Games Radar has been digging through the archives and has come across Eiji Aonuma’s Game Developers Conference 2007 talk during which he revealed that the team were working on a sequel to the beautiful The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Sadly the project was scrapped due to the reception of the original Wind Waker in North America where people wanted a more realistic looking Zelda game. The game turned out to be The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Here’s what was said:
On Wind Waker’s Reception in North America
“At one point, I had heard that even Wind Waker, which had reached the million mark in sales, was quickly losing steam, and that things were sluggish even in North America, where the market was much healthier than in Japan,” Aonuma said. “I asked [Nintendo of America] why this was. What I was told was that the toon-shading technique was in fact giving the impression that this Zelda was for a younger audience, and that for this reason, it alienated the upper-teen audience that had represented the typical Zelda player.”
On Wind Waker 2
“The proposed setting for The Wind Waker 2 was not on sea, but on land,” according to an interview with Twilight Princess art director Satoru Takizawa, printed in the book The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts.
“The desire to depict Toon Link on a horse riding around the great plains was great; however, with his small stature and short arms and legs, it would have been difficult to make him look good on a horse,” Takizawa continued. “It wasn’t like we could create an adult version of Toon Link. And that was about the time we heard that people were waiting on a realistic-looking Zelda game again.”
When Twilight Princess rolled around
“Four months later, development had progressed to a point where Link could swing his sword in battle against enemies while riding on his horse in a realistic-looking world,” Aonuma explained. “When it was announced with a surprise trailer at the 2004 E3, it received a standing ovation by the media audience. This was a very exciting moment for us, but we were still very much in the early stages of converting the game into something more realistic. We knew that we had to create a Zelda game that would live up to the expectations of fans in North America, and that if we didn’t, it could mean the end of the franchise. But I also trusted the ability of the team, which was able to bring the game so far in just four short months.”
I’m not mad about this, since Twilight Princess was an absolute banger. I prefer it to WW, personally. We also got two sequels in the form of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks which were quite good. Now that Nintendo seems to be running out of Zelda ideas with the OOT remake, I guess it makes sense to create a true sequel to WW.
I wouldnt say there running out of ideas just beacuse they decided to remake oot
How do you get to the conclusion that “they’re running out of ideas” just because the next Zelda game is a remake? By your logic BOTW wouldn’t have happened because Wind Waker and Twilight Princess remakes came out just before it. Weird mindset.
Usually Zelda remakes are to fill gaps between new entries of mainline Zelda games. I bet we will see the next mainline Zelda game in 2027-2028. I honestly love the idea of an ocarina remake. I want to play the game again, but I don’t want to touch my 2ds. That thing sucks to hold at times.
I think late 2027/mid-2028 reveal and possible release for Spring 2029 at the absolute latest. I think we’ll probably get 1 or 2 big holiday titles before a brand new 3D Zelda, but it’s a bit of a toss-up considering the Zelda Movie, so we might hear from the team on an announcement earlier to build hype lol
I never understood the hate Wind Waker got for its art style – its visuals by far hold up the best of any 3D Zelda game pre BotW. However, in terms of the actual game, I’m much more of a Twilight Princess person than a Wind Waker person, in fact Twilight Princess might just be my favourite Zelda of all time. So no regrets for how it all turned out!
Just started playing phantom hourglass since my first playthru at launch. There were parts that grated on me back then and I’m uncertain if I’ll keep playing for long. I enjoyed the sailing more in PH than WW