The Ultimate Zelda?

On ZeldaEurope we have some rumors about Zelda U going on from an "inside source". Some of the stuff sounds more like wishful thinking and other things appear to be quite obvious to come up with, but from what I've seen the source seems to be very believable. (Update: in fact after some back and forth with the guys I have no reason to doubt it and those are probably the most solid rumors I've seen in all these years. Not that any of this gives away anything specific, but it's still nice to get something about Zelda U in all this silence.) However, you should still take it with a grain of salt, while I try to write a summary:

• There were plans to show the game at E3 2015, however, the footage was outdated and still looking "too empty" and they originally wanted to give a March 2016 release date. But currently they're aiming more towards a Q4 2016 release and they didn't want to officially postpone the game a second time.
• In 2014 the game was facing budget cuts due to the lack of success of the Wii U, Mario Kart 8 and Smash 4 simply didn't drive the Wii U as much as they hoped. This is another reason, why the game got delayed to 2016. At the moment things are looking better for Zelda U with new resources for the game.
• The game has a day & night cycle, as well changing weather (rain).
• The overworld is more peaceful with surprising threats (as showcased already). The dungeons seem to do the opposite, it's described as "even in the darkest dungeons you might find some light, something positive".
• The game has areas that give you a familiar feeling to places from past games, there's even a part on the water reminiscent of the Wind Waker. They are aiming at a "Best Of", while also providing areas that feel completely new. But this can also be said about the whole game, not just the world.
• Right after Skyward Sword the members of the development team had to search through old Zelda games for valuable things. If someone didn't play a certain Zelda game yet, he had to do so in his free time.
• They want to draw connections to the older games like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. No matter, what Zelda games you have played before this one, you should be able to find some small easter eggs and maybe even some answers. Instead of creating many new questions with this game, they want to fill in some gaps here.
• Most importantly: ever since Majora's Mask the Zelda games were defined by certain key gameplay elements, which shaped the story and the entire development of the game, even limiting the creative freedom. This time, instead of focusing on a specific gimmick, they instead try to compile the all best things from the Zelda series into one game, while also mixing it with some new ideas. It's a much larger creative process than with any other Zelda in the past 15 years, which also cost a lot of budget, causing some internal trouble at Nintendo. Luckily Aonuma had people to back him up, mainly Miyamoto.
• Aonuma's goal is to finally top Ocarina of Time with this one, which he never really couldn't do, even with Twilight Princess. Miyamoto on the other hand constantly spurs the team on and pushes them, (jokingly) says things like "you have to do more than that to top Ocarina", even if they might already surpassed elements from the game. But because Miyamoto is so fond of the game, he always gave his support, granted more time, people, etc.
• There's still lots to do and they don't want to pressure themselves. The game might be done before Q4 2016, but Q4 2016 seems to be the likely release date at this point. In any case they are convinced to create the ultimate Zelda.
• The title of the game is already set and was supposed to be revealed at E3. Source won't give the title though, because this would add later credibility to these rumors...

Fake or not, what caught my attention was the general approach of creating a Zelda game, where they would bring together the best gameplay ideas from past Zelda games, instead of focusing on a specific new idea, all in a large world, which combines many aspects from past games as well. After Skyward Sword I had this fantasy about a "perfect Zelda" going through my mind. It was mainly based on the world of Zelda II, which is a lot larger than the worlds in any other Zelda game. So, you get a world in a much more massive scale, where you ride on a horse and visit many different towns. But one third of the world would be also an ocean, where you travel by boat. Later you could also fly around. And you also would have had access to other kingdoms like Holodrum and Labrynna, the ability to change seasons like in Oracle of Seasons, a gigantic main dungeon like in Spirit Tracks, and many other things and connections from past games, all coming together in one giant, epic, open-world Zelda adventure. But I never really shared these ideas, because they were out of scope...

In a sense they already tried this on a smaller scale with Skyward Sword, which had easter eggs and connections to most of the previous Zelda games, even some bigger gameplay stuff like the boat part in Lanayru Sand Sea, which worked like in Phantom Hourglass. But overall the game focused too much on the motion controls, the story became a mess and they came into linearity deadlocks with those level-like overworld sections.

Zelda U doesn't seem to struggle with these things, but it appears that they are back at the "empty world" problem, which they also had with the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. In that sense it's a good thing that they take their time and maybe my fantasy from three years ago might come true. Still, I don't want to get too excited, which is why I will put my focus on Hyrule Warriors, TriForce Heroes and replaying past games, until Zelda U comes closer and we know more for sure.

But in general the Zelda series needs the next big thing after Ocarina of Time. All the game ever since were based on experiments. Very different art styles, motion controls, Link as a wolf, Link on a train, multiplayer Zelda, etc. This kept things fresh and turned the Zelda series into the most versatile gaming series there is, but it also never came to a big leap forward, a game that really defines an entire generation like Ocarina of Time did.