Ever wanted to step into Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) and experience the game’s iconic world in VR? Well, this fan-built creation offers up a good slice of the action by transporting VR players into a lovingly recreated version of the game’s Great Plateau area.

The world is now available in VRChat, created by user ‘ColonelMcKernel’. There’s little to go on description-wise; its creator only says the publicly accessible world is meant for up to four concurrent users due to performance issues.

The video intro really sells it though. And just as we hoped, it’s decidedly way more than just a static version of The Great Plateau, the game’s starting area which is secluded from the rest of Hyrule by unpassable gorges․

Of course, tantalizing just out of reach is the Dueling Peaks, Hyrule Castle, and the imposing Death Mountain—all of it begging to be experienced in VR. Still, the attention to detail in the fan-built recreation is truly amazing, justifying a full exploration to see everything it has to offer.

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Thanks to VRChat’s ability to host complex user-generated VR content, the world lets you descend into shrines using your trust Sheikah Slate, ascend the area’s main tower, and climb everything, just like in the real game. The whole feel of the world, including shaders and animations, are really on point here too, making you feel like you’ve truly stepped into Hyrule.

Whether you’re accessing the VRChat-based world through a traditional monitor or through a SteamVR-compatible headset, you can also toggle from the default first-person mode to third-person. Since it’s so large and complex, it unfortunately isn’t available natively on the Quest platform.

To access ColonelMcKernel’s fan recreation, you can either search in-game for ‘The Legend Of Zelda˸ Breath Of The Wild – Great Plateau’ or simply click this handy link to launch the world directly.

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If you have a Nintendo Labo VR Kit, you can actually play the full game in VR, albeit locked in to a third-person view.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • 3872Orcs

    Well yes that is impressive for a fan creation in VR chat. Now when can I play the game proper on my headset? I guess it’ll have to be on an emulator like I played Wind Waker on the dolphin emulator. I’m not holding my breath for a proper Nintendo port anytime soon or ever..

  • After the Virtual Boy, I wonder how long it will take Nintendo to embrace VR again? It’s not hard to see how they could take Quest-style hardware to make a Virtual Boy 2.0 that actually works. It’s just a matter of their willingness to take another chance. They still take chances with new hardware, the Switch is full of daring hardware choices. But they got burned HARD with the Virtual Boy. Some exec’s from that era might have to retire/die-of-old-age before they do that again. :/

    • Lulu Vi Britannia

      They did embrace VR again, with Nintendo Labo. Guess how well it worked, lol.

      Also, although Nintendo is an innovative company, making a 6DoF device is not a piece of cake. All they showed they’re able to do is 3DoF systems. Positional tracking is out of their reach. We’re talking about the edge of current technology here, it doesn’t get done with a finger snap. Even Sony struggled to release a proper device (the PSVR was very good for what it is, but its 6DoF feature was extremely limited).

  • Christ, it’s frikin awesome. And it makes me wonder just how good a VR Zelda game could be if Nintendo actually bothered to make one. :-o

  • guest

    Its hard to believe that’s a 100% recreation of such a massive dataset. I would think the original creators could recognize that some parts were copied.

  • Lulu Vi Britannia

    It looks TERRIFIC! Hopefully it doesn’t run too bad, lol.

  • John Moore

    I’m a bit of a VR Chat noob and just went in for like 5 min. to check this out. What do you need to do to get past the huge boulder?

    • Tom Dobson

      climb it

  • I wasn’t even able to finish reading the article before I had to try it myself. It’s absolutely amazing. I love VR-Chat and its community for enabling us to go to these places. I’ve been to towns from Tales of Symphonia and the academy from Trails of Cold Steel. And now this. The scale and authenticity is mindboggling.

  • Ender772

    I cant find it…did they remove it already?