Wii U Zelda still in experimental phase

A new Zelda title is in development for the Wii U, but right now the team is still in the early phases of choosing a direction for the new game by examining what worked well in its most recent title, Skyward Sword.

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Last year's Wii U Zelda teaser wasn't really a game, per se. We discovered later that it was just a static scene to show off the technical prowess of the new system. We also didn't see hide nor hair of a new Zelda this year, so what's the deal? Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto says the development team is still trying new things to determine the direction of the next title.

"With the last game, Skyward Sword, that was a game where you had motion control to use your weapons and a lot of different items, and I thought that was a lot of fun, but there were some people who weren't able to do that or didn't like it as much and stopped playing partway through it," Miyamoto told Entertainment Weekly. "So we're in the phase where we're looking back at what's worked very well and what has been missing and how can we evolve it further."

He also pointed out that the industry has somewhat of a divide between players who want casual experiences versus more in-depth experiences. "Obviously as a company that's been making games for a very long time, we tend to be more on the deeper, longer game side of things.

"But really what we continue to ask ourselves as we have over the years is, 'What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?' So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it."

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  • reply
    June 8, 2012 8:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Wii U Zelda still in experimental phase.

    A new Zelda title is in development for the Wii U, but right now the team is still in the early phases of choosing a direction for the new game by examining what worked well in its most recent title, Skyward Sword.

    • reply
      June 8, 2012 8:13 AM

      I get a little worried when companies say they want to find a way to please everyone. :( It's impossible. Just make a good zelda game in some direction and people will play it. Although as someone who's played zelda's since I was a kid, I hope they stay with the more in depth / longer games. That's always been what zelda has been about to me.

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      June 8, 2012 8:22 AM

      Expect this to come out when the PS4 and 720 are released as Nintendos attempt to say "look we have pretty graphics too"

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        June 8, 2012 8:24 AM

        Well, that, and they just released Skyward Sword last fall. It's a little soon to unveil a new Zelda game.

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        June 8, 2012 8:39 AM

        yes... that's exactly what dictates when Nintendo releases a game from their 2nd largest franchise (assuming mario is #1).

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        June 8, 2012 8:41 AM

        look how stupid you sound

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      June 8, 2012 8:23 AM

      People probably stopped playing because the controls were crap just like they were when they tried to demo it on stage...

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      June 8, 2012 8:36 AM

      oh awesome! Maybe it will be another collection of mini games and repeated boss fights to make claims that it is 80+ hours.

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      June 8, 2012 8:42 AM

      No. If they are going off Skyward Sword for what worked well in a Zelda game then I want nothing to do with another Zelda. Please bring back the people who made Wind Waker. That was the last Zelda game I had any fun playing, even despite the triforce fetch quests.

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        June 8, 2012 8:45 AM

        Did you enjoy Twilight Princess?

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          June 8, 2012 9:01 AM

          I did to a certain extent, and it was better than Skyward Sword, but I am pretty tired of motion controls at this point. Let me put it this way, I'll replay Wind Waker, but I won't replay Twilight Sword because it's a bit of a chore.

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            June 8, 2012 2:12 PM

            I liked Skyward Sword quite a bit, though it did feel gimmicky still.

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        June 8, 2012 8:48 AM

        i LOVED WW. the sailing was almost cathartic after a dungeon. the triforce fetch was a bit excessive and drawn out, but it didn't take enough away from the rest of what made WW so great.

        i think with the Wii U's controller being the way it is, we've seen the last of wiggle waggle sword fighting. the 2nd screen really opens up a lot of possibilities for fun items to play with. like that flying dung beetle from SS, aiming the bow & arrow more precisely, maybe bringing back the boomerang and making it guided? there's lots that can be done.

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          June 8, 2012 2:26 PM

          If I were going to bet, I'd say the motion controlled sword fighting will stay in, but as an option rather than a requirement. A lot of people really liked it.

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        June 8, 2012 10:33 AM

        Miyamoto had an article some time back about wanting to revisit Link to the Past. I'd love for that to happen.

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        June 8, 2012 4:51 PM

        In over 15 Zelda, SS is the first that I did not finished. :( It was that bad.

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      June 8, 2012 9:11 AM

      Nintendo is remarkably bad at getting their core franchises aligned with their hardware releases

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        June 8, 2012 9:47 AM

        Haha, I love the shit people invent in comments.

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          June 8, 2012 10:30 AM

          N64 - June 1996

          They got a great Mario game out as a launch title and then nothing.

          They got 2 solid Zelda games out (Ocarina and Majora's Mask) with a reasonable cadence next to Mario (1998, 2000).

          So they did well with Zelda, Mario was underserved, but after this is kind of where the downward trend starts.

