Artists at The Mill took the traditional characters and wove them into the narrative as snowmen, Christmas tree ornaments and more, down to Pikachu’s trademark silhouette bouncing along the wall beneath a garland of leaves (grown rapidly by The Mill’s 2D artists) and blooming flowers created in CG.

Nick, Andrew and the team were given creative freedom when it came to creating the unique look of Link from The Legend of Zelda. Using 2D artwork of the character as reference, they altered the scale of his proportions to perfectly resemble a wooden ornament. Nick comments, “Link and the other Zelda characters were particularly fun. We were given a lot of free reign when it came to how we were going to develop them, as they weren’t meant to appear exactly as they do in the game.” 

Check out a spot from Nick and Andrew’s previous campaign for Nintendo’s Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.