Shocker. In a familiar turn of events, Eiji Aonuma, the director of the beloved Zelda series, has announced the delay of Zelda for the Wii U.
This delay is special, however, as Aonuma felt it necessary to crush our hopes in a YouTube video, which you can find above. The video gives us the usual spiel about time and quality, an echo of Miyamoto’s famous quote:
A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.
However, the video also gets specific to a point where the delay is completely understandable. Many fans and nonfans alike have been asking for some big change to breathe life back into the Zelda series. In order to revive and expand on the magic of the original, it was announced that Zelda Wii U would be an open-world experience and push the limits of the console. As Anouma pointed out, this concept has led to many more ideas that the team wishes to implement, ultimately forcing a delay.
This announcment probably isn’t a surprise to most, as delays have become a sort of tradition for Nintendo. Fortunately though, a push-back for the company almost always means that the game is going to be true A+ quality. Plus, we’ll get to see some footage to hold us over at this years E3, right?
WRONG.
Eiji Aonuma later took to Miiverse to expand on the disappointment:
As I said in the video, we would like to take this time so we can bring you a very special experience, by making the ultimate Zelda game. Since we’d like to focus on developing the game we’ve decided to not show the game at this year’s E3. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope you’ll look forward to the game!
So it seems that fans of the series will have to pick up Splatoon and Starfox as they wait an entire year to hear anything about the next-gen entry into the Zelda series. I think I speak for everyone when I say: it better be good.
