The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo, released in Japan on December 13, 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, and later brought to the Wii U. It is a main entry in The Legend of Zelda series, set in a world where the gods drowned the land under a vast ocean and only scattered islands remain above the water.

Players take up the sword of a young boy who sets out across that sea to rescue his sister, charting the Great Sea by sail, reading the wind with a conductor’s baton, and descending into dungeons that remember a kingdom swallowed long ago. Its cel-shaded art was divisive when first shown and is now counted among the series’ most beloved, and its open ocean and expressive hero shaped how later Zelda games would look and move.