The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 25th anniversary / Studio Ghibli mashup project in Unreal Engine 5 “Castle Town” has finally released. *whew… that was a mouthful*
We previously reported on this incredible project coming from well-known Zelda Unreal Engine remaker extraordinaire RwanLink.
They had teased the project three weeks ago, letting us know a full video would be coming. And as a massive fan of both Zelda and Ghibli, I was very intrigued.
Now that the video has been released, it surely does not disappoint! Let’s take a look.
Castle Town
As expected, the “Castle Town” video is full of charm, character, and a bunch of content that has us wishing that this were an official game project that we could play.
The first half of the video was an extended version of what we saw in the preview from earlier this month. I almost preferred the condensed teaser version, which was a best-of edit.
What was particularly exciting about the full video was the third person game experience.
We get a glimpse at what it would be like to actually play this Zelda / Ghibli mashup, which is exactly what we are craving.
RwanLink reminded us that this is entirely produced, and is not a truly playable experience. So we should not expect to ever see this in playable form for us to try on our own. But it is no less exciting to watch the scenes in a game-like format.
There are appearances from Zelda, Ganon, and many familiar characters from the Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask era of the Zelda universe.
And satisfying the Ghibli portion of the mashup, Link also makes a quick visit to an enchanted forest à la the Princess Mononoke film.
As to be expected, the third person game experience looks and feels like a Zelda game such as Tears of the Kingdom mixed with a Ghibli game like Ni no Kuni. And this combination sounds right up our alley.
Conclusions
The hard work that RwanLink put into creating this scene and all of the active characters is evident.
And even though this will never become a true game experience, we are quite satisfied with the appetizer that is Castle Town.
You can watch the full Zelda X Ghibli mashup in Unreal Engine 5 in RwanLink’s video below:
