Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker Finally Returns With Gorgeous New Port

Published Oct 23, 2026, 8:40 AM EDT

James is a gaming writer from London who has spent thousands of hours exploring titles from every genre. Though he has a particular affinity for multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and League of Legends, he has also put thousands of hours into single-player experiences, from deep RPGs to epic PC strategies. When he's not playing or writing, he can usually be found supporting his beloved Brentford FC.

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The Legend of Zelda is celebrating 40 glorious years since first debuting on the Famicom Disk System back in 1986, and it hasn't really looked back as a series since. Nintendo's stewardship of the franchise has seen it go through a bunch of exciting iterations over the years, with each new generation of games bringing something different to the table that fans hadn't seen before.

The series' big birthday has brought all of those memories flooding back for a lot of us, and nostalgia is everywhere, particularly with the upcoming release of the Ocarina of Time Remake. A big part of that push to return to the older games has also come from the community, who continue to release older experiences for a new generation to enjoy.

Now, the latest of those is very much in play, and it comes for one of the best Legend of Zelda games we have seen to date.

The Wind Waker is a brilliant game, and though it wasn't appreciated as much as it should have been at the time of its release, it has since become beloved by most fans. The only unfortunate thing is that it has been locked to the GameCube since 2003, with the only other option being to play the HD version that released on the Wii U ten years later in 2013 (which has its own problems).

Neither of those is convenient these days, though, and finding a new way to play it has been a priority for fans for some time. As first reported by GameRant, a native recompilation handily known as Wind Waker Recomp is now playable on the PC, via the creator's GitHub repository.

The difference between this approach and classic emulation is that it opens up a whole world of other options for players on the PC. Given that it's running as an actual native application, you can tweak a bunch of different settings to make the experience as comfortable as possible.

Equally, but this latest version of the game also supports both gamepad and mouse and keyboard controls, as well as higher rendering resolutions, widescreen displays, and save states. The frame rate conscious among you can also take advantage of interpolation to push things further than ever before, where it's possible to hit a staggering 240FPS if your hardware can deal with it.

Not only that, but there are a bunch of quality-of-life changes that players can seek to take advantage of, including faster climbing, quicker doors, and faster scene transitions, as well as the Swift Sail taken from the HD version of the game.

The only thing to be aware of is that this latest port does not include Nintendo's proprietary game files (for obvious reasons), so you will need to ensure you have a legal copy of your own to keep everything above board. Other than that, it's a great way to spend some time with The Legend of Zelda while we wait for Ocarina of Time to drop in November.