Nintendo has announced the new The Legend of Zelda game on Wii U, which had been scheduled for release later this year, has suffered a setback and now won’t come out until some time in 2016.

Eiji Aonuma released a video yesterday concerning the development of the new The Legend of Zelda game on Wii U. “In these last three months, as the team has experienced firsthand the freedom of exploration that hasn’t existed in any Zelda game to date, we have discovered several new possibilities for this game,” Eiji Anouma announced via a video update, which you can view below. “As we have worked to turn these new possibilities into reality, new ideas have continued to spring forth, and it now feels like we have the potential to create something that exceeds even my own expectations. . . . I have come to think that rather than work with meeting a specific schedule as our main objective . . . our focus should be to bring all these ideas to life in a way that will make The Legend of Zelda on Wii U the best game it can possibly be. . . . Our priority is to make it the most complete and ultimate Zelda Game.”

Nintendo also made a tweet, indicating that they would not be showing the game at E3:

Mr. Aonuma & team will be hard at work on #Zelda and have decided not to show it @ E3. Thanks for your patience! https://t.co/bwu3nd3fNi

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 27, 2024

Hopefully this isn’t just a marketing speech to cover up for a bump in the road, because the announcement could mean some very interesting things for the new Zelda game - which will see Nintendo taking the series in a more modern direction, with open-world design.

The Zelda franchise has a bit of a pattern - Go through a string a dungeons, find the big chest with the item that you need, then use it to kill the boss, repeat. A Link Between Worlds, a game that strove to break that very mold with its item rental system, was designed as a spiritual sequel to SNES classic A Link to the Past. Not that that’s a bad thing: A Link Between Worlds was great fun - Chad Bonin gave it a lofty 9/10 when he reviewed it.

But following Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA, maybe the company is going to take it a step even further. Nintendo has already said that the game will be fully open-world, and with all the emphasis on freedom and exploration in the announcement, maybe we can hope for a more Bethesda-esque Zelda.

Unfortunately, we won’t really know until it releases next year, or until another announcement is made.

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Wayne Meeks

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Wayne writes articles about video games that he plays. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they're neither of those things. But that doesn't stop him playing, or writing.

@skipjack3d

Former writer at @ContinuePlayMag, @QubeTubers. Fanatical supporter of Spider-Man. Secretly enjoyed Maximum Carnage. Very oxtious & often make up words.

"I should install that hard drive today." 2 hours later "Well I guess re-running all my cables and shouting at screws was fine, too." - 15 hours ago

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