zelda

Legend of Zelda: Sheik (Retro Studios) [Wii – Cancelled Concept]

In May 2020 Shinesparkers published a series of links to the online portfolio of Sammy Hall, former Retro Studios contract artist who worked on concept art for a cancelled Zelda game based on the Sheika tribe. This unreleased, darker view on the Zelda timeline would possibly explore what happened to the last male Sheik after Ocarina of Time’s “Bad Ending” in which Link does not succeed.

These drawings were noted as being used for pre-production of Retro Studios’ Sheik Zelda project between 2005 and 2008 (the same artist also worked on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Donkey Kong Country Returns), so we can assume it could have been planned to be released on Nintendo Wii or WiiU. As we can read on their original page:

“Old storage hard-drive diving! (2005 – 2008) More stuff from a long lost cancelled Zelda (Sheik) action/jrpg that never went beyond pre-production. Really want to return to these some day to finish a few. Zelda games have wacky weird stuff, and this game was setting out to be ten times weirder.”

“Fun pre-pre-pre-production origin story of the Master Sword. Within the bad ending of “Ocarina of Time” exploring the last male Sheik’s (after a genocidal ethnic-cleansing) journey transforming into the Master Sword. All while the Dark Gerudo are giving their 100 year birth to Gannon.”

After these images were found by fans and gaming journalists, the artist just deleted his whole ArtStation account. IGN was able to get in contact with him, asking about this Zelda project and another canned Nintendo DS Boo game:

“Speaking to IGN, ex-Retro Studios concept artist Sammy Hall explained that both games were in pre-production when cancelled, and “I doubt many at Nintendo proper saw much of any of this stuff. I was mostly put into a room like Milton from Office Space and tasked to brainstorm between other projects.”

According to Hall, the ideas for both games came from ex-Retro leads Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Kynan Pearson, but were “cancelled the week they went to create their other studios.”

Around 2008 – 2009 many video game websites published rumors about a Retro Studios Zelda game featuring Sheik, so it seems those rumors were true but the project was already cancelled at the time.

Unfortunately today some of these fascinating Zelda artworks seem to have been lost, as other websites did not save them all. We’d like to preserve them in the gallery below, to remember the existence of this lost video game. If you saved concept art from Retro Studios’ Zelda that are missing from this page, please let us know in the comments below or by email!

Thanks to AvenPlainstrider for the contribution!

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Zelda: Skyward Sword [Beta / Unused Models – Wii]

As we can read on Wikipedia, the development of  The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword started between the production cycles of the two The Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo DS. While the implementation of the graphics was not advanced enough to present actual footage at the E3 2009 trade show, the story of the game was almost completed, and a single piece of concept art was revealed to a select group of journalists.[28] The image was released to the public a few days later, and showed a near-adult Link with a shield in his left hand, a mysterious female figure standing at his back.

As the game was shown to the public in late-development, there are just a few screens and videos with beta elements, but hidden in the final game’s code there are still some beta and unused models.

  • there is one Map called “DEMO” which is simple a Square with two textures
  • an older version of that temple you go into at the beginning of the game (StageF402Bef and StageF402Bef _s)
  • There was no shield-meter in the beta
  • Karane has animations for when she’s being blown by the Gust Bellows. You can’t use items indoors, and she’s only outdoors before you obtain that item.

zelda skyward sword beta enemy

These red Chuchus are not in the game or area. The normal Chuchus that burn your shield are orange. This one is a dark red.

zelda skyward sword beta demo

Even though this was only a Demo area, it’s still an area that was never in the game that wasn’t used. Most of the demo areas were used except this one.

zelda skyward sword beta map

An old version of the map from Skyward Sword that never appeared.

Skyview Temple use to be called ‘Sky Temple’.

An unchanged beta loftwing inside the game, during the begining cutscenes, you will be able to see it for a few seconds.

Thanks a lot to gabrielwoj, manki, antidoteZoinkity and Errorjack for the contributions! For more info, check the U64 Forum or TCRF

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Videos:

 

Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest [GameCube – Unused Stuff]

Ocarina of Time was re-released for the Nintendo GameCube as an emulated ROM, as a combo with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest and as a part of The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition. Including in the disc there were some videos of upcoming games. Some unused images and sounds from the “Gamecube Preview Disc” demos can be found in the disc: it’s possible that they used the same “template” that was used in the demo disc to create this collection. 

Zelda: Ocarina of Time URA Project – The Expansion Mod

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time URA Expansion is based from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. Nintendo promised a great tale of adventure, new dungeons, new side quest and much more but it was never delivered due to the failure of the 64DD. A group of hackers lead by ZethN64 have joined together, creating their own version of URA (known around the community as The URA Project) with their ideas and input from the community on the direction to take this project. Their goal? To make it one of the best expansions to follow in the footsteps of Ocarina of Time. One of the main changes is that our Hero and his fairy partner Navi has been replaced by the Hero of Light and a new fairy called Raze who will feature a chime instead of Navi’s voice and colours.

They plan to make the environment in URA to feel more alive and real, breathing more of an atmosphere to the game. NPC’s moving around instead of standing still, new changes in storyline, a restoration of the “blade beam attack” and other cool prerelease/beta elements while creating new ones.

The team members include: ZethN64 (team leader), Sakura, SanguinettiMods, Naxylldritt, Arcaith, Dominic Ninmark(the composer), spinout, Shadowfire (the main beta tester) Branden, Satoshi and the guys from Hard4Games as the secondary testers. Other non official team members, are helping them with hacking and advancing in knowledge in the N64. BIG SPECIAL thanks goes to Twili, Fkualol, flotonic, JSA, Xdaniel, Deathbasket and cooliscool for the tools they have written and anyone else who contributed to this project.

Here is a list of some of the features being implemented in the game.
* A brand new plot with new dialogue to envelop the player
* A new protagonist
* A new fairy partner named Raze, with a new personality
* Completely new dungeons
* A new overworld
* New NPCs, enemies and bosses
* New minigames and revamped old ones
* Changes to the OoT game engine where appropriate, to add new functionality
* Restored beta content
* New attacks
* New items
* New MP3 quality music
* Ura only save files and enhanced file select screen
* New side quests
* Time of day system, with time sensitive events
* Restored beta animations / new animations
* New Warp Songs to learn
* A+B Reversed interface/controls

All work posted is considered work in progress and is subject to change for better and more refinement.  Below you can check out both released trailers of the URA Project, that represents one year’s worth of work. The project is currently at 50% completed! As always, U64 wishes them good luck! To find out more information visit their new website: URA Project Official Website

Concept Artwork:
zelda beta
zelda ura
zelda beta remake

Musical Samples:
Hymn of Ice

Temple of Ice

Overture of Wind

Wind Temple

The New updated info

The Outdated Trailers