Fans Just Made a VR Zelda – Should Nintendo Follow Suit?

The Legend of Zelda has been a fan-favorite franchise for decades, with plenty of contenders for the “best game ever” coming together as part of the long-running Nintendo series. One of them is Breath of the Wild, an expansive and open-world approach to the series that was a best-seller with fans and one of the most critically acclaimed releases in a series full of them. Almost a decade after the game was initially released, it’s been tweaked and reimagined in some cool ways.

One of the most technically impressive is a mod that reimagines the game as a VR experience, placing players into the role of Link. It’s a very interesting experiment, one that highlights the sheer scale of the game. However, it’s one that has left fans pondering if a full-blown VR Legend of Zelda would be a good direction to take the series proper — even if it ended up having some harsher impacts on how the games are presented.

A Legend Of Zelda Fan Made A VR Adventure Through Hyrule

Designed over five years by Crementif, the new version of Breath of the Wild is based on a Wii U-emulated version of the game. To work, gamers would need a copy of Breath of the Wild for the Wii U, a PC capable of running the modded game, an emulator, and a VR headset and setup that could work with the game. Unlike other modded versions of Nintendo games, it appears that this ground-up VR reimagining of the Zelda game lacks any actual Breath of the Wild files, which might keep it safe from Nintendo’s infamously litigious response to unauthorized recreations of their titles.

Stero-rendered and with no alternate eye rendering, the VR mod incorporates hand and arm tracking to allow players to draw their sword or use their bow through dedicated movements. If nothing else, Crementif deserves props for the sheer dedication to the project and the technical effectiveness of the mod. It’s also raised some questions amid the fanbase over whether or not Nintendo should follow suit and develop a Legend of Zelda sequel that’s specifically designed around VR.

Why Nintendo Shouldn’t Commit To A VR Legend Of Zelda

The thing is, I don’t think a Legend of Zelda VR experience would be the best direction for the franchise going forward. While VR has been an exciting development for modern gaming, it’s also a format that might not be a 1-to-1 fit for Legend of Zelda. For one, many VR action games (like Deadpool VR, Iron Man VR, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City) have used spoken dialogue as a major tool in their storytelling, something the historically mute Legend of Zelda franchise wouldn’t be able to replicate. The Legend of Zelda‘s action gameplay would also be an odd fit for the VR space.

The trailer for the VR Breath of the Wild includes some action beats where the player can be seen confronting Moblins with a sword or a bow. The action seems engaging in the way that VR can be by sheer nature of the immersive approach, but it lacks some of the grace and movement that Breath of the Wild‘s gameplay really leaned into. This would, in turn, bristle against comments from Eiji Aonuma, who noted in recent comments that the development team working on the next mainline entry in the franchise was taking some level of inspiration from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

The spin-off series, which takes cues from the massive action-heavy battles of the Dynasty Warriors games, would lose something in the translation to a VR space. Those games embrace the technical scale and massive scope of the modern consoles, which is harder to bring to the more grounded perspective of the VR space. If Legend of Zelda is looking to go bigger in terms of spectacle, eschewing the cinematic presentation of the formal Breath of the Wild release would be the wrong direction to go.

There’s also Nintendo’s longstanding challenges with VR. The publisher has been interested in the medium for years, with Virtual Boy failing in the 1990s and the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit serving as more of a fun experiment instead of a dedicated hardware advancement. The natural cost that comes with it makes a mainstream title like Legend of Zelda a harder sell in VR, especially if it goes against the classic broad appeal of major Nintendo releases. That’s not to say there isn’t room for VR games featuring major Nintendo IP, but franchises already connected to a 1st-person perspective (like the Metroid Prime series) might be a better fit than Legend of Zelda.

There’s also something to be said for the sheer artistry that would be lost if Legend of Zelda formally shifted to VR. Games like Breath of the Wild are partly so visually engrossing because of the massive landscapes they present and the in-depth worlds that they present. There’s a massive world displayed that would be limited somewhat by the natural perspective forced on the player in VR. Some of those visual touches could be lost in the transition to VR, which would be a disappointing development given the strength of the recent Nintendo games. While VR is a great new environment for gaming and the Legend of Zelda VR experiment is an interesting one, I’m worried that a full VR shift wouldn’t play to the franchise’s greatest strengths.

Pure scope/artistry