Today Hyrule Blog is celebrating its 10th Anniversary, where this blog was created exactly 10 years ago with a post about the Future of Zelda.
Sadly, it's not a time for celebration, because this blog is currently offline due to the GDPR situation. But it might come back in the future, where in this case it would be even sadder, if it didn't get a proper post for its 10th Anniversary. So, let's do this.
Actually, in the past two years there were already two similar landmark posts, which covered different topics. The original Hyrule Blog Historia explained the origins of this blog, how it all started. And Hyrule Blog Historia II gave an overview over the different article series on this site.
This time I wanted to talk about my top 5 predictions over the years. Part of the fun with this blog is predicting what future Zelda games might bring and often I'm wrong. But I'm not always wrong and I want to feature some of the most solid predictions as some vaunt here.
1) A Second Nintendo DS Zelda Game
This goes back to the aforementioned first post of this blog, the Future of Zelda, where in mid-2008 I gave a brief overview what might be in the store for the next years. And most of it was wrong. Master Quest never made it to the Virtual Console, there were no Zelda WiiWare titles, there was no fishing spin-off game (though this was meant as a joke anyway) and Skyward Sword wasn't played in first person. But I also predicted that Phantom Hourglass would get a sequel in late 2009, even before the new Wii Zelda game.
This wasn't the most popular prediction at the time, because most fans simply wanted that new Wii Zelda game. And frankly speaking, Skyward Sword appeared way too late in the Wii's life cycle. But Spirit Tracks would bridge some time and use the engine of Phantom Hourglass to create something new after two years, similar to what Majora's Mask did after Ocarina of Time.
2) A Zelda to the Sky
In an article about Zelda Wii, which would later become Skyward Sword, I made the suggestion that the game should utilize Wii MotionPlus (a no-brainer) and take place in the sky with various sky islands. This turned out to be true, but sadly it wasn't as ambitious as originally expected, since the focus was still on the individual realms on the land, while the sky was just a simple hub. Skyloft was nice, though.
3) Four Swords DSiWare Singleplayer Mode and Extra Stages
After Four Swords was announced as a DSiWare title at E3 2011, I played through the original again and made a proposal for how a singleplayer mode could work based on the game's two-player experience, which was based on my attempts of playing the game alone with two GameBoy Advance systems. And this became a reality exactly the way I described it with the Four Swords Anniversary Edition.
This was followed by another suggestion that the game should get additional levels, where you can get the unlockable sword moves, the Sword Beam and the Hurricane Spin Attack. Originally those techniques were gotten via A Link to the Past and there had to be a way to get them in the new version. I even made the suggestion that these levels could be super-challenging. And all of this became a reality, much like the singleplayer...
4) The Bow of the Wild
Back in 2013, I dubbed the upcoming Zelda game for Wii U The Bow of the Goddesses. Based on the Battle Quest mini-game in Nintendoland, I thought that the Wii U GamePad would lead to a higher importance of the bow, much like the sword became very important in Skyward Sword.
While it didn't become the "main gimmick" and the bow was just one of many, many big changes in Breath of the Wild, the bow finally became much more prominent in this game, getting the same status as sword and shield. The first trailer even showed Link fighting exclusively with a bow.
5) Four Swords 3DS
This is my favorite one. Already back in August 2013, even before A Link Between Worlds was released, I predicted that the game should be followed by a Four Swords Online game based on its engine. Before E3 2015 I made another post that this is now the time for an online multiplayer Zelda game. And this is where Tri Force Heroes then was announced.
It wasn't exactly a Four Swords game, more like "Three Swords", and it didn't get a full single-player experience, just the typical "play the multiplayer levels alone" mode, but it was another multiplayer game based on the engine of A Link Between Worlds, using the Energy meter for its items and fully playable online. It wasn't perfect, but I still had a blast with the game!
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To be honest, I don't have the most impressive track-record here, but it's all about the fun. It's not so much as about making the right predictions, but showing the possibilities, like I did with The Future of Zelda on Switch. And maybe some of those predictions even come true the day after tomorrow, when Nintendo announces future Switch games at E3 2018. Let's see...
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