A GROUP of friends will get out their old games consoles and play The Legend of Zelda for 72 hours to raise money for charity.

Mike Warner, 32, Dean Stanley, 32, Henry Lyons, 29, Andy Talbot, 31, Anthony Baker, 31, Matt Grover, 28, and Cooper Payne, 32, all grew up in the Bournemouth and Poole area and formed team ZeldathonUK in 2011.

From 8am on February 22 until midnight on February 24, the friends will play The Legend of Zelda video games non-stop at Mike's flat in Southbourne to raise money for charity SpecialEffect.

The charity uses video games and technology to enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities.

In 2014, SpecialEffect began an annual event called GameBlast calling on gamers to livestream video footage of themselves playing any video games over the course of 24 hours.

However, the ZeldathonUK team is planning to go one step further and play for three days.

They will be broadcasting the entire show to their website and livestreaming services on Twitch.tv, Facebook and YouTube.

This will be the eighth time team ZeldathonUK’s has raised money for SpecialEffect.

Mike said: “We are playing The Legend of Zelda games specifically as they are some of the oldest, most iconic video games in existence that have influenced nearly every video game brought to market since 1986.

“For many of our team the first game that we ever played in our lives was a Zelda title (Matt and Anthony have never played one before). Also because the target audience of these games is both aimed towards young and mature gamers alike we can maximise the number of eyeballs that can view our content,” he added.

To make a donation and to follow their progress visit zeldathon.co.uk.