Nintendo is always good for a surprise. For the first time ever, we're getting a dedicated Direct presentation for The Legend of Zelda, for its 40th Anniversary no less. I would have expected this to be part of the general Nintendo Direct, which is scheduled for the day after (on September 9th), because this is how they did it for the 40th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros. a year ago. Both Super Mario and Zelda are the big crowd pleasers that draw in attention, but with a total runtime of 30 minutes they probably wanted to keep this separate and not overshadow the other Nintendo news.
It's also surprising that they are announcing this on a Friday, giving us the weekend to digest the news and speculate as much as we can. Normally, they would have announced this next Monday, leaving you with little time to mentally prepare.
Anyway, with 30 minutes this sure is going to be beefy, where people are wondering what else could there be next to the Ocarina of Time remake. A deep dive into the already announced title will most likely be the start of the Direct, where I'm still hoping for this to be a true re-imagining co-developed by Monolith Soft.
With all certainty, they will give us the exact release date, probably in November or December. Maybe they will also announce some sort of Collector's Edition for the game, or even a series of new amiibo.
Speaking of, people have been speculating that it will release November 12th, mainly because Nintendo is presumably shipping some Kirby Air Riders amiibo on that day. But we also got the Chef Kawasaki just yesterday, with no new Nintendo game to coincide, so this is rather weak evidence. It still could be November 12th, or maybe it's November 19th or later. Unlike the rest of the gaming industry, Nintendo doesn't care about Grand Theft Auto VI. They are doing their own thing, like they always did, and the nostalgia for Ocarina of Time is so strong that it can beat anything.
After said nostalgia trip, Nintendo will have to talk about the 40th Anniversary itself. There already was a leak about some upcoming merchandise, where this could become an expensive Christmas for any Zelda fan. Other than that, we could be looking at more amiibo, a new LEGO set, or other goodies...
But I also see the middle segment as a strong chance for another game announcement. Yes, I'm convinced that this Nintendo Direct will bring more on the release table than just Ocarina of Time and I'm not talking about the next 3D Zelda. That one is likely still a couple of years away, where they might want to wait with an announcement until after the movie hype, so June of next year or later.
Instead, I'm hoping that we will also see GREZZO's next project, which might be yet another remake. Unlike Ocarina of Time, however, this one would be more faithful and for one of the earlier top-down titles. This could either be the Oracles, scheduled for 2027, or maybe even a remake of the original The Legend of Zelda, also in the same Link's Awakening style, which could even come out as early as next week. Alternatively, I could see them do something with the original game in some other form, like some remixed version of it. I've already went over these ideas in more detail in past blog post, so check them out if you're interested to learn more about them:
But one of these could be a strong possibility for next Tuesday, where I'm personally hoping for the Oracles to come out next year. This would be the most interesting scenario and also the strongest option, as this would give us two Zelda games in one.
Of course, remaking games is not the only way to bring back classic Zelda titles. Twilight Princess will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this year, where this will be the perfect timing to bring it onto the Nintendo Switch 2 via the GameCube Nintendo Switch Online library. Sure, getting the HD remaster onto Switch and Switch 2 would be even better, but this would distract too much from the new Ocarina of Time, so I'm not expecting this at the moment.
Another interesting NSO title could be Four Swords Adventures, especially if we were able to finally play it online. This was a big deal with Four Swords two years ago, where I'm hoping that Four Swords Adventures will get the same spotlight eventually, because this is the oldest Zelda game to never come back in any way or form. They could even try to localize Tetra's Trackers for the first time ever, or at least make it accessible in all regions.
The 40th Anniversary Direct will likely be concluded with a first trailer for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda movie, which technically won't really be part of the 40th Anniversary any longer, because the series will already be 41 years old when the movie launches on April 30th... But Nintendo probably doesn't care and will want to use the anniversary to hype up the movie, because that's the biggest thing for Zelda in the next years – not the Ocarina of Time remake, not the next open world Zelda game, and certainly not some other remakes or goodies. This movie will be the largest investment around the franchise in its entire history and they will want this to be a huge hit, ideally the next Lord of the Rings, maybe even spawning two sequels.
If the recent casting rumors are to be believed, things are already looking quite promising. They will likely announce all of that cast and then leave us with a trailer that will hopefully blow everyone's mind.
Both the movie and the Ocarina of Time remake are in a similar position here. They already have been announced and we have seen very little about them. Both of them have the potential to be really good, but there is also the worry in the air that they might not be. Next week the curtains will fall.
PS: I just came back from a vacation, so I'm a bit overwhelmed by today's announcement and had some catching up to do with this blog. But there are worse reasons to be overwhelmed.
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