"Aus Alt mach Neu."
This is a German saying that translates to "from old make new", and fits nicely into the topic of enhanced ports, remasters, and remakes of video games. You may not like it, you may not need it, but it's an important topic nevertheless, because it helps keeping games accessible to newer generations of gamers, while it's also always a chance to improve older games, to make them as good as you remember them – or even better.
This may backfire, as in case of Majora's Mask 3D, where it's possible to improve something for the worse ("Verschlimmbessern"), but for the most part the Zelda series has a solid track record when it comes to bringing its old games back in new glory. And in this article we will go through all generations of the Zelda series and evaluate their likelihood of making a return on the Nintendo Switch or its successor in the upcoming years.
Status Quo on Nintendo Switch
With the sole exception of Four Swords Adventures, all Zelda games were made playable during the previous generation in some form, on either the Nintendo 3DS or the Wii U, some even on both (see here). But with the Nintendo Switch came the first hard cut in a long time, providing no backwards compatibility whatsoever. And there also came a big wave of new players, who didn't have a Nintendo console for a long time or maybe even never.
So, before we talk what Zelda games will potentially be remade or remastered in the upcoming years, let's first look what the Nintendo Switch has to offer at the moment. The following games run natively on the system:
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Remake)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer feat. The Legend of Zelda
- Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
With a Nintendo Switch Online (+ Expansion Pack) subscription you can also get access to a variety of emulated games:
- The Legend of Zelda (NES)
- Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (NES)
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)
All in all, that's twelve of the 20 mainline titles and three out of six spin-offs (from those released outside of Japan), which is very solid. But there is still a good chunk missing and some of the emulated games haven't aged all too well, which is why we will also consider them for potential remakes despite their presence.
There is currently no reason to believe that the next Nintendo system won't be backwards compatible, which means that all of the above titles will likely carry over, some might even get performance improvements or upscaling. In the very least, it should be in Nintendo's own interest to keep their current account model, together with the Nintendo Switch Online service, which gives you access to the classic console libraries.
Nintendo Entertainment System
The two Zelda games for the NES are the most re-released titles in the series, where they have been playable in some form on every Nintendo system for the past 20 years, with the sole exception of the Nintendo DSi. They were on the Collector's Edition disc for the Nintendo GameCube, they were part of the NES Classics series for the Game Boy Advance, they were on the Virtual Console on the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS. And finally, you can play them with a basic Nintendo Switch Online subscription, as mentioned above. In addition, you can also find them on dedicated hardware, where we had the Nintendo Classic Mini in 2016, as well as the Legend of Zelda Game & Watch system from two years ago.
Nintendo made sure that you can play these two games somehow, if you're truly interested. Still, despite the availability, they aren't the easiest games to get into, where fans have been asking for remakes since the 90s. But the NES classics aren't exactly remake material, because they are lacking many of the elements that make a Zelda game today and that were introduced with A Link to the Past. Better graphics and controls wouldn't change that these games are rather archaic in comparison to later titles in the series.
They are better candidates for re-imaginings, similar to Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid: Samus Returns, where you still have the same premise and roughly the same worlds, but it's been updated in every possible aspect, putting them on par with games of their era. But by doing so you are more likely to end up with something that becomes a Zelda game of its own...
In fact, that's what happened with Oracle of Seasons, where originally Capcom was going to remake the first The Legend of Zelda for the Game Boy Color, but then they've added in new ideas, like the animal buddies or changing seasons.
It would still be nice to get something one day, which captures the magic of the original games in a new livery. But the reality is that there is to gain a lot more with less effort from remaking or remastering any of the later Zelda games...
Nintendo 64
We are skipping over A Link to the Past for now and move right on to the next duo of games, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Both already got remade on the Nintendo 3DS, but at some point Nintendo will start over with the 3D Zelda games. And there already have been rumors about a potential remake of Ocarina of Time coming to the Nintendo Switch, but the timing is rather odd, because you can't say Ocarina of Time without Majora's Mask. These two games belong together and whatever treatment Ocarina of Time gets, its sequel should get it as well.
