The Legend of Zelda
NES · 2026
Hyrule as a native PC game, with experimental 3D renderer work.
The Legend of Zelda runs as a native PC game through NESRecomp.
It is the NES showcase for alternate renderers. Flat Hyrule can become a raised 3D room, or a first-person view from Link's position.
The Legend of Zelda running as a native PC game
Playable status
Yes. Windows and experimental Linux builds are on GitHub Releases. It is built from a dump you provide, selected on first launch.
The game is believed 100 percent playable: tested through the overworld and dungeon 7 with no known missing code paths. Your quest saves normally, persisted to a file next to the executable.
What the recomp adds
The Voxel 3D renderer has two modes:
- Overworld mode, where each room becomes a raised tabletop you can orbit.
- First-person mode, where the camera moves from Link's position while the original HUD stays flat.
Sources
- LegendOfZeldaNESRecomp README and releases (GitHub)
- NESRecomp framework README (GitHub)
- NESRecomp progress article (1379.tech)