Sunday, August 30, 2009

Retro Studios and Zelda Wii




The rumors are up again. Last Monday the Metroid Prime Trilogy was released in the US and IGN did a little Retro Studios studio tour. However, in the conference room used for brainstorming you could spot a Hylian Shield and Master Sword on the wall. Which is interesting, because the entire rest of the studio was solely plastered with Metroid stuff. So, why put Zelda decorations in one of the most important rooms?

The rumors, that Retro is working on Zelda Wii or even their own Zelda game, are about two years old now. I even have talked about it a year ago, here. So, is it possible, that Retro Studios is working together with Nintendo EAD3 on the upcoming Zelda title for Wii? I bet, it is and I believe, that they were at least involved in the project at some point. Nintendo showed interest in the idea of a first person Zelda for a while, Link's Crossbow Training and the first person demo of Twilight Princess are proof of that. And Retro Studios does have immense experiences when it comes to First Person Adventure games, so I wouldn't wonder, if Nintendo at least consulted Retro Studios at some point. You could also assume, that they were involved in the development for a while.

But what happened? Miyamoto happened, in one of his recent interviews he stated, that Zelda Wii is not going to be THAT different. Which I interpreted as that Zelda won't go first person. Maybe the idea didn't work out so well as they thought and they screwed it. But of course this doesn't mean, that they had to ditch Retro afterwards. This probably depends on how much they were involved in the project, it's not like they can only develop first person games. So, I wouldn't rule out entirely, that we will see the Retro Studios logo next to Nintendo's while booting up our new Zelda Wii game.

As a long-time Zelda fan I personally would love to see them working on Zelda right now. They have a vast comprehension of what the fans of a franchise want, which would be a good counterweight against Nintendo's focus on games being open for everyone (which is not bad, but you still need to satisfy the fans somehow). And Metroid Prime was pretty much the Ocarina of Time of the Metroid franchise, the Metroid Prime Trilogy consists of three of my favorite games ever made and I would have a good feeling about Retro working on Zelda.

But enough talking about rumors, what we need, are some answers. I'm waiting for Nintendo's fall press conference.


Some sources:
IGN video tour
Zelda Informer talking about the rumors

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