Animal Crossing players are recreating Breath of the Wild’s beautiful regions

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild boasts one of the most impressive open worlds of any Zelda or Nintendo game. From sprawling deserts filled with billowing sand dunes to grasslands speckled with lakes, its environments inspire those traversing its lands to keep exploring. Now, these beautiful environments are inspiring Animal Crossing: New Horizons players to remake iconic locations from its world, one region and building at a time.

Recreating these sprawling environments in New Horizons is no small task, and presents serious design challenges, as Breath of the Wild is a giant, open-world adventure. As you walk and climb your way through its world, the landscapes tower over Link — the mountains and giant Hyrule castle make Link feel tiny. But New Horizons players have found unique workarounds to capture the feeling of Breath of the Wild.

Oftentimes, Animal Crossing players focus on specific locales or landmarks to remake. Here we see Naydinfar, whose account is largely dedicated to Breath of the Wild builds in Animal Crossing, recreating the Lost Woods. By playing with the perspective and adding lots of dead trees and grass, she’s able to capture the creepy and empty feeling of the Lost Woods from Breath of the Wild.

The new 2.0 update brought new castle items, giving players the perfect opportunity to recreate Hyrule castle. Naydinfar posted a time-lapse showing the full process of building the castle.

Here, we see Impa’s house in Kakariko Village recreated. It even has the statues out in front with the apples just like in the Zelda game.

And here’s the Noble Canteen in Gerudo town.

But it’s not just that Breath of the Wild’s world is large. It’s also filled with unique landmarks. In one region called the Thundra Plateau, towering mushroom-like rock formations sprout up from the land. As a result, creators like Narydinfar have found crafty workarounds to portray the specific landmarks. Here, the creator uses literal mushrooms to recreate the terrain of that region.

For comparison, here’s a screenshot of the area in Breath of the Wild.

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

Other creators have taken inspiration from the atmosphere of the game’s world on their New Horizons’ island. Breath of the Wild takes place in a version of Hyrule that suffered massive devastation. Because of this, the game has lots of areas filled with crumbling ruins for Link to explore. This build recreates that look.

Creators will also hone in on specific items from the game. Here, acnh.hylia remade the Sheikah Bomb and the infamous cucco, using custom designs and perspective illusions.

Breath of the Wild isn’t the only Zelda game that’s inspired Animal Crossing players to recreate its look. Here, a streamer remade Link’s home in Link’s Awakening, which looks great given the miniature style of the 2019 version of the game matches well with the visuals of New Horizons.

New Horizons also has the perfect items to recreate the Witch’s Hut in Link’s Awakening.

Others are capturing an even more retro look, seen here from the top-down perspective as a plane flies overhead.

Official Zelda items came to Animal Crossing: New Leaf. However, New Horizons has yet to get an official collaboration with Zelda (and likely won’t since Nintendo said the 2.0 update would be the game’s last). Still, that hasn’t stopped creators from remaking areas in the game as well as making patterns to recreate Link’s outfit in the game.