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Nintendo is in a troublesome place at the moment, coming off a year where it struggled to sell the Wii U to the same audience that made the Wii so popular. Due to the console's low sale numbers, gamers have expected to see the company announce big, long-awaited titles to boost interest in the console. While Nintendo only just recently released A Link Between Worlds, there were high hopes that the company might final unveil an original Legend of Zelda game for the Wii U during the Spike VGX, but all fans got was confirmation that Cranky Kong would be in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

Although, it hasn't taken too long for Nintendo to show what the future holds for the Zelda franchise. During today's Nintendo Direct several high profile announcements were made, but perhaps the must peculiar of them all was Hyrule Warriors. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made it clear that this game isn't in the 'main' Zelda franchise, but is instead a spinoff being developed in conjunction with Tecmo Koei, the company responsible for the Dynasty Warriors franchise.

The game looks like a hybrid between both Dynasty Warriors and the Legend of Zelda, bringing the large, open combat battlefields to the land of Hyrule. From the Hyrule Warriors trailer, the game appears to have very similar gameplay to Dynasty Warriors' familiar hack and slash arenas, but now all set in the world of Hyrule with Link as an onscreen avatar.

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This isn't the first time that a franchise has gotten the Dynasty Warriors treatment - its trademark gameplay was adapted into the world of Gundam Wing for Dynasty Warriors: Gundam. Dynasty Warriors does exceptionally well in Japan and mixing the game franchise with one of the most popular animes of all time proved incredibly popular when it hit shelves. Now that the gameplay has Hyrule outfitting, it will likely find an even bigger audience due to the popularity of Zelda in the west.

The game looks like a big departure when compared to some of Link's previous adventures too and that might be the best thing going for it. The Legend of Zelda is synonymous with dungeon crawling, small scale combat and puzzle solving. Hyrule Warriors, if the trailer is anything to go by, is more about slashing away at tens of enemies, sending them flying across the landscape in their bunches.

Little is known about the game or when fans can expect to play it, but it will be interesting to see which of the characters from the Hyrule universe will be playable as well as which locations and enemies must be conquered on the battlefield.

Are you impressed by Hyrule Warriors? Enough to buy a Wii U for? Would you like to see another Dynasty Warriors type mash-up in the future or do you just want a proper new Zelda title? Let us know in the comments.