Imagine: As you sail the Great Sea in search of unchartered lands, the wind fluffing your sails and hair, you spot a square-shaped landmass arising in the distance. On approach, you see odd indentations on the vertical faces of the island. One side shows four perfectly round, aligned holes. Is it another puzzle to be solved by collecting and arranging hidden artifacts? You dock near the new discovery and scramble atop it. Surveillance of your surroundings reveals marks that look like buttons and a pattern in the center that reminds you of a logo. Suddenly, it all comes together, and your immersion in this world is shaken. The island on which you have just landed is an enormous GameCube.
While this would have been a jarring experience for players, The Wind Waker development team considered including an island designed after the system players were utilizing. Concept art found in Hyrule Historia shows Link standing on top of a GameCube-shaped island, throwing up his arms in flustered confusion, with the caption “GC Island” in the upper left corner. To cast off any doubt, the accompanying text states, “The motif for GC Island is the Nintendo GameCube.” Based on the concept art, I think the connection would have been pretty hard to miss.
In the end, GC Island didn’t make the cut. In a 2013 interview, Eiji Aonuma, director of the Legend of Zelda series, commented that GC Island was not included in the finished game because the team felt it was out of place.
“That is a concept design. It’s something that our designers created, and when we looked at it, we were like it just doesn’t fit in this world, so it was not included,” Aonuma explained. “But, in Phantom Hourglass, there is a DS Island, so, I’m thinking there was some staff that just wanted to put something like that in there.”
Indeed, Dee Ess Island is one of the exotic locales Link can sail to in Phantom Hourglass. It looks like persistence paid off for that team member.
Regardless of whether or not GC Island would have been too much of a break from the experience in The Wind Waker, you do have to appreciate the team’s willingness to think outside the box. Or, in this case, thinking entirely about the box.
