In celebration of May the 4th, a pixel artist gives some of the most iconic moments from the original Star Wars trilogy a Zelda coat of paint. Both The Legend of Zelda and Star Wars are some of the most celebrated media franchises that spawned in the 1980s and have become major parts of pop culture.The Legend of Zelda began in the mid-1980s with the original game that was released for the Famicom and NES. The series has become one of the most iconic and recognizable game franchises, with many of its entries ranking as some of the highest-rated games ever. The series has a particularly strong history on Nintendo handheld consoles, with handheld Zelda games like A Link Between Worlds, The Minish Cap, Oracle of Ages, and Oracle of Seasons being hailed as some of the best titles in the franchise.Pixel artist Shoehead_art on Twitter tapped into the art style of the first handheld Zelda game, Link's Awakening, to recreate some of the most memorable scenes from the first three Star Wars films. This set of pixel art, fittingly titled "Luke's Awakening," features scenes from the Star Wars films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi presented as if they were playable levels in a Link's Awakening type of game. Although the original Link's Awakening was released for the Game Boy in 1993, its rerelease on the Game Boy Color is one of the Game Boy games playable on Nintendo Switch Online.
While Star Wars video games have existed for almost as long as Star Wars itself, many earlier titles did not reach the same levels of acclaim that games in series like The Legend of Zelda did. In subsequent console generations, some games based on Star Wars would go up in quality and become major commercial successes. This continues today with titles like Star Wars Battlefront 2, Star Wars: Squadrons, and the recent Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Fan art such as this shows that modern Star Wars games could work well as retro-style games. Considering the great amount of nostalgia that exists for older eras of gaming, plus the continued success of the Star Wars franchise, a well-designed retro Star Wars game is likely to be successful. With the open-world Star Wars game by Ubisoft currently in development, it is unlikely that something like this will come in the near future, though there could be an audience for it.