about this "zelda game" and nintendo's 2026 lineup in general

[The_Yoda]

KLXVER said:

The_Yoda said:

I haven't read to the bottom of the thread yet so someone may have already speculated this.

Thinking of Starfox and Zelda specifically what if these games are really Nintendo creating new engines for new games in these series?  Build and test the engine with a known element a game they know worked on previous hardware.  Save the new games for mid console life-cycle momentum fuel.

Definitely the case for Star Fox I think. Im sure we`ll get a new game in the series in a year or two. Not sure about Zelda. Might be, but I feel like they will go closer to the BOTW art style on the next mainline one.

Horrible analogy but, I could see them trying to run a Coke and New Coke flavor concurrently, especially with the longer Dev cycles.  Appease the fans of the classic flavor (formula) with the OOT engine / formula and cater to the millions of new fans they captured with the current BotW / TotK formula.  After the series grew with the last 2 entries I can't see them pulling too far away from it.  This would also allow them, in theory, to put out a new Zelda every 4 years or so with up to 8 year dev cycles for each flavor.