The original Zelda in VR would have exploded my 6 year-old brain
It’s dangerous to go without a headset.
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A Japanese modder has managed to create something that will look simply remarkable to those of a certain age: The NES Legend of Zelda working beautifully in VR from a first-person perspective. “I feel like I’m in a dream of those days when I only knew the 8-bit graphics of the NES,” writes creator Sugary Noe.
Looking at this thing, you know how they feel. Hard to credit now of course but Zelda looked amazing for the time, and the strength of its visual design is arguably best-shown by the fact that much of what this game introduced remains core to the series—including Breath of the Wild, which returned to the original’s more open style.
The game was first released in 1986, and the mod is for QuestZDoom and here is being played on a Quest 2 (first spotted by Gamerant).
The mod is called The Legend of Doom, and as it stands includes the first section of the game. There’s something incredible about seeing this 2D world translate into this perspective and look so faithful, and it also has the unexpected effect of giving the game’s world a real sense of scale.
We may be in an era where even PlayStation recognises its games should be on PC, but it’ll be a cold day in Hyrule before we ever get close to an official Zelda on here. Not that this stops people of course: You can playLink to the PastandOcarina of Timethanks to dedicated fan projects, while there areZelda-themed modsfor almost every big game out there.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as “[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.”
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