Azaran: Islands of the Jinn is game we've been aware of for a while now, but admittedly haven't gotten around to covering yet on the site.
The Ocarina of Time-inspired third-person, action adventure game, which is coming to PC (via Steam), is the work of a solo indie developer named Benji, and caught our attention last year, after its creator started posting regular updates about the project over on social media websites like BlueSky and Twitter/X.
Described on Steam page as featuring "traditional puzzle dungeons packed with eerie atmosphere" and as a combination of "90's adventure games and Arabian Nights", it seems to be hyper-focused on scratching a very particular itch for those who find themselves missing the N64-era, offering a new Zelda-like experience for both new and older players to get stuck into.
However, it appears it isn't the only "Azaran" game in development, with Benji recently revealing that he is also working on a NES-style spin-off for PC titled Azaran: The Demon Bottle, which, you guessed it, pays tribute to the original 1987 Legend of Zelda.
Azaran: The Demon Bottle is a game that, according to Benji, was designed in three weeks as a "short dungeon crawler packed with monsters, traps, and cryptic puzzles", and will serve as a companion piece to Islands of the Jinn. It will be released in the next couple of weeks, "likely before mid August", while the main game is currently targeting a late 2026 release window.
Speaking to Time Extension about the origin of the project, Benji states "I wanted Demon Bottle to be a short project, only a few weeks of development, and NES-style games are just much simpler to put together in terms of pixel art, music, sfx, etc."
He continues, "I suppose I'm also constructing a kind of "what if" history of the Azaran series. Clearly Islands of the Jinn is influenced by Ocarina of Time, so I thought it would be cool to imagine what the equivalent game to the original Legend of Zelda might look like. In the future I may create other projects that follow the series, e.g. an Azaran version of Link to the Past or Link's Awakening."
We'll keep you posted when The Demon Bottle is available to play, but for now, it might be worth checking out the demo for Islands of the Jinn, which launched last month as part of Steam Next Fest June.