Good Bye, 30th Anniversary

(image by Rasheed)

This was to be expected after the announcement that Breath of the Wild wouldn't be released before March 2017, but now that the E3 is over, we can safely assume that Nintendo doesn't have any plans for the 30th Anniversary of Zelda.

We basically got our unofficial anniversary celebration in March, where Nintendo released many new Zelda things right after the anniversary date with Twilight Princess HD, the Wolf Link amiibo, the Twilight Princess Picross and Hyrule Warriors: Legends. And especially the latter will keep me entertained throughout the entire year with all its DLC.

But with the delay of Breath of the Wild, any other anniversary plans probably got cancelled. Anniversaries are always marketing moves and with the new big game from the table it probably didn't make sense for Nintendo to celebrate. Instead they will focus on Pokémon, which is celebrating 20 years and is going to see new big releases this year with Sun and Moon.

If Nintendo really did anything for 30th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, I would have expected two things mainly: the announcement of a Zelda Anime movie and more DLC for Tri Force Heroes.

Kimishima already implicated that something like a Zelda Movie will be possible for the future and I suppose that we're going to see first announcements after the release of Breath of the Wild. Some fans might not be too happy about the focus on exploration, instead on cutscenes and story, and a Zelda Movie could just give them what they want, while Zelda returns to being a real game. And some anime in the artstyle of the new game really could be lovely.

About Tri Force Heroes, I already said my piece two months ago: the game is dead and the only hope would have been the release of more content. Data miners found place holders for four more costumes and one more area, but sadly we never got those. And it might be possible that Nintendo planned some special anniversary content, similar to the Four Swords: Anniversary Edition, but they cancelled it with the delay of Breath of the Wild. GREZZO is now working on a new game, so Tri Force Heroes is probably done for good. Too bad, some additional content would have been great and I was hoping that they would improve some parts of the game, especially the singleplayer... But that's probably not going to happen. At least not until they remake this game in ten years.

I'm also not expecting anything about the 30th Anniversary of Metroid. Federation Force will be released right after the anniversary, which is on August 6th, but they'll probably just release this game quietly, instead of angering the fans any further. I don't think, it was even showcased at E3, now was it...?