Miyamoto Discusses Zelda Wii U, Teases New Zelda 3DS

Although this Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is a special opportunity, I am afraid I cannot give you any information other than what has been officially announced. At this point, there are a few titles under development in “The Legend of Zelda” series, so please look forward to their completion.

“Hyrule Warriors,” a tie-up with another company’s “Dynasty Warriors” series that we have shown at E3, is more or less an action game in which you cut down enemies, and it received very positive reviews at E3 for enabling players to choose from a variety of characters and for offering exhilarating action.

In addition, we have already announced that we are now developing the next title for the orthodox “The Legend of Zelda” series for Wii U, and that it will be an “open world,” as announced at E3. I prefer not to use the generally used term “open world” when developing software, but we used this term in order to make it easier for consumers to understand. This term means that there is a large world in which players can do numerous things daily. In the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series, the player would play one dungeon at a time. For example, if there are eight dungeons, at the fourth dungeon, some players may think, “I’m already halfway through the game,” while other players may think, “I still have half of the game to play.” We are trying to gradually break down such mechanism and develop a game style in which you can enjoy “The Legend of Zelda” freely in a vast world, whenever you find the time to do so.

At the halfway point to achieving this goal, we released “The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds” for Nintendo 3DS last year. We created the games in the traditional “The Legend of Zelda” series in steps that players could easily understand and follow; the player would obtain a new item in each dungeon, use the item to clear that dungeon and be able to enjoy applying the items in different ways after acquiring about eight items. However, in “The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,” we broke that down and let the player rent different items from the beginning, so the player could use different combinations of items. In this way, we are gradually changing the structure of “The Legend of Zelda” series, and we are preparing to newly evolve the series for Wii U. In addition to that, we have ideas for Nintendo 3DS which we have not announced yet, so I hope you will look forward to them.

SOURCE

Everything they are saying about Zelda Wii U sounds incredible- it sounds like they want to make a persistent open world, which makes me think of Majora's Mask meeting Skyrim, and gets me all sorts of giddy. I really wish they would show us more of it, because whatever little they have shown us looks so incredible.

And the fact that there is a new Zelda 3DS game planned? Great! Link Between Worlds was stunning, and my (and Gamespot's!) Game of the Year last year, so I hope the next 3DS one builds on that!

I'm curious as to what this new 3DS project will be.

I could see them using the engine for ALBW and simply building an original world with it (as opposed to using ALttP landscapes as a template), and along with that hopefully not rehashed Zelda bosses.

Nintendo needs to get off their ridiculous controller ideals and give us a system with a hardcore/traditional gaming controller as the MAIN control device. If they can't deliver that with the Wii-U's successor then they should give up on making a console and stick with handhelds only.

I bought a 3DS for my daughter but I'm personally done with dedicated handheld systems for me.

What exactly is the issue with the controller for the Wii U? Even more so since in most games, its usage is completely optional?

The gamepad is awesome. I play all the games with it.

Then what is the point to include a 150$ tablet controller if you're not going to use it well?

The tablet controller is hands down the best controller released to date. The touch pad on the PS4 controller is a silly, useless gimmick in comparison.

I heard Oblivion is way better than Skyrim.

I hope they don't sacrifice the story like in TES, Souls, etc.

Watch how the 3DS Zelda is MM3D.

It's really not. They are basically the same game.

I would like the MM remake, but a new Zelda on the 3DS sounds away more exciting.

Part of me worries that "ideas for the 3DS" might amount to Zelda Wii U integrating with the 3DS like Four Swords did with the GameBoy Advance. I would like another Legend of Zelda 3DS game. We got two on the DS, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Those were fresh adventures though, Ocarina of Time 3D was of course a remake, and A Link Between Worlds treads over very familiar territory as well.

It works just fine, but the Pro controller sticks are better for games like Mario Kart.

I'm not sure what to make of that article. Zelda... having things to do daily... is it goign to have daily downloadable dungeons or something? Man, I hope they don't really mess it up, it has to remain fun and allow for long sittings of play still.

That's exactly the problem. It's a big pointless cost and the money developing it could have been spent elsewhere. It doesn't entice anyone to the system either because it's not a new or interesting way to play like the Wiimotes (motion control wasn't new per se but it had never been done well, touchscreen gaming's been done well for years, even by Nintendo) were and I'm amazed that Nintendo didn't take that into account whilst making it.

I think it's more like there's just gonna be a bunch of content that you can do at your leisure, kinda like some mini dungeons or something like the dungeons in Skyrim.

As long as they keep that dang Stylus away from being the main controls. I'll be happy.

@Telekill Seriously dude? The WiiU IS that system you're looking for. The Gamepad is light, like FREAKIN' light. The 360 controller is heavier than the Gamepad AND (this is important) works like a normal controller. There are no games safe for like Pikmin 3 that actually require the use of the touch controls. Right now you're probably just looking at the controller and yelling out "GIMMICK! GIMMICK!" when you haven't even touched the controller yourself.

And they need to stay away from gyro controls, or make them optional for aiming.

Kinda like Ocarina of Time? Yeah. Kinda like Ocarina of Time.

*Remembers the last couple of giant battles in M&L Dream Team*

*shivers*

@Telekill: there had to be one.....

I wish Nintendo would focus on making a better combat base Zelda and get away from Puzzles

@PhazonBlazer: I agree you should be able to turn them off, but I think gyro controls were one of the best additions to OoT3D and WWHD. TP Wii is still has the best controls for ranged items though.

More Zelda is never a bad thing. I much prefer an original 3DS title that plays in 3D rather than the top down view like ALBW.

It's called Hyrule Warriors.

Yeah, but that's still trash combat.

This is a terrible idea that would just homogenize Zelda. If you want some good hack and slash combat, there are plenty of options. What they need to focus on is taking the puzzles and the combat to the next level, but a combat-based Zelda would be awful on so many levels.

2-3hrs battery time, LOL

I preffer controllers that only need charging like twice a week

So after all that, it will be an open world title. Why is it so hard for them to solidly say that?

What's this daily business he's jabbering about? I have no idea what he means by that. Open world games don't have to be tied to a time-cycle. They can simply allow the player to do multiple objectives of varying consequence with more freedom.

The concept of an open world has been around for ages. It's not rocket science and there's no need to embellish its meaning in context. That just leads to confusion.

Totally agree that they've been really unclear about all this.

This sums it up very nicely

As much as I liked ALBW, I don't want another top view Zelda.

@princessgomez92: Oblivion and Skyrim aren't that much different, but at least storywise Morrowind crushes them both.

I would hate for Nintendo to make their game anything like Skyrim.

They should try and make a game that is at the very least halfway decent.