Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its Happy Home Paradise DLC allows players to express their creativity through customisation, drawing and town landscaping. But while some players are content with simply decorating their homes with piece of furniture or two, there are others who are using their artistry to create genuinely impressive works – like Reddit user Naydinfar-Crossing, who recently recreated Breath of the Wild‘s Hyrule Castle using in-game tools.
While house customisation is fairly basic in the base Animal Crossing: New Horizons game, Happy Home Paradise adds in a number of improvements: new furniture, a ‘polishing’ feature, and glow-in-the-dark stickers. All of these allowed Naydinfar-Crossing to perfect their ruined Hyrule Castle, which glows and pulses with life.
Custom wallpaper is designed to resemble the Hyrule Castle’s iconic arches, while in-game items stand in to recreate the grandeur of the once-brilliant palace. There are rocks and swords sticking out of the floor, hand-drawn banners along the walls, and even Glowing Eyeball enemies dotting the floors.
Read: Animal Crossing: New Horizons — a retrospective at the end of the road
The new ‘polish’ mechanic in the game allows each item to give off a mystical, red glow, and custom patterns on the floor emulate the pulsing ooze which covers the castle. Completing the illusion is a villager dressed as protagonist Link, wandering the ruins.
It’s a brilliant use of Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ customisation features, and proves just how robust the game’s tools really are. While players are given limited options for creation and can’t technically develop their own items, templates for hats, dresses and flooring are often repurposed in creative, mind-boggling ways.
Here, hats are a stand-in for Glowing Eyeballs. In other builds, they become food dishes like cake or sushi.
Beyond Hyrule Castle, there are countless custom Animal Crossing gems to be found online, from fun themed designs you can use on your own island, to full-scale town paradises you can visit on your journey of inspiration.
Even as Animal Crossing: New Horizons enters its twilight era, players are finding new ways to connect with the game and use its sandbox tools for mind-blowing creations. You can see more of Animal Crossing‘s ruined Hyrule Castle on Naydinfar-Crossing’s instagram, or browse other worlds on Game8.
