The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Does Not Look As Good Without Cel-Shading

A mod gives Breath of the Wild a (somewhat) more realistic look.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a total masterpiece, and one of the best games ever made. Its look is also more or less iconic at this point, due to its popularity—the blend of cel-shading and realistic textures, and the striking art style that seems to take from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but makes it sharper and cleaner.

But there are obviously some who want a Zelda game without the cel-shading. You know, like a realistic Zelda game, not dissimilar to how Twilight Princess or even the Wii U tech demo looked. And it looks like it’s actually possible to get Breath of the Wild to look like that. Somewhat.

Arkh Longstride took the game running on the PC emulator CEMU, and stripped it of the cel-shading shader, and the result is… interesting. The game still looks decidedly stylized, mind, but the colors are far more muted, and I think the effect is less striking than it is in the native game. You can check it out for yourself below.

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