The Zelda franchise is at the peak of its popularity, and people are discovering and rediscovering projects like Zelda 64: Dawn and Dusk. This fan-made expansion for Ocarina of Time was inspired by the canceled 64DD expansion Ura Zelda. The creator behind it wanted to give players a taste of what it would have been like if the 64DD were a hit.
Is Zelda 64: Dawn and Dusk a sequel to Ocarina of Time?
Unlike Majora’s Mask, which directly follows up one of the two timelines introduced in Ocarina of Time, Zelda 64: Dawn and Dusk isn’t a sequel. Instead, it presents an entirely new narrative about two lands, Dawnside and Duskside. At one point, the two were unified, but when Duskside tried and failed to contain the power of a massive beast, Dawnside sealed them away.
Dawn and Dusk’s version of Link is a warrior trained to cross over into Duskside one day to defeat the monster and bring harmony back to the two lands. It’s a bite-sized experience, and there’s only one dungeon. But it’s a proof of concept that shows what could have been.
Like the only 64DD expansion that used a cartridge and disc that was released, F-Zero X Expansion Kit, it requires the base game to play. However, Zelda 64: Dusk and Dawn makes much more extensive use of its parent game. It draws many of its assets from Ocarina of Time, remixing them in new and interesting ways.
There are two methods to play Dawn and Dusk. If you happen to have a 64DD devkit, you can write the expansion to disk, pop in a copy of Ocarina of Time, and go for it. If you’re not one of this handful of people, you can dump a copy of Ocarina of Time, use the appropriate patch, and play it as a romhack.
So, if Tears of the Kingdom hasn’t sated your Zeldamania, try Dawn and Dusk and see what could have been if Nintendo had released the 64DD earlier.
