A small team of Reddit users are building a fully-playable version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening in Minecraft. Minecraft has long been known for its accessibility and ease of use in creating mods and custom environments from other games, movies, and TV shows. Modders have made a playable version of DOOM, complete with demons and gore, in Mojang's blocky world; other teams have recreated Game of Thrones cities and the Kanto region from Pokemon. Minecraft's influence has even spread beyond the original game: a mod for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate allows players to put custom skins on fighter Steve. The creativity displayed by players and modders has been boundless when it comes to tweaking the original game.
With so many other titles getting the Minecraft treatment, it should be no surprise that a Legend of Zelda game is now getting a blocky rendition. Link's Awakening was originally released in 1993 for the Game Boy and was remade for the Nintendo Switch in 2019, bringing it back into the public eye after a long absence. The game features now-iconic Zelda images, like the giant egg on top of the mountain, and the original game's pixelated 8-bit graphics lend themselves well to recreation in other mediums. Copious amounts of fanart, music remixes, and cosplay have been made of the game's characters and themes. While other Minecraft players have recreated Hyrule many times over, Link's Awakening is unique in that it doesn't take place in Hyrule – its backdrop is Koholint Island, giving modders and builders a fresh space to work with.
Inspired by Koholint Island, Reddit user pickledscones and their girlfriend have been building Link's Awakening in Minecraft, hoping to eventually have a full recreation of the original. The current version includes NPCs, enemies, and bosses from the iconic game, as well as fully-developed versions of its locations. Rather than simply building a map that players can walk through, pickledscones and their partner have made a version that can be played like the original Link's Awakening – players will be able to fight enemies and converse with NPCs. The last item to be included in the game's storyline, which is a tall order, but the team is hoping that they can finish it and aim for a full release. The mod, which requires the additional mod Optifine to run, is available to download in its in-progress state and will be free upon completion.
In addition to building Link's Awakening, the team is also working on a scaled version of Hyrule, which is contained in another project. The recreation includes several classic Zelda locations like Kakariko Village, Death Mountain, and Hyrule Castle. Though the Hyrule map is not available to download yet, pickledscones has been posting frequent updates on the Zelda subreddit, showing fellow fans their creations and asking for opinions on size, block placement, and more.
Building a map in Minecraft is one thing, but building a fully-playable version of a game is another thing entirely. The amount of patience required to build the map to scale, not even considering the amount of time it would take to make all the textures, character skins, enemies, and bosses, is enormous. Pickledscones and their girlfriend have made something incredible that no fan of Link's Awakening or Minecraft should miss.
Source: Planet Minecraft / pickledscones