Nintendo is taking an unusual approach to E3 2016. As you probably know by now, the company will only have one game playable on the show floor this week: Zelda Wii U. The company won’t announce its new hardware, the Nintendo NX, at the show, and although it may end up announcing other new games, the focus really is on Zelda. People have been disappointed in this; they’re worried about the Nintendo NX. But let’s make the best of it. We’re getting a whole E3 where Nintendo’s only focus is on a new Legend of Zelda game—the biggest one ever. That’s something worth getting excited about.
Zelda Wii U Is Worth Getting Excited About
We haven’t really seen much of Zelda Wii U since way back in the halcyon days of 2014. That’s a long time in game development world, and even then, we only saw a glimpse of the huge scale open-world Zelda game. This E3 is the first time the game is being fully unveiled. And it’ll even be playable. That’s a huge vote of confidence on Nintendo’s part, as is the company’s delay of the game until Q1 2017. Nintendo trusts in Zelda.
We should trust in Zelda too. Eiji Aonuma is one of Nintendo’s best designers, if not the best. He’s the architect of the entire modern series, and he’s also publicly distanced himself from some aspects of Skyward Sword, which broke new ground in some ways but also felt like a smaller game. He’s praised Skyrim and suggested it’s a big influence on Zelda Wii U. The game could end up being Nintendo’s Witcher, Nintendo’s Skyrim. That’s the Zelda legacy—it created the open-world genre in the first place, lo these many years ago!
It’s time for Zelda Wii U to take center stage, and we should be excited for it. We’d love to see other games too, but instead, Nintendo is betting it all on its trump card. It wouldn’t do that if the company wasn’t absolutely confident in how amazing Legend of Zelda Wii U—and Legend of Zelda NX—are going to be.