[Exclusive Interview] Lyndon Willoughby announces and discusses his brand-new Legend of Zelda podcast

Today, April 7, a brand-new podcast all about the Legend of Zelda series has been launched. This podcast, “Sacred Realms: A Zelda Retrospective Podcast,” is hosted by brothers Lyndon and Matt Willoughby and will feature multi-episode series that take entertaining and in-depth looks at the various design and narrative elements of the Zelda games. Lyndon is an illustrator who has worked on projects for large names such as Disney and Lucasfilm, and he was integral to the Operation Moonfall campaign that pushed for the creation of a Majora’s Mask remake.

To learn more about the podcast, our very own Cody Davies spoke with Lyndon to ask him what exactly he and his brother have planned for their new project.

Cody: Hello. Could you introduce yourself?

Lyndon: Hi, I’m Lyndon Willoughby. I’ve been around doing artwork based on Zelda for a little while. Been kind of peripherally with one or two Zelda fan organizations back when Operation Moonfall was really big. Before we actually got the announcement on Majora’s Mask 3D, I was helping the guys who were running that by doing some web marketing. There was a poster Kickstarter project that went along with that, and I ran that at the time. And ever since then, I started doing more general pop culture artwork for a few different galleries and outlets and managed to sneak a Zelda project in there once every few years or so. So, you know, that’s been out on the internet, and people may have seen that a few places. It gets shared around on Reddit every few months.

Cody: And you’re launching a podcast? What is it? 

Lyndon: The title is “Sacred Realms: A Zelda Retrospective Podcast.” Basically, my brother and I had been talking for quite a while and knew that we loved talking about Zelda. And we had been discussing the fact that it’s been 35 years into the series, so it seemed like a good time for someday to launch a podcast that would take a look back at the entire series, one game at a time (not necessarily in order).

Obviously, there are Zelda podcasts and there are Nintendo podcasts and everything, but what we really wanted to do was to start a podcast where we play one slice of a game every week, and then we’d get on the podcast to talk about it, analyze art design, direction, dungeon design, music, items, sidequests — all that. Just really dig into it, and go through an entire game and then move onto another game after that and another one after. Just really get a retrospective of the whole series in that way. 

Cody: So, what kind of insight do you think you can bring to a discussion about Ocarina of Time, for example?

Lyndon: Well, there are a few different answers to that question. One is as grown adults now who played when we were kids and have a lot of nostalgia for it. And from my perspective having had an interest in the art direction of Zelda games across their entire history. I think there’s a lot to dig into for that specific title, obviously. It made the jump from 2D to 3D and established a lot of visual conventions for Zelda going forward. Another answer to that question is that it’s not just going to be our perspectives. We will also have a decent roster of guests coming on the show, some of whom are in fields like game design, and will be able to offer professional perspectives on the design of the games. I’m trying to cover a lot of bases and really have an interesting conversation.

Cody: Hmm. And was there anything else you wanted to mention? 

Lyndon: Yeah, I just want to talk a little more about the way all of this is going to be structured. Obviously, when you say you’re going to take a look back at the Zelda series as a whole, you have a lot of people who have their favorite flavor of Zelda, so there are some questions we need to answer in the organization of the show, like how we can’t just front load all the main console titles that everyone loves, you know. Like if we do Wind Waker, Ocarina, then Breath of the Wild, and then we’re just left with Phantom Hourglass after that, it’s going to be hard to keep people around.

So we’re going to try to do is launch a Patreon page as well. That’s going to be at https://www.patreon.com/sacredrealmspod. We’ve got different layers of tiers and rewards for that, but one of them is that we’re letting our patrons vote on which game we play after we move on from whichever one we’re currently on, with the stipulation that we are going back and forth between 3D and top-down Zelda games. 

Cody: What about Zelda II?

