Of the many Nintendo franchises, the only one to rival a certain mustachioed plumber in terms of sheer popularity is The Legend of Zelda. With every new installment bringing fresh new ideas to the table and standing tall amongst the greatest in the industry, attention is always locked onto the next Zelda game with high anticipation. Now, with the 35th anniversary in a couple of days and a 50 minute Nintendo Direct just announced, fans are eagerly awaiting some kind of news for the series.
This being the first proper Nintendo direct since late 2019, a lot of hype is surrounding the event for some show stopping reveals. Much like anything of this nature, it is best to keep expectations in check, but with so many rumors doing the rounds and Nintendo themselves hinting at when players could expect Breath of the Wild 2 news, its hard not to get excited for what awaits in the land of Hyrule.
Breath of the Wild 2 Updates
Potentially the biggest piece of news from the event, The Legend of Zelda related or otherwise, would be some form of concrete update on the sequel to Game of the Year winner The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Aside from a sinister E3 2019 teaser and brief snippets of information here and there, the game largely remains a mystery to the gaming community.
Naturally, a full title reveal and release window drop would be ideal, but if Nintendo still wants to keep that information under wraps, delivering another trailer at the very least should somewhat satisfy fans. Still, with this being the first major Nintendo Direct in such a long time and Breath of the Wild 2 being such an anticipated release, it would seem odd to not see the game shown off in full form here.
Zelda 3D Collection
Speaking of the mustachioed plumber above, the Super Mario series celebrated its own 35th anniversary last year with a bevy of new reveals and treats for fans around the world. Most notable among them was a collection containing three of the most critically acclaimed 3D platformers in the series (and all time for that matter).
After that compilation proved to be a big hit with players, naturally the expectations had become for Nintendo to follow up with a similar anniversary for The Legend of Zelda franchise. Of course, it is advised not to believe everything read on the internet, but for persistent rumors of a 3D Legend of Zelda collection being in the works to keep popping up, there may be some truth to it.
Another Remake
Nintendo delighted fans by bringing back The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening with a colorful new remake back in late 2019. The beautiful new visual style was positively received and small additions like a dungeon editor mode was seen as a nice bonus on top of an already satisfying main adventure.
The studio responsible for developing the remake, Grezzo, have recently been posting job listings for an upcoming project. Of course, this could be something completely unrelated to The Legend of Zelda but considering much of the studio's efforts these past years have been reimagining older titles in the series, its hard not to wonder if another remake is on the horizon.
The Little Things
Even if none of these much bigger announcements come to pass, Nintendo can still throw gamers a bone with some smaller scale goodies to look forward to. For one, the recently released Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity can receive DLC updates providing new characters and upgrades to mess around with or Super Smash Bros Ultimate can reveal a new fighter from the vast land of Hyrule.
If not those, other welcome surprises would be a simple port of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords to the Nintendo Switch or even a shock revival for the cancelled Netflix adaptation of The Legend of Zelda series. Nintendo have been known to break news completely out of left field, so its only a matter of time before gamers see what the company has in store.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is in development.