According to Nintendo fansite WiiUDaily.com, Nintendo has already begun work on a Wii U exclusive Zelda game. Of course, this isn’t a surprise — work on Skyward Sword began immediately after Twilight Princess, and every Nintendo system gets a Zelda game at some point — but according to the site’s sources, the Wii U Zelda is Nintendo’s biggest and most ambitious project to date.
WiiUDaily’s source says that the team for the latest Zelda numbers in the hundreds, saying that the size of the team is comparable to the amount of people Rockstar uses to develop each GTA game (i.e. a lot of people.) The game has been in development ever since 2010, and was originally planned for a 2013 release, in order to give the Wii U a killer app to compete against the launch of the next Xbox and Playstation 4. The game is so big, however, that Nintendo has apparently decided to delay it into 2014.
According to the rumor, the game abandons the Twilight Princess inspired “realistic” style used in the famous Wii U tech demo in favor of a cel-shaded, painterly graphic style similar to Skyward Sword, except with a much higher level of detail since the Wii U is obviously a much more powerful system than the old Wii. The rumor says that the next game will be the biggest Zelda game yet (something that Nintendo promises with every Zelda release, mind you,) and that the first dungeon in the game is bigger than all of Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time, and the rumor also states that most dungeons will require have multiple hours of content contained within and will be split into multiple parts.
One of my biggest concerns with the Wii U so far is how none of the games announced for the system really use its unique tablet controller in any new or innovative ways; if WiiU Daily’s source can be trusted, apparently that will change with Zelda on Wii U. The source claims that Wii U Zelda will incorporate the tablet controller in every aspect of its gameplay, and will use the controller to “redefine gaming.” According to the rumor, Nintendo is already showing third-parties early versions of the game in order to show off the potential of the tablet controller.
I love The Legend of Zelda, but even I have to admit, the original article from which the rumor originated seems to be a little… over-enthusiastic and almost reads like an advertisement, but I suppose it’s hard to not be excited at the prospect of a new massive, HD Zelda. Keep in mind, this is the same site that originally reported rumors that the Wii U was going to a built-in social network, rumors which were later proven true, so there’s a good chance this news might be legit.
Like I said, I’m still skeptical about the Wii U: nothing I played on the system at E3 gave me the impression that it’d provide a different experience from the Xbox 360 and PS3 that I already own, but a new Zelda might be enough to change my opinion. Nintendo needs to convince people who already own one of the current HD consoles that the Wii U will be worth buying, and a proper Zelda game would definitely get peoples’ attention. Here’s hoping this rumor is true.
Source: Wii U Daily
