The Legend of Zelda is one of the oldest and most beloved franchises in gaming. Ever since the original game was released for the NES back in 1986, The Legend of Zelda has consistently been a top-tier series for Nintendo, with individual titles such as Ocarina of Time (1998) and Breath of the Wild (2017) being considered somౠe of the greatest games ever made by both fans and critics alike.
While the overall quality of Zelda games has remained consistent for over 30 years, the games themselves have evolved over time, sometimes with dramatic results. Sure, all Zelda titles share some core ideas—pretty much every mainline entry features some variation on the hero Link having to save Princess Zelda and the land of Hyrule from a powerful villain—but Nintendo has never been afraid to make some pretty substantial changes to the Zelda formula from game-to-game. One of the results of this is that the franchise's narrative timeline is a complete mess but rather than becoming a sticking point for fans, this has led to an obsessive search fಌor clues within the ga🌊mes themselves. More often than not, this has turned up content that, for one reason or another, ended up on the cutting room floor.
Join us as we take a look at 25 items, levels, and other game assets that have been deleted from the Zelda series over the years. While it's ওsad that these were deleted, at least fans managed to find these in the end!
25 Nintend🌊o 6💫4DD-Exclusive Programming - Ocarina Of Time
Hey, remember the Nintendo 64DD? Its quick demise meant that we never got to see Nintendo's ambitious expansion plans for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time pan out. Based on what we🐻 know from interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma from the 90s, it would have changed a lot.
"Ura Zelda" would have added new dungeons, areas, bosses ... pretty much everything.
There's even hinting at the expansion in the original N64 game! A dedicated modding community worked on "Project Ura" from 2010 to 2013 in an effꦕort to restore the long-lost expansion. You can read all about their exploits .
24 ꩵ Hidden Room At The Top Of Hyrule Castle - Breath Of The Wild
One of the most common discoveries made in Breath of the Wild are unused rooms that exist beyond the game world boundaries. Arguably the most interesting of these findings is the existence of a room behind the locked door at the top of Hyrule Castle. The door can't be opened through normal gameplay, but the fact that there is a room behind it and not 🍎just an empty space suggests that the level designers had a plan for this door, but for whatever reason had to scrap it.
23 ꦍ GameCube Island - The Wind Waker
It's no secret that a lot of content ended up on the cutting room floor for the 2003 GameCube title Wind Waker, some of which would have go꧒ne a long way in alleviating the rather sparsely popula🤪ted game world.
Several islands were cut from Wind Waker, including one modeled after the GameCube.
As revealed in the , several islands were cut from Wind Waker, including one modeled after the GameCube. Fortunately, this idea was carried over to 2007's Phantom Hourglass, which fittingly featured a Nintendo DS island.
22 ꦺ Stovepipe Island - The Wind Waker
Another cut island from The Wind Waker, Stovepipe island had the potential to be one of the game's most interesting locations. As detailed by the YouTube channel , Stovepipe Island likely would have featured several quests due to the amount of NPCs present,𓂃 which in turn would have made it one of the most populated islands in the game.
Dr. Lava speculates that the island was cut both due to the time crunch the development team was under, and because the island's inhabitants were tobaccꦜo fans, which isn't something Nintendo would have approved of.
21 Fire Rod - The Minish Cap 🧜 ℱ
The Fire Rod ended up being replaced by the Flame Lantern in the 2004 Game Boy Advance title, The Minish Cap. However, it ap𒆙pears that Capcom had originally intended for the✅ Fire Rod to be included.
In the European version, a reference to the Fire Rod can be seen in the figurine descripti♓on for the Ice Wizzrobes. Using a cheat device reveals that the Fire Rod exists in the game, but as a debug tile editor item. You can actually use the editor to🎶 modify The Minish Cap's landscapes, but you can't save any changes and nothing you do will make the Fire Rod usable.
20 𓃲 Cannon Soldier - A Link To The Past ꦯ
Sometimes, you really have to wonder why a perfectly good game asset ended up on the cutting room floor. Such is the case with the Cannon Soldier, a fully functional enemy from A Link to the Past that ended up buried i🅺n the game's code. If inserted into the game, the Cannon Soldier works fine and doesn't break the game in any way.
In practice, he's a stationary enemy that fires a small red cannon at Link (big surprise right?), doing half a heart of damage. It's widely assumed that if they had been kept, the Cannon Soldier would have appeared withinꦇ Hyrule Castle or Hyrule Castle Tower.
19 ൲ Water Boots - The Wind Waker
Whole islands weren't the only assets cut from The Wind Waker! Game𒁏 hackers discovered a piece of equipment marked only by Japanese text, which translates to "Water Boots." If you load the item up, there's an actual animation for putting the boots on and off, but no model appears.
Due to the identical animation, the belief is that the Water Boots would have basically been Iron Boots with a different function, such as allowing Link to sink under water. Funnily enough, that would tie into another major piece of gameplay cut from The Wind Waker covered later in this article.
18 🌳 Darkhammer Miniboss Test Room -Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess features a single test room buried in its code: an early version of the Darkhammer miniboss room, which is located in the Snowpeak Ruins. The room is actually quite different from the one found in෴ the final game, with the most significant change being that the test room is much larger and features a hexagonal layout. In contrast, the final version is much narrower and was likely changed so as to increase the fight's difficulty.
17 Link Mask - Majora꧋’s Mask ꦓ
Majora's Mask features a ton 🍌of different masks for Link to swap on and off (including masks based on the !), but did you know that Link almost got to wear one based on his own face?
It's speculated that the mask would have returned Link to his adult form.
There's an unused texture in the game thaꦜt resemble's Young Link's face and this is supported by concept art in Hyrule Historia that shows Deku Link wearing this mask. It's un༒clear what function this mask would have performed, but it's speculated that it would have returned Link to his adult, Hylian form.
16 𒀰 The Black Stone - Skyward Sword 🌳
If you played through Skyward Sword, you'll recall the Sealing Spike, a sacred lock meant to keep The Imprisoned, a massive, villainous beast, at bay. In the game files, the Sealing Spike is referred to as the White Stone. There is also a named "Black Stone" consisting of an unused model that looks a lot like the Sealing Spike or White Stone. The Black Stone was likely intended as a counterpart to the White Stone, though what its specific function would have bee🍰n is unclear.