Lyndon: We’re gonna play it. (Laughs) We’re committed. I have never played it. I have never even played Zelda on the NES. It was just a little bit before my time, but we’re gonna play all of them. We’re more excited to play some more than others, but half of the fun of this thing is going to come from that, right? I’m a very general Zelda fan. I’ve enjoyed all of the ones I’ve played, which is most of them. My brother has a far more limited exposure to all the games than I do, so a lot of the fun banter here is going to come from those differing perspectives. And then also when we get to games that neither of us has played before, learning to love things about them, throwing controllers sometimes, — who knows. It’s going to be a fun adventure for all of us, I think. 

Cody: Cool. So, what is your favorite Zelda game?

Lyndon: Mine is actually Breath of the Wild. You know, like I said, I’ve played about two-thirds to three-quarters of all of the mainline Zelda games, so I’ve got a lot of reasons for feeling that way. Picking your favorite Zelda game really is like picking your favorite child, honestly. It’s very hard, and you can only judge Zelda games against other Zelda games, is my opinion on it. That being said, I do think Breath of the Wild grabbed me more than any of the past ones I’ve played. I think I’m on my fifth playthrough of Breath of the Wild right now, like several hundred hours. I just come back to it in a way that I don’t with a lot of the other titles. There are a lot of reasons for that, I mean. Tons of people have written excellent pieces about why that game is so incredible. And I’m on that bandwagon very much. 

Lyndon: Would you like to hear my least favorite Zelda game?

Cody: Yeah, what’s your least-favorite Zelda game? 

Lyndon: Twilight Princess.

Cody: Oh, yes?

Lyndon: I’m kind of a Skyward Sword guy. I feel that a lot of people are either one or the other, you know. And we’ll talk about this on the podcast a lot, because my brother and I actually go into a little bit of a somewhat heated discussion about this in our first teaser episode. I’ve always felt that Twilight Princess feels a bit more “normal video game” than Zelda games tend to. In the way that it’s designed and its art direction, and even in the movement, there was something kind of clunky about the movement in Twilight Princess, especially knowing that they made it after Wind Waker. You go back to Wind Waker and the movement’s so fluid. It’s really interesting. 

Cody: Yeah.

Lyndon: But it’s still one of the all-time great Nintendo games. I mean, that’s the thing with Zelda, ya know? 

Cody: Oh yeah. If you’re saying “this is the worst Zelda game in the series,” it’s an eight out of 10. 

Lyndon: Right, yeah. Exactly.

Lyndon: But yeah, that’s the elevator pitch. That’s what we’re doing. Ocarina of Time is the first one we’re going to do, and that should take about 10 episodes to get through that one. Some games will take more, some games will take less, obviously. Breath of the Wild, we’re not exactly sure how we’re going to do that one yet, just because you got to imagine if Ocarina of Time takes 10 episodes, then how many will Breath of the Wild take? Then, man, how many — we’ll be on Breath of the Wild for a year. So we need to figure out a different way to do that.

Cody: One episode per Korok seed.

Lyndon: Yeah, exactly, right? Just 900. When I’m 85 I’ll be podcasting about Breath of the Wild. 

Cody: Cool. Well, I look forward to it. And I hope to make an appearance at some point in the near future.

Lyndon: I mean, if you want to go ahead and let your readers know that you’re scheduled to make an appearance, then that’s fine with me. We’re not keeping any secrets here. 

Cody: I’m looking forward to it. I love talking about The Legend of Zelda, as it turns out.

Lyndon: You, the webmaster of the Zelda Universe community? I wouldn’t have guessed. (Laughs) Cool, no, we can’t wait to have you on. I think the episode you chose should be a pretty packed one as well. It should be a lot of fun.

Cody: Well, thanks for chatting with us. 

Lyndon: Absolutely. I appreciate you hopping on to talk with me, Cody. 

The podcast is out now, and you can listen to it on any of your favorite platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also follow Sacred Realms’ and Lyndon’s Twitter accounts to stay up-to-date on news about the latest episodes.