Aside from the Mario games, Nintendo are probably best known for the Legend of Zelda series. The plucky, silent, green protagonist known as Link has kept millions of gamers entertained for decades. Alternatively, the series has also given fans interesting and unique characters like Sheik, who's first appearance in 1998's Ocarina of Time almost stole the show. In fact, they were so popular that a few years ago, a development team toyed with the idea of making a Sheik spin-off. Now, new information has come to light which suggests there may have been a game of in development at one point, but has since been cancelled.
A recent leak suggests that a well-known studio may have been working on a game which starred the mysterious Nintendo character. While Nintendo itself has never made any official announcement about a game starring Sheik, some details from the leak say a third party development team may have been working on such a game between 2005 and 2008. Some information on the page says that the game would have been an action/JRPG, but never went beyond pre-production. The story would have revolved around the last male Sheik during the Dark Gerudo's 100 year arrival of Ganon and would likely have been released for the Wii or possibly Wii U depending on its release.
The team behind the cancelled Legend of Zelda project was none other than Retro Studios who are currently hard at work developing the upcoming Metroid Prime 4. In fact, the studio is well known for Metroid Prime games, having started in 2002 with the reboot on the Nintendo GameCube, as well as Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS.
The leaked information comes from a number of sources, but the original seems to stem from a document, which lists a number of titles written in Japanese. One of the highlighted aspects of the document which, according to a report, when translated suggests the now-cancelled Sheik game. Speaking of leaks, this is not the first time a Nintendo product has been spoken about unofficially. Recently, it was revealed that a developer was at one point working on yet another Metroid game.
All-in-all, it seems a shame that this Sheik game never made it out of pre-production. Sheik has become something of a staple in the Smash Bros. Brawl arena, so a full game dedicated to the character, even if it isn't the one we currently know to be Zelda, would have almost certainly been a fan pleaser. Given that the project was canned several years ago, and not much else has been said about it from Nintendo itself, it's looking unlikely that such a spin-off will be happening any time soon.
Source: Wiredup Report