Rumor: Link's Awakening 3DS Remake

Current rumors picture that another Nintendo 3DS Zelda game is in development, which is supposed to be either a remake or re-imagining of Link's Awakening in top-down style. There are also many additional rumors that place a Nintendo Direct on January 11th, Thursday next week, where we already could see this title. Here are the tweets that mention the 3DS version of Link's Awakening:

Nintendo still want 3DS games out in 2018. Many of them will be minor games however you should expect another top down Zelda. It is meant to be a re-imagining of a Link's Awakening. It is meant to be the most expansive and impressive 3DS Zelda title to date.

Source: Marcus Sellars on Twitter

A new 3DS Zelda Game is coming. An enhanced remake of Link's Awakening but more opening like BoTW. Was suppose to come this year but we delayed for gameplay changes. We will see a reveal soon.

Source: Nate8696 on Twitter


The first guy also shared rumors about a Bandai Namco event on December 15th, which were partially correct, so there might be some truth to this. The second one doesn't seem very credible and might just copy the rumors of the first guy, however.

Update: The first tweet has been deleted by now, but the author released a new one, where he claims that the game has been made by Grezzo. While this still might be, it seems rather unlikely, since they were busy developing Ever Oasis and they just started hiring for a supposed new Zelda project with experience in Unreal Engine 4 or Unity. This doesn't add up, unless they have been developing this between things or they actually have multiple teams. We'll see.


But I don't post rumors on this blog, because I think that they are super trustworthy. I post them, because I find the idea interesting and want to talk about it. So, take it all with a grain of salt.

Anyway, if this holds true, I can say good bye to my previous idea, where I envisioned a Link's Awakening remake as a sequel to Breath of the Wild. But I suppose, if Nintendo were to remake Link's Awakening, they'd still would want to keep it connected to A Link to the Past somehow.

In general I liked the Nintendo 3DS Zelda games quite a lot. A Link Between Worlds is still one of my favorite Zelda titles and a big reason for that is the smooth and polished Nintendo 3DS engine. It just plays very nicely. I also enjoyed Tri Force Heroes for the same reason and I would love to get another Zelda game on the Nintendo 3DS in the same style.

However, I thought that Nintendo is now done with the Nintendo 3DS, where it certainly had a good run. It's an amazing system for Zelda fans. There have been four Zelda Editions of the Nintendo 3DS, we got two exclusive Nintendo 3DS Zelda games with A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes, there have been two Zelda remasters with Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora's Mask 3D, there were Hyrule Warriors - Legends and Twilight Princess Picross as spin-offs and a total of six different Virtual Console titles, including Link's Awakening DX. And that's not counting the Minish Cap and the Four Swords Anniversary Edition, which both only had been available for a limited time. So, the Nintendo 3DS was outstanding for Zelda fans and to put yet another Zelda game on top of that seems almost too good to be true.

I played with the thought, but I honestly didn't anticipate something like this, because I expected Nintendo to move the top-down Zelda department onto Smartphones. But I certainly would prefer another Nintendo 3DS Zelda game to satisfy my classic Zelda needs.

As for a remake / re-imagining of Link's Awakening, I would say it would make the most sense to design this as a sequel to A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes. After Link's travels through Hytopia and the Drablands, he finds himself shipwrecked on a mysterious island again. It would be a similar dream of the Wind Fish much like in the original, but still a new story about a hundred years later to explain the differences. It just could be that the Wind Fish got put to sleep by the Nightmares again and that it so happens that a new hero comes to awaken him.

This would give Nintendo enough freedom to create something new and in a sense it would be the same as A Link Between Worlds, where Nintendo partially remade A Link to the Past, but with a more open world, new features and a new story. In addition it would keep the consistency that Zelda games on the same system and engine are usually also connected via the story.

And if you can play the dungeons out of order, I'm going to target the Eagle's Tower first, because this always has been my favorite. But I do hope that the dungeons will be more complex and difficult, because in my opinion the easy dungeons were the biggest weakness of both A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild. Playing dungeons out of order is nice and fun, but there still needs to be a difficulty curve, where in both titles only one dungeon stood out: the Ice Ruins and Vah Naboris. So, if I aim at the Eagle's Tower first, I want to get wrecked.

But first, let's see if any of it is actually true...