It seems that, after years of hoping that a glimpse of a new Zelda title at E3, we know for sure that it will turn up this year (and E3’s not for months yet)!
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told his investors in a financial briefing that “We will show the new Zelda title for Wii at E3 this year.” And that sounds pretty definite to me.
Sure, we pretty much knew this already – and even if it wasn’t going to turn up, I think the whole Zelda community would be brandishing pitchforks outside of Nintendo HQ – but now that the shareholders will potentially be part of that mob, I would bet Nintendo are pretty certain that it will turn up. So look forward to a nice Zelda trailer come June. Whether we see the finished product this year remains to be seen.
As I am currently in the middle of a ton of exams, I have allocated newswriting for the next week to my trusty staff-member companions. The following is from The Ocarina. I have been warned I am not allowed to edit it in any way, shape or form (title included). And who am I to refuse a free news article? So, without further ado…
From the gullets of the Nintendo of America president himself, Reggie Fils-Aime has announced that Iwata and company are more than spouting off a few words about making a great next Zelda console game. Rather, it seems that Nintendo is hell-bent on making the perfect Zelda game. The next installment to the series, tentatively titled “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Breaker”, features what appears to be a mysterious blue character and a sword-less Link, a reoccurring element of the game that originates in the first Legend of Zelda before Link finds the old man in the cave.
Following the announcement, Zelda fans presumably got a little annoyed before reading the next article on Kotaku. In response to the mass reaction, Reggie is misquoted as saying “Cool your jets. We just gave you a good holiday haul, and even a feature-packed Zelda for the Nintendo DS. Just let us finish the game to the best of our abilities, or Miyamoto has threatened to introduce another Triforce-hunting filler. Please don’t pressure us into that again.”
While last we heard, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime was giving us the old “No comment” about the release date of the upcoming Zelda game on the Wii, Nintendo of EVERYTHING president Satoru Iwata thinks otherwise. In an interview with Japanese newspaper Asashi Shimbun (which Kotaku have kindly translated), Iwata claims that the game will be out by the end of the year. No words on what territories he’s referring to, but Zelda games generally launch at roughly the same time worldwide.
In the interview, he also mentions very vague details about what the next DS will do and when it will be released – guess he can’t give everything away!
So, with luck, you’ll all be playing the next big-budget Zelda title this winter. And I don’t think anyone will complain with that!
You can read Kotaku’s article here, if you’re interested.
Check out this video interview with Eiji Aonuma (who is clearly on the Spirit Tracks promotional trail right now) that IGN has created. It’s a lengthy eleven minutes, but it’s well worth a watch. Eiji talks about the development process of a Zelda game, his relationship with Shigeru Miyamoto, whether we can look forward to any Zelda remakes (short answer: No), and drops some ambiguous details about the next game on the Wii – he claims that the dungeon-village-dungeon “Flow of the game” will be altered. Sounds like there will be some big changes in store for the series!
In other news from the Spirit Tracks hype-mobile, Spirit Tracks is out in only five days in America, and nine in Europe (eight in Australia – any readers from there?). Who’s excited? Forum user General Salt posted this video for us all, showing some Snow Temple gameplay footage, and a rather obvious tease of the return of a… very popular character. If you don’t want it spoiled for you, don’t watch. Also, forum user breener96 alerted us to this video, showing a very cool box which the game was sent in to the press. Shame it’s not availible to the public – I would love to store my lunch in it and see all the confused faces come 12PM!
In possibly one of the biggest hints that has beem unveiled about the next major Zelda game (the one on the Wii), Zelda director Eiji Aonuma (who has been the main man for Zelda since Majora’s Mask, for those who don’t know their names) laid down the possibility that the next Zelda game would feature flying. In a very interesting article in The Guardian (which is a respected UK newspaper), while promoting Spirit Tracks, he had the following to say…
“I have an eight-year-old son myself at home, and quite recently he started playing The Phantom Hourglass for DS, because when the software first hit the market he was too young. When he started playing with the boat, I told him: ‘In the next Zelda, you are going to be able to ride on the train.’ He answered: ‘OK, Dad, first boat, and then train? Surely next time, Link is going to fly in the sky … ‘”
Aonuma pauses, grinning. “I just don’t know. If many people make many speculations … some of them might be correct. Right now, I have to refrain from commenting on anything.”
Whether or not Nintendo’s PR representative subsequently stuffed a sock down Eiji’s throat is not mentioned.
Air travel would certainly be an interesting addition to the Zelda franchise, one giving a lot more freedom to the player – maybe a bit too much freedom? What do you think?
