolution BOTW style game over the bland Skyrim-like Unreal engine any day.
Much better than the usual Unreal offerings...but I prefer something a little more stylised for Zelda.
After playing Horizon on the PS5 if often wonder while playing it what a Zelda game would look like in that art style and here we ar. I'd love it if we got a Zelda game in this style.
Wow! Amazing job.
2/10 - no deer in sight
Jokes aside, UE5 is a really impressive piece of tech, though I doubt Nintendo would ever make a console strong enough to handle these graphics
@UglyCasanova Switch is even behind Xbox One from 2013.
Year 2040 seems realistic for Nintendo to catch up on todays tech.
@jojobar Exactly. It looks like Elder Scrolls or something. Don't get me wrong, I do love Elder Scrolls, but it isn't what you would call visually distinct.
As a game designer it looks like someone has just found a random asset pack and tried to build something that really doesn’t fit.
'Zelda 64'? Are we seriously making this an acceptable synonym of Ocarina of Time?
I don't understand what people see in these type of things. It doesn't fit Zelda at all and looks so lifeless.
Sometimes it’s a shame that probably Zelda and other Nintendo games AAA will never see these levels of graphics, imagine BOTW2 at this level
I know Nintendo do things differently but they are about two generations behind now maybe three.
They also being honest don’t have the level and size of studios to deal with it and time taken etc and expertise.
The thing is when you look at Sony and Microsoft are up to with studios etc, Nintendo could get left behind one day in the future, lucky at the moment they have decades of games and loyal fan base.
But remember only to a point, I had a wiiu but look what happened there.
I think if it went wrong for Nintendo again they would struggle to come back.
Not bad I suppose, seems like the world fits Elder Scrolls or Witcher way more though.
This looks incredibly generic. Anyone with Unreal Engine 5 and enough time on their hands could pull this off.
Wow, that is one highly polished turd of an animation.
Not so good art direction: generic, over-effected, over-saturated, lacks personality. But still impressive hobby project.
Technically impressive.....but artistically it's a disaster.
So this is what Nintendo games would look like if Sony bought em.
That's hideous design. I quit the vid after 1 second of having to watch Link's hat slink around like a snake.
Next-gen Hyrule, see you on a Nintendo console when Unreal 5 is like 10-year old tech and outdated…
😉
This is the best effort I've seen from people using Unreal Engine. I'd rather not have an upscaled Lake Hylia though; it's already a pain to traverse.
Yeah sometimes less is more. So many textures with grass and flowers and stuff. I mean it’s nice, but just too much for Zelda art style.
As many others have said though, for a hobby/fan recreation… top notch
Classic case of:
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." ~ Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
You guys are a tough crowd.
More “Nintendo hire this man” spam. Unreal is all glitter and no soul.
@ReaperMelia what should zelda look like? Low res textures + grass + cell shading?
Nintendo will never make a Zelda game that look super realistic, to them it's all about art styles and gameplay and those are what Zelda is all about.
What is going on with Zelda's elbow at 3.55?
Something about it is just too busy. It's hard to recognize the setting because of all that detail. Something about the simplicity of the original design makes it very easy to remember. What I'd like to see someone do is:
1) Start with exactly and only what was there in OoT. No extra tall grass or rocks or flowers or boats. Same dimensions/proportions.
2) Ramp up the realism on those elements to 100.
3) Fix the lighting so you can see all the elements as well as you could in the original.
4) Then play with extras.
What the creator here has done is still a great exercise for learning his craft.
@FaroreAbhorsen I honestly don't think this would work very well. I mean, the scale of Ocarina of Time does not lend itself to a realistic version, it's just too small, like a shoebox. A 1:1 recreation with a more stylized art style like in OoT 3D, which is not realistic by any means, fits a lot better in my opinion. What would be nice to see though would be to remove the scene transitions and have the entire world be seamless, even if they keep the same scale.
Tech is impressive, but Nintendo would never go for a hyper-realistic look over a stylized, painterly look. It looks very un-Nintendo to me.
The environments are super nice! But, the character models look like clay or plastic... I cannot quite nail down why they look off to me. Overall it's a nice proof of concept and probably running on a 3090, but it gives an idea what what "realistic" Zelda could look like.
@Dezzy70 Very few games can achieve this level of detail for readability reasons. Take Final Fantasy XV one of the best-looking games of the previous generation and that I would say is where this creator needs to reference. It is full of detail and scale but is very readable this proof of concept while gorgeous would be too much for extended playtime. Even Final Fantasy XVI does not have this level of detail and is a PS5 and PC exclusive.
The protagonist must be this guy named Lunk.
Anyone else keep seeing that flicker of light every couple seconds?
This guy is obviously very talented, and this is indeed beautiful, but it doesn't look or feel like a Zelda game, let alone any specific Zelda game. It just looks/feels like an Unreal game.
