As the latest anniversary passes for The Legend of Zelda series, fans are showing appreciation to the decades of games with all sorts of community events, celebration mods, and fan art. One player in particular has taken inspiration from the more recent Breath of the Wild to add to the growing collections of fan content, much of which being centered around Zelda's 35th anniversary.
The fan, who goes by pixelpunkz on Reddit and Twitter where the art has been posted, gets their name from a strong skillset in creating pixel art pieces, most notable of which in the past had been a "Pride Pokemon" series. Now, the artist has taken these skills a step further, recreating a moment that many The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild players may run into while playing the game in tribute 35 years of Zelda.
In this latest piece, pixelpunkz has depicted a scene in which Link deflects one of the powerful shots from Breath of the Wild's Guardians right back into its own eye. The whole thing has also been rendered in a 2D pixel art style, somewhat reminiscent of older titles in the series, with some commenters even calling out the similarities with Legend of Link. However, while the pixel art does simplify the graphics, the piece still maintains the game's vibrant art style, with Link in his Champion's Tunic popping brightly off the screen as he fights off an intricately detailed Guardian Stalker.
Going beyond simply recreating the Guardian Stalker and Link in this 2D, pixel style, the artist also created a believable UI and HUD that a recreated version of Breath of the Wild's map might look like if brought into this perspective. Then there's the way that the shine of the Guardian's attack lighting the area, and Link himself, that adds an impressive level of death to the piece. When everything comes together, it could look like a screenshot from a title with full Nintendo polish on it, as opposed to being something as simple as fan art.
This type of fan art is enough to make some fans want to see a 2D version of Breath of the Wild appear on the Switch, at the very least as a mini-game, or as side-content bundled with Breath of the Wild 2. For now, artists like pixelpunkz have players covered in living out parts of that experience with some high quality snapshots of what this type of title might be like. Then again, Nintendo did previously use a top-down version akin to the original Legend of Zelda to test the Switch exclusive, so if this type of quality work gets enough attention, it could provide the incentive needed for a full release.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available now for Switch.