The article is well worth a read. It even includes a grovelling apology from Eiji himself for making the dreaded Water Temple from Ocarina of Time so hard! When the creators admit it was too hard, you know it was too hard!
P.S. Eiji’s going grey… is the stress of being in charge of the franchise taking its toll? Poor guy…
Reginald Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, recently shared a very unreassuring tidbit with the press. When asked in a GameTrailers interview if Link’s long-anticipated second Wii outing (or one-and-a-half’d Wii outing, depending on whether you consider the Gamecube or Wii version of Twilight Princess the “proper” version) would be out next year. He bluntly replied,
“We haven’t committed to Zelda in 2010″
Which in marketing speak generally means “Not a chance”, but who knows. Shigeru Miyamoto did say that he would unveil the game next year (probably at E3), but those hoping for a very quick hype-to-release period are probably going to be disappointed. While there’s nothing like a big-budget Zelda game, we’ll still have Spirit Tracks to keep us happy for a while.
With a lot of people excited for the prospect of the (unconfirmed) use of WiiMotionPlus in the confirmed-but-technically-unannounced upcoming Zelda Wii title, tongues are wagging about the changes that could be made to the Zelda formula. Aside from one – which belongs to Shigeru Miyamoto. In the most recent issue of Nintendo Power, he stated “I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different”.
So there we go. It’ll be Zelda as we know it, with a few tweaks. Much like every other Zelda title since Ocarina of Time. Well, can’t complain with that!
Yes, E3 is here again. And Zelda fans waited hopefully to see if this was the year for an announcement of the next big-budget Zelda title. But alas, while the Nintendo press conference was bound to make Nintendo fans happy, with two new Mario Wii games, a new Metroid title and the return of Golden Sun (ignoring the new Wii Fit game and the re-announcement of Wii Sports Resort), there was neither a Deku Nut or Dodongo in sight.
This makes five years since Twilight Princess was first announced at E3 04. Nintendo are certainly making the Zelda fans wait very patiently. At least we can rest assured that Nintendo are taking their time with it for a good reason. Right?
Oh, but it’s not completely bad news. DS game Spirit Tracks was on the showroom floor, so expect some impressions (a.k.a. “How much is it just like Phantom Hourglass?”) to pop up on the internet very soon.
Information always creeps out the system in the oddest ways – in this case, a patent.
Yes, today, “the internet” uncovered a patent registered at the US Patent and Trademark Office, created by a chap named Shigeru Miyamoto, working at a certain company called Nintendo. In brief, the patent, named “Kind Code”, appears to be a system for a video game which is split into three modes – “Game”, where the user plays through the game normally, but can obtain hints videos for puzzles by the click of a button, ”Digest”, where the user can watch a pre-recorded playthrough of the game, and jump in and out of the action when the feel like (although saving is not allowed in this mode), and a “Scene Menu”, where the user can select a scene from the game to replay.
All in all, this looks like an attempt from Nintendo to make games easier for novice players without stemming the challenge for the more experienced – though it’s hard to say how exactly this system will work in practice, so don’t draw any hasty conclusions just yet.
What makes us think this is related to Zelda? To list a few examples, a lot of the wording the the examples given in the patent seem to fit in with a Zelda game, many of the accompanying diagrams (such as the one above) demonstrate a swordsman walking through a field or dungeon, and the diagrams for the menu system refer to the game ambiguously as “Legend Of OO”. Suspicious.
Well, have a look through the patent yourself (it’s very long), and see what you make of it. Is this the future of Zelda? We’ll have to wait and see.
*Update* A lot of you are having trouble viewing the images (as am I). They can all be see on the following thread at NeoGAF, where the patent first surfaced.
Colin Sebastian, an industry analyst (whom I’ll admit I’ve never heard of but seems to be a very well-informed individual), has made a list of 22 games which will hopefully increase video games sales by 5% in 2009, and Zelda is one of them. This is pure speculation on his part – there has been no confirmation of the next game’s release date. In fact, we hardly know anything about it!
It would make sense, though - Twilight Princess has been out for two years now, and we know Nintendo are hard at work on the next title. And aside from Wii Sports Resort (which, as much as we all wish against it, will be a huge seller), Nintendo don’t really have any big Wii games coming out.
But will Nintendo release a Zelda game so soon? Considering that, since the first trailer was shown, Nintendo spent two and a half years hyping up Twilight Princess, can we really expect Nintendo to unveil and release a Zelda game within a year? 2009 isn’t that far away, so let’s wait and find out.