There's only a limit to how far realism should go before it butchers the original, intended art style.
Ocarina of Time is probably the special case as a game that would look much better in realistic graphics (however, it also throws away the efforts done for the GameCube Tech demo).
If this was something oriented towards something more artistic or cartoony and has more benefit from cel-shading, like The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild, I would only go as far as making colours more vibrant. People may say that The Wind Waker lost its cartoony charm on the Wii U, but I personally believe it was improved because it's more colourful and brings out the very bright nature that the game originally intended to have.
A lot of effort was put into this. The art style does look nice visually and is definitely better than the other Unreal Engine Zelda videos I've seen. Everything from the environment, lighting, and character models consistently fit together quite nicely. With other fan recreations, they always had extremely realistic cramped landscapes, dark lighting, and an out-of-place cartoony Link roaming about it.
My only nitpicks about the video is the models and animations for Link and Zelda looked a bit off in a few areas. This was just a small project from talented fans doing this in their free time, so they're bound to miss a few things.
Looks pretty stunning. But if it would work for Zelda...maybe with some changes here and there?
I don't know.... it's pretty graphics, but I don't think the realism fits the game's style, it just feels uncanny. impressive but uncanny. I would prefer something about as detailed but way more cartoony (like BoTW on steroids)
NiNtEnDo HiRe ThIs MaN!!!!!!!!1!1!
@Wexter
I think I meant to say the level of detail in HFW or FH5 they are both cross generation as well as new generation.
It would just be nice for a change to have high fidelity graphics, textures, 4K, HDR etc and 60fps on a Zelda or 3D Mario or Donkey Kong game. It would so draw into the immersion of the gaming world of those games and characters.
Think it will never happen as Nintendo won’t release anything that powerful even at PS4 pro or Xbox one x level and the resource that level of graphical fidelity and knowledge of developers Nintendo just has not got especially releasing the game in time and return in cost investment, they set up so differently.
pokémon arceus looks better!!!
@Dezzy70 Based on how advanced mobile processors are advancing we could get a comparable console to a PS4Pro as early as next gen. Though I do not expect games to look this nice on Nintendo hardware for a while. Nothing against technical showcases like this... but consoles are just not there yet to do this at a stable framerate.
As for seeing Nintendo games at this level? It will be nice! But, I think I'll let Nintendo surprise me! They tend to exceed my expectation
@Wexter
Would love to see it from Nintendo.
Think BOTW2 will look the best we can get from the Switch open world and Zelda wise and we will have to see what Switch next generation brings.
For me it’s more their set up and the resource it would take and cost and time. They would need to expand and employ into their studios to deliver with a respectable time and cost.
You think a game of HFW graphical fidelity with all bells and whistles took a studio of about 400 and some parts outsourced 4.5 years. I don’t think Nintendos whole entire in house studios are that big.
That was insane
If only we would get a new remaster from Nintendo.
@jorel262 Even if we do, it won't be anything like this. Nintendo is all about distinct visuals. If you can't tell the game is Zelda right away, they don't want it.
@ModdedInkling Ocarina of Time would look great with more realistic lightning effects sure, but realistic models? No, not one bit. The characters in that game are clearly stylized. It wouldn't be OoT without that.
@Troll_Decimator
It certainly depends on how you want to look at it. To me, Ocarina of Time always seemed to be the art styled that Nintendo wanted to have realistic, hence the several revisions we've seen in the past. GameCube Tech demo and Hyrule Warriors are my two examples of that same art style getting closer to realism.
maybe in 1 or 2 nintendo console generations
@ModdedInkling Hyrule Warriors doesn't have anything to do with Ocarina of Time. Tech demo is tech demo. I don't know how you see it as realistic when the proportions are clearly cartoony. More realistic than Wind Waker? Certainly, but honestly, character proportion wise, Breath of the Wild is a lot more realistic than Ocarina.
@ReaperMelia Agreed. Also I think Nintendo's art direction is optimised for a small screen. Something like this would be pretty challenging to play on an undocked switch. Same goes with many of those other AAA unreal games not designed for the Switch
Easy. Everything looks better in the setting sun. Just look at that haunted hotel from Mario Sunshine or when the duck flies away in Duck Hunt.
Tough crowd indeed. Good effort RwanLink!
If only Nintendo would make a console that could output that level of graphical beauty. They already have great gameplay, great music, great stories and great characters. Hardware with enough horsepower to run Unreal 5 is the last piece of the jigsaw. Hopefully Nvidia's upcoming Ava Lovelace architecture can bring the dream to life for Nintendo's Switch successor console.
Never heard of Zelda 64.
@Darknilious Don't get me wrong, not wanting a Zelda game in this style doesn't take anything away from the effort that went into this, it's certainly impressive, although people should understand that most of the work is done by stock Unreal Engine 5, most of the work must have gone into the Zelda specific models (namely Link and Zelda).
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