With that in mind, it makes more sense to have a remake of Ocarina of Time in the early lifecycle of a Nintendo system, so that they can follow up with Majora's Mask, using the same engine and assets, later on. They could potentially make HD remasters of the Nintendo 3DS remakes (which are technically close to being remasters as well), or they could remake both games from scratch.
Whatever will be the case, they should undo some of the changes made with Majora's Mask 3D, which weren't well received. With more buttons available you can already separate the fast swimming of Zora Link from his magic barrier, and there is no good reason to limit the Ice Arrows like they were... But let's not dwell in details here.
Game Boy Color
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are of course not the only case where two Zelda games share the same visuals and engine, which ties them together. In this case we even have three...
The Nintendo Switch saw the excellent remake of Link's Awakening and it makes all the sense to follow up on this with a remake of the other two Game Boy Color titles, Oracle of Ages & Seasons, which were made by Capcom back in the day. They've reused a lot from Link's Awakening, where GREZZO could just take what they had created for the remake to bring back these games in the same glory in one neat package.
There is a lot of potential for improvements, where you can read all about it here: Oracle of Worlds. And this could also be something that still makes it onto the Nintendo Switch in 2024 or 2025. If we're going to see another Zelda remake in the near future, it's likely going to be this, because everything needed is in place. The only problem might be music rights, but they could just make new music for this.
While Oracle of Ages & Seasons are already playable on the Nintendo Switch via the Game Boy library, the whole password system for linking both games has never been all that convenient and can also be a bit confusing at times. To experience both games as a whole, without having to deal with that, would be an additional selling point, other than the upgraded graphics and other quality of life improvements.
Game Boy Advance
If there's one 2D Zelda game that still looks very good today, then it's without a doubt The Minish Cap. You can play it on the Nintendo Switch via the Expansion Pack online membership, which features the Game Boy Advance library, and its visuals have aged very gracefully.
This doesn't mean that it wouldn't profit from a remake. 3D graphics really could make the shrinking effect a lot more impressive and let you dive even deeper into the world of Picori. It could make an already beautiful game even more astounding... But because it still looks and plays as nice as it does today, The Minish Cap is not very high on the priority list, where other top-down Zelda games have to gain a lot more from being remade.
Now, The Minish Cap probably wouldn't exist without Four Swords, where the multiplayer Zelda episode was used as a basis for Capcom's final Zelda project. That game was once re-released as DSiWare during the 25th Anniversary of Zelda, which added a singleplayer mode and new levels, but this is already its whole history.
Remakes or remasters of the multiplayer Zelda games will be questionable in general, because Nintendo would probably invest that effort into a new multiplayer game instead, which was designed for the Nintendo Switch. But in case of Four Swords there is at least the chance to see it again, since the Nintendo Switch Online game libraries all support online multiplayer with friends. If A Link to the Past & Four Swords were to make it onto the service, the game really could really see a new dawn, and this may even allow some Zelda fans to experience it for the first time ever.
Nintendo GameCube & Wii
This may sound like a broken record, but The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are some of the few Wii U titles that haven't been ported over to the Nintendo Switch yet. With such ports all 3D Zelda games would become playable on the Nintendo Switch and that in itself is already a desirable milestone, where this would be the perfect filler for the year 2024.
The real question is how they are going to bring back these two games. Most people would certainly prefer a two-in-one collection, but since we're talking about Nintendo here and these two games couldn't look any more different from each other, it's also possible that they could see individual releases. But maybe those would come at a discounted price, like Metroid Prime Remastered, or they could follow the excellent example of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, where they add they add a side game as an incentive...
In case of Twilight Princess HD it would make a lot of sense to include a remaster of Link's Crossbow Training. This small Wii shooter was fully based on Twilight Princess, so they could bring it back in the same HD assets, and maybe even add some new levels to it. That would certainly sweeten the deal.
With The Wind Waker HD on the other hand it's not as obvious, but there is one game that would fit nicely here and which was never released in the west: Navi Trackers. It uses the same art style as The Wind Waker and is even a direct follow-up, where Link has to master a pirate test.
