There's a certain timelessness to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker that can at least partly be attributed to its beautiful cel-shaded art style, and that's exactly what former Naughty Dog director Bruce Straley aims to replicate in his upcoming indie adventure, Coven of the Chicken Foot.
It's somewhat ironic that Straley had such an influential hand in developing some of the games that really pushed the boundaries toward photorealism in previous console generations, having served as co-art director on the original 2007 Uncharted, and then having directed Uncharted 2, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4. All of those games were utterly dazzling at the time of release, but due to the rapid advancement of game development technology, they also began looking dated within a couple of years, with the exception, I would argue, of Uncharted 4, although even that got a remaster a few years back.
Anyway, Straley hopes Coven of the Chicken Foot just looks so damn good at launch that it'll never need a remaster. You know, like Wind Waker.
"We had several goals with our art style and pipeline, but two primary goals were: 1. We needed it to be easy to create multiple environments without a ton of technical hoops for our limited art staff to jump through. And 2, We wanted to create an art style that would last the test of time," he told GamesRadar+.
Wind Waker, of course, was ultimately remastered for the Wii U, proving it's really hard to make a truly timeless 3D video game world, but it's definitely true that the Game Cube version still holds up a heck of a lot better than, say, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee.
"We saw how many reboots and remasters were being created in the AAA space, primarily due to advancements in technology that required upgrades to keep the games relevant," added Straley. "But the game we referenced for art direction the most, was Wind Waker. That game could come out today, and there would be an audience for it. We wish more AAA devs would use their art muscles and push the limits of what they could do creatively, and stop the endless pursuit for photorealism."
Coven of the Chicken Foot is the delightfully titled debut project from Straley's new studio, Wildflower Interactive. It's billed as an "emotionally-rich, stylized, single-player adventure" in which you explore and solve environmental puzzles in a semi-open world as an aging witch fulfilling an oath to an ancient coven.
"We're playing with the tropes of the adventure genre and the traditional 'hero's journey', flipping them on their head through a new perspective," said Straley. That new perspective is from the eyes of someone exploring a typical fantasy world that heroes and monsters of legend have already left behind, leaving you to pick through the aftermath. There's no release date yet, but it's definitely one of the big games of 2026 we have on our radar.
