Some gamers are going to feel very old when they hear that The Legend of Zelda is now 30 years old as of last Sunday. An anniversary like this is a time for gifts, but what Zelda fans really want is that Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda, and this is the latest news.
According to Engadget, Nintendo's famous The Legend of Zelda franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary as the first game was released to the Famicom Disk System on February 21, 1986. If you aren't familiar with that, it is peripheral for the Family Computer video game console in Japan, and it used proprietary floppy disks for storage.
Since then, the game has grown up immensely, with a 3D makeover happening in The Ocarina of Time, which many say is still the best Zelda game. In addition to the "Zelda canon" of adventure games with hack and slash, puzzle-solving, and RPG elements, the games have sold 65 million copies in the past three decades.
To celebrate, Nintendo is releasing a Wii U version of Twilight Princess, as well as a 3DS version of the Wii U game Hyrule Warriors Legends. Of course, what the fans want is a new Wii U Zelda game. At this point, the Wii U has not had a Zelda canon game, which is not a good sign for the franchise. However, Nintendo fans knew this when purchasing the Wii U that a new Zelda game would not be coming until 2015.
Now that 2015 has come and gone, where is it? The truth is that it is still on the way, and last year the producers of the game made a minimalist video explaining that they wanted to give the fans the Zelda game that would be really good. Naturally, there is a delay, but everyone expects it by the end of 2016.
MNR Daily has stated that Nintendo has been awfully silent about the game, which makes a lot of fans suspicious. Even E3 2014 gave fans a glimpse of new footage, but still no word of a specific release date, making fans even more anxious and angry.
Another issue is that the Nintendo Wii U might not be the current generation of console for the Nintendo much longer. As most have heard, the Wii U has not been a success for the company, at least not in the way the original Wii was. There are plans from Nintendo to replace it with the Nintendo NX, and although very little is known about this system, it could arrive sooner than later.
If Nintendo unveils the Nintendo NX at E3 this year, then it might not arrive until this holiday season or holiday season of 2017. If that is the case, then it might not be smart for Nintendo to make a Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda. However, it just doesn't seem right to just skip a generation of console like that.
After all, Nintendo does have traditions that it has kept, and a new Zelda game every few years is one of them. The worst case scenario will probably have Nintendo release the next Zelda game on the NX, but still have a version available for the Wii U. The same thing happened with Twilight Princess when it was released on the Wii, but there was a GameCube version available.