It was originally meant to be its own title on the GameCube, but then got released as part of the Japanese and Korean versions of Four Swords Adventures, which is in a similar position to Four Swords. Maybe one day the Nintendo Switch Online service will offer GameCube titles (which is more likely to happen on the next system) and with it you will be able to emulate the unique setup that Four Swords Adventures required, where each player had their own screen in the form of a Game Boy Advance, while the TV showed something for everyone.
In an online environment you could just put the player's screen and the main screen both on the TV together, so this could actually work just fine. Navi Trackers could also be played alone or against a CPU Tingle, so it wouldn't necessarily require an internet connection to be played today. But overall it remains questionable whether Nintendo would be willing to put in the effort to fully remake/remaster such a title. At least it would bring some novelty to the table for the players in the west.
Alternatively, Nintendo could also decide to save The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD for later, to upgrade them to UHD on the next system(s), maybe even make a 4K-collection together with Skyward Sword. The graphics of both The Wind Waker and Skyward Sword should scale very nicely and look beautiful in any resolution, but in case of Twilight Princess they will eventually arrive at a point where upscaling the textures isn't enough. Here you would need more detailed models, which means a lot more effort.
This may even be an argument for why it's in Nintendo's own interest to bring Twilight Princess HD from the Wii U on the Nintendo Switch as soon as tomorrow. On the other hand, if they have the resources for a remaster that turns heads the way Metroid Prime Remastered did, then they will be making something that gets much more praise and potentially also more sales.
Nintendo DS
The two Zelda games that would easily profit the most from a remaster or remake – in visuals, controls, and gameplay – are without a doubt the ones on the Nintendo DS, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Their graphics have aged very poorly, where they look worse than N64 games today. The touchscreen controls weren't received well by everyone, and parts of the gameplay are despised. Here's an article from 2016 about this topic, which still holds up today:
Remaking Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks
One concern remained at the time and that was how button controls couldn't possibly match the speed and precision of the touchscreen controls, especially when it comes to aiming with the Bow or Boomerang. But the newest Zelda games have provided a solution for this problem: just slow down time. Whenever you take aim, it will make everything around you go in slow motion, giving you the necessary time to align your shots.
If we're getting more remakes of handheld Zelda titles, then Oracle of Ages & Seasons should have priority. But Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks would certainly be worthy candidates to become the next duo of Zelda remakes afterwards.
Nintendo 3DS / Super Nintendo
Remastering A Link Between Worlds is what you would call an "easy win". The remake of Link's Awakening already has re-used some of the assets from the Nintendo 3DS title and brought them into HD, where this could go full circle and GREZZO could use the same engine to bring A Link Between Worlds onto the Nintendo Switch. It's not that easy, of course, but out of all Zelda games that aren't already available in high definition resolution, this probably would be the one that requires the least amount of effort to make it happen.
Now, we haven't talked about A Link to the Past yet in this article and this was for a good reason: if they ever remaster A Link Between Worlds, they could remake A Link to the Past right along with it. A Link Between Worlds is entirely based on the Super Nintendo classic and provides at least 80% of the assets required for a remake. It's one of the reasons why fans already wanted such a thing on the Nintendo 3DS, because it seems like a no-brainer. The graphics, all the enemies, most items and sounds... It's all there, it just needs to be re-arranged accordingly.
So, this could become a nice two-in-one, A Link to the Past & Between Worlds, where you both get to re-experience the beloved Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 3DS classics on a modern Nintendo system. A very sweat deal.
Tri Force Heroes on the other hand wasn't as beloved and falls into the same multiplayer trap. We may see it again one day, especially since it also shares part of its visuals with A Link Between Worlds and the Link's Awakening remake, but since this game wasn't a big hit, Nintendo may just move on and create a completely new multiplayer Zelda game instead.
Nintendo Switch
Now we're already getting ahead of ourselves, but both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will eventually get remastered at some point. Their graphics allow for some upscaling, maybe not as simple as with The Wind Waker, but still. Theoretically, we could even see an update for both games on the Switch successor, making them 4K-ready. But full re-releases in the form of remasters probably won't happen until the generation after.
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