Zelda Calendar(s) 2023

It's December already and with that it's time to look for some new calendars to hang on your walls. However, you will quickly notice that there is no general Zelda calendar available this time, which feels fitting after 2022, the first year without any release for the Zelda series in a decade. Instead there are two "different" calendars for Breath of the Wild only – one by Abrams and one by Danilo.

Also for the first time in a decade, I haven't gotten the calendar from Abrams, because it felt heavily redundant. They already had made a Breath of the Wild calendar in 2019 and two more followed by different companies, where there is only so much that you can do with a single game. So, I decided to check out the 2023 calendar by Danilo instead to at least have something "new":

Pyramid hasn't released another Zelda calendar for 2023, where their Breath of the Wild calendar for 2022 has essentially served as a blueprint for the competition this year. In fact, a majority of the motives has already been present in the 2022 calendar, where about half of the Danilo calendar is made of repeats and the one by Abrams has only two artworks that weren't present in Pyramid's calendar from last year. It just seems lazy and uninspired, like so often. Both calendars even feature the same "Link fighting against a snow storm" artwork in December...

This seems like missed opportunity for Pyramid, where they could have scored big time with a general Zelda calendar, which offers something different. Their 2021 calendar with the Chamber Dungeon design is still my favorite. I don't know... maybe these licensed merchandise corporations didn't think that there would be any interest in such a thing, because Zelda is all about Breath of the Wild now. At least they could try to use something from Age of Calamity as well, but this would probably require them to get licenses from Koei Tecmo in addition, which creates more cost and therefore generates less profit, all while Age of Calamity isn't that popular. So, I think I understand the business decisions here, but I really don't like them.

And we won't be seeing anything from Tears of the Kingdom before 2025, because the calendars for 2024 will be developed before the game comes out. Maybe one of these calendar companies is smart enough to already grab the existing cover art for Tears of the Kingdom and uses it for a general Zelda 2024 calendar. This would be preferable, because they have seemingly reached the limit of what can be done with Breath of the Wild.

Anyway, between the two Breath of the Wild calendars there wasn't much of a choice for me personally. As already said, the one by Danilo has less repetition and comes with a new design. There was also another selling point, because they've advertised it with having a poster inside. However, this is a bit misleading...

The poster is essentially just the center of the calendar, where they have made a double page. You can open the staples and remove it, but it has the typical holes at the top and bottom, so it's not a poster like you would expect it. The poster displayed on the back of the calendar doesn't even show these holes, where it's a bit of false advertising... It's still a good idea and I guess I can just leave it hanging like that, should there be nothing available for 2024. But as a poster it's not very nice.

The calendar design itself also isn't that great, it's a bit too dark for my taste. But they were going with a Sheikah Slate look and it's certainly more inspired than what Abrams has been doing for a couple of years now, so it's still the better choice overall.

Again, there was no Metroid calendar available, which seems like another missed opportunity after the release of Metroid Dread. Since I have one open calendar space right now, I would have gotten anything they throw at me...