Yes. 13 seconds.

That's everything we got during the entire 2015. But, why?

As you must remember, during March 2015, Eiji Aonuma, the person in charge of the franchise, announced a delay. Recently, Nintendo confirmed a 2016 release date after the delay (which didn't have any date).

But, why did they delay the new installment in The Legend of Zelda?

According to Aonuma, they found new mechanics during the development, mechanics that didn't come before because the new approach for this game: being open world.

But, wasn't Zelda open world before? Well, we don't know exactly what Nintendo means with this "open world" statement.

So, let's continue. Because of those new things added to the game, or in its case, changed, they cannot show the game during E3. It must really be something big for them to not be able to show it. What kind of content can they add to not be able to show it?

The first theory: they changed the artstyle. But, as the latest Nintendo Direct showed us, it didn't happen. Artstyle is the same.

Debunked.

Let's move to the second theory. Hyrule Warriors made them change the battle system. But, if what they changed was that, what was impeding them to show a new trailer con just environments? Towns, NPC's, dungeons, overwolrd? They can avoid showing us enemies or bosses and nobody would have complained.

Let's move on. As you can see in those 13 seconds footage from last month, we can expect some kind of craft system, as we saw a long sword and a different wooden shield. But that was somewhat expected since the first footage. Overworld looks similar to the original reveal, so unless they changed completly the level design (which can be avoided in a trailer, again) there's no point at not releasing footage.

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Now, let's compare to Skyward Sword development. As you may remember, during E3 2009 Nintendo showed this art for the next installment in the franchise:

As you may see, the artstyle is different. Eiji Aonuma waqs developing the game with another artstyle and with the Wii Remote in mind, but in deep development Zelda team added the motion plus functionality and needed to change the artstyle.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/06/zelda-sequel-confirmed-for-2010

One year later, Nintendo showed us a game with a completly different artstyle and Motion Plus implemented. All in one year.

So, that led us again to the same question:

One year later after the last Zelda footage, and confirming the artstyle keeps intact, what change are they doing to avoid showing us for an entire year?

Some of us has speculated about a release for the next system as the reason for the delay, but giving the benefit to Eiji Aonuma and his reasons to delay, what do you believe?

I want to see as little of this game as possible. All I want now is a sub title. I know it'll be amazing. We have Aonuma's word.

Well, it's not like we have options. They have showed nothing.

It's possible, given this is the Zelda teams first home console Zelda since Wind Waker to have a serious jump forward technologically (and arguably the biggest leap since the transition to 3D for Nintendo), that there simply far more possibilities than Aonuma anticipated earlier on in development. At least, that's what I'd been thinking: some combination of the technology available leading to a more ambitious, open Zelda and the simple fact Nintendo really did drop the ball this generation when it came to managing their internal development.

This is my fear. This happened to Twilight Princess and maybe this is happening again. Even when people deny it, Aonuma had to overlook many projects this gen: Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker HD, A Link Between Worlds, Hyrule Warriors, Majora's Mask 3D, Triforce Heroes and Twilight Princess HD. Regardless of him being deep or not in the development, he was there investing time.

Still, that doesn't explain why they don't show it.

I mean, even if they show a huge blowout on E3 or before then, I'd rather not watch it. This is a game that's so different, I want to be surprised every second that I play it.

Well here's what I think...

- They saw how much effort got into put Xenoblade and wanted to top it
- They felt releasing it during the 30th Anniversary of Zelda made sense since this game is going back to what people really loved about Zelda
- The NX is releasing next year so they wanted to replicate Twilight Princess success and release it on both Wii U and NX.

Yep, still, why to not show it?

Nah, just lied about how far in development they were.

Something wrong must be happening at the Zelda team if they can't develop a game in a reasonable schedule (4 years).