Zelda’s Strangest Cut Characters Nintendo Never Used

#zelda
The Legend of Zelda series has one of the most meticulous development histories in gaming, but not everything Nintendo plans makes it into the final release. Across decades of Zelda games, dozens of fully designed characters were altered, abandoned, or quietly removed entirely. Some were early NPCs cut during story rewrites. Others were enemies, bosses, companions, or even versions of Link himself that survived deep into development before being shelved. And in many cases, the evidence is still there, hidden in game files, concept art books, unused models, and early trailers.

In this video, we explore 20 cut characters from across The Legend of Zelda series, spanning Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and beyond. These aren’t vague rumors or fan theories. Many of these characters were fully modeled, animated, named internally, or even shown in official Nintendo footage before disappearing. Some can still be loaded into the games today through mods or debug tools. Others exist only through developer interviews, art books like Hyrule Historia and Creating a Champion, or early promotional material.

You’ll see forgotten NPCs like Aria from Ocarina of Time, enemies and bosses cut from Twilight Princess, unused transformations planned for Majora’s Mask, early concepts for Link’s family in Breath of the Wild, and bizarre ideas like Ganondorf nearly appearing in a fishing minigame. Some characters were removed to streamline gameplay. Others were victims of time constraints, technical limits, or shifting story direction. In a few cases, their ideas lived on in later Zelda games under different names and forms.

This video digs into why these characters were cut, what role they were originally meant to play, and how their removal changed the final games we know today. It also highlights how Nintendo’s development process works, showing just how much experimentation happens behind the scenes before a Zelda game ever ships. If you’re interested in Zelda beta content, unused characters, scrapped bosses, cut storylines, and the strange things hiding on the cutting room floor, this is a deep dive built for you.
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