Wild West Zelda?

(image source: tribality.com)

A Zelda game set in the wild west isn't exactly a new idea. In fact it has been around ever since Twilight Princess, where for example both Kakariko Villages experimented with the setting, especially the hidden one with its iconic western music during the Bulblin shootout (and the cat hunt). A Western Zelda was even something Saturo Iwata himself imagined around the time.

Now, I often like to think two steps ahead, especially when it comes to Zelda. The new Zelda game for Wii U and NX isn't even in full sight yet, but I'm already thinking about what will come afterwards, similar to how I thought about a new online Four Swords game for the Nintendo 3DS even before A Link Between Worlds got released. But this became a reality two years later with Tri Force Heroes.

Again, Nintendo releases its next big console Zelda game right at the end of a console's life span. And like with Twilight Princess it's probably going to be a double release for Wii U and NX. But I hope that unlike Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword this game will actually see a follow-up. Something like Majora's Mask, where they take what they have and use it to create something more unique in the series in two years time, instead of taking five years again to develop something entirely new for the NX. They really need to break the current home console Zelda development cycle.

An interesting route would be working with the graphical style and open world ideas of Zelda U again, but use a different setting for the entire world, like the Wild West. Naturally it would still embrace and include many fantasy elements, maybe even some of the crazy monsters from the new game, so it's still unmistakably Zelda and it won't just be Red Dead Redemption with a Zelda skin. Link certainly shouldn't become a gunslinger or even use colts at all. Linkle's crazy crossbows for example could be a good replacement for guns in the setting. Link riding on a horse and shooting arrows in style will be already a big thing in the new game, all they would do is put a different setting around it.

With the new Zelda it also seems like the horse won't be the only means of transportation. There's the Sailcloth for gliding and I bet that there will also be a boat for traveling to the islands in the east of the map. Now, in a Western Zelda game we could even return to the train from Spirit Tracks. It shouldn't be the main method of transportation (the horse would still work best), but there could be parts, where traveling by train is easier or even necessary, e.g. rails running through a dangerous, dark tunnel or on a bridge above a chasm. Or imagine fighting the giant explosive monsters via train. This game could even take place some centuries after Spirit Tracks to turn the original giant ocean setting of that timeline into a giant desert and expand on this storyline even more. Right now it seems like Spirit Tracks is a dead end, but it doesn't have to be.

There's certainly some potential here and I might follow this idea in the future, when we learn more about the new Zelda for Wii U and NX. Let me know in the comments, what you think. Would you be interested or do you feel like this wouldn't be Zelda anymore?