Miyamoto Says Wii U Zelda Still Being Researched

Nintendo’s creative guru Shigeru Miyamoto spoke with Entertainment Weekly at E3 the other day, and talked a bit about what’s up with the Zelda franchise. There was no mention of any kind of Zelda title for the Wii U at the company’s relatively disappointing press conference, and it left people wondering why not—especially after footage of a Zelda game in high definition had been shown at E3 in 2011.

Said Miyamoto on the subject:

“Obviously we stared that experiment last year and used that to sort of showcase some of the HD visuals. And obviously when you look at that, you do get a positive reaction to how simply having the HD visuals in a Zelda game can really make the game look wonderful and give it sort of a high-quality feel. But one thing that’s interesting is we’re seeing how the way that tastes are broadening in video games and you have some people who prefer more casual experiences, and you have some people who prefer sort of those more in-depth experiences. Obviously, as a company that’s been making games for a very long time, we tend to be more on the deeper, longer game side of things. But really what we continue to ask ourselves as we have over the years is, ‘What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?’ So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it.”

Miyamoto also talked a bit about the lessons learned from last year’s Skyward Sword game for the Wii, and how Nintendo is hoping to tweak future games to make more players happy:

“[…] that was a game where you had motion control to use your weapons and a lot of different items, and I thought that was a lot of fun, but there were some people who weren’t able to do that or didn’t like it as much and stopped playing partway through it. So we’re in the phase where we’re looking back at what’s worked very well and what has been missing and how can we evolve it further.”

Personally, Skyward Sword destroyed any lingering love I’ve had of the Zelda franchise, and it’s mainly because, gosh, it’s just the exact same thing over and over. I didn’t mind the sword-swinging Wiimote goodness, and there was nothing actually wrong with the game in and of itself. But after a while, some experiences tend to fade, even with new innovations like the Wiimote. Somehow each new Mario game I play still feels pretty fresh and fun, but Zelda for me has just become this ponderous exercise in familiarity.

I can’t think of anything short of a total and complete shake-up that would make me want to give a Wii U Zelda a shot. That said, despite my curmudgeonly ways, if Nintendo’d had one on display at E3 this week, you can bet your butt that they would’ve had a lot of guaranteed console pre-sales. ALAS.

Via Entertainment Weekly