          GC - Sept 2001

          Super Mario Sunshine (which is nowhere near Mario 64 caliber or what Galaxy ended up being) a year after launch. Windwaker doesn't hit outside Japan until 2003. Why are you launching a Nintendo console without Mario or Zelda anywhere near the launch window?

          An awful showing for their tentpole franchises in a 5 year console lifecycle.

          Wii - Dec 2006

          Twilight Princess is a pseudo launch title but that's obviously a bit misleading since it was just a GC game that got delayed so long they turned it into a next gen game since their next gen system happened to be only a small amount more powerful. This is an admission of the importance of having these big guys at launch but a failure to execute well and delivering a real Wii exclusive one (which Skyward Sword was, but took 5 more years to release).

          Mario Galaxy in 2007 is only the 2nd 3D Mario game they've made in the 10 years since Mario 64 was such an enormous hit. That's crazy missed opportunity. Then Galaxy 2 and NSMB Wii come out a couple years later. Galaxy 2 is a pretty good example of 'more of the same' that people want and that they should've been doing for the past 2 console cycles but which Nintendo seems reluctant to do often despite gleefully throwing these characters into a million other games.

          Wii U - Q4 2012

          No word on 3D Mario again, looks like more 2D for the near future.
          Zelda nowhere near close.

          Compare that to the tentpole releases Sony and MS have for the past 2 generations. You were getting a Halo or Gears every year. You were getting a God of War or Uncharted every year once those were established. If you want to spend 5 years on each iteration of your core franchises then they better be extremely innovative and successful. Galaxy was that, but otherwise they've been using pretty tried and true formulas since the N64 hits but taking forever to get them out. NSMB was hardly an enormous innovation but it sold shitloads, so why have there been so few 2D Marios on their home console machines too?

          Ultimately it doesn't seem to matter much since the people who are diehard fans will buy a Nintendo system just for the Nintendo games even if that's only 1 release in the entire generation. It's still a lot of missed opportunity for Nintendo though.

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            June 8, 2012 10:39 AM

            This post needs more metroid which had some incredible entries into each console - but very, very late

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              June 8, 2012 11:35 AM

              yeah I was going to mention Metroid since they did that pretty well at first (in the GC era, but missed out during the N64 and only did 1 Wii entry) but then let it drop off (and you can certainly argue they should've kept doing more 2D versions as well given the success of something like Shadow Complex). But it's also not nearly as big a franchise as Zelda and especially Mario, I was trying to keep it to a couple core ones, otherwise the comparison gets out of hand. Like you can argue about other tentpole Sony franchises, especially if you go back a little farther than GoW1. Certainly GT was one in Europe and Final Fantasy as well more in the PS1/PS2 era and both have have been mismanaged of late but they have other stuff to fill the gaps. Another is MGS where it feels like a real missed opportunity for the PS3 to have only seen 1 entry in that franchise (which is a natural consequence of failing to get these franchises done early in the console's life so that a second entry can hit before the cycle is about to roll over). Mario and Zelda are just such core franchises to Nintendo, it's much closer to what Halo is on Xbox.

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            June 8, 2012 2:05 PM

            This is because, despite the criticisms of yesteryear about Nintendo's penchant for releasing sequel after sequel, they also take advantage of their console launches to promote their smaller IPs and create new ones.

            N64:
            Super Mario 64
            Pilotwings 64
            Wave Race 64
            Starfox 64 (9 months later)

            GC:
            Luigi's Mansion
            Wave Race: Blue Storm
            Pikmin

            Wii:
            Excite Truck
            Twilight Princess
            Wii Sports
            Warioware Smooth Moves

            I'm surprised, actually, to read a complaint that Nintendo doesn't put out ENOUGH core franchise iterations in comparison to Sony and MS, after years of bashing Nintendo for the exact opposite.

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              June 8, 2012 2:11 PM

              The complaints of too much are usually Nintendo putting Mario and co in a bunch of games that are very much not the core titles that people really want new stuff from. People were complaining because they were releasing Mario this and Mario that (Tennis/Party/etc, not necessarily bad games) but everyone was still waiting for a Mario 64 sequel like 10 years later.

      • gmd legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury mega
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        June 8, 2012 9:49 AM

        Remember when they showed off zelda at e3 2004 and people lost their shit? They need to do that again, but unfortunately they showed off terrible terrible games.

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      June 8, 2012 10:29 AM

      If they had Zelda HD ready for this E3 it would have been game of show but I'mm glad they're working on it and only plan to release it when they feel it's ready. Also WOOT A CONTROLLER BASED ZELDA IN HD!!! Though I really really enjoyed Skyward Sword it was amazing!

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      June 8, 2012 2:14 PM

      I still haven't taken Skyward Sword out of the box :(

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        June 8, 2012 2:17 PM

        why?! it's so much fun! i love the story. yes it can get a bit repetitive at times and the controls aren't great, but it's still a damn good Zelda game

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