These are just a few articles from recent years that point to Zelda Wii's progress. It also paints a picture of fairly slow development due to trying to find those new big ideas and balancing the game for core gamers while still being accessable.. The bolded sections are the points of interest.
December 11 2006
The latest issue of Game Informer has two Nintendo news titbits/rumours that SPOnG is currently attempting to get to the bottom of.
The first is that, fairly unsurprisingly, there is a new Zelda title in development for the Wii. What is perhaps more surprising is that Game Informer claims that the title has been in development for a year now. We have just asked Nintendo for clarification on this and will report back with our findings as soon as we get a response.
Secondly, and more worryingly, the mag claims that the DS game, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is now delayed until October 2007, due to a rumoured massive overhaul of the game. Again, we await full clarification from Nintendo and will report back as soon as we get it.
Right now though, let us give thanks that the Wii is finally here and that we can play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess till our little gamer hearts almost burst with joy.
http://wii.spong.com/article/11310/New_Zelda_Game_for_Wii_Has_Been_in_Development_for_a_Year
Ok so Game Informer had two rumours. One was that Phantom Hourglass would be pushed back to an October 2007 release due to a massive overhaul of the game. We can now look back on this and say that it was partially right.. It released in October in Europe and the US however it released in June in Japan which means that it was finished by the middle of the year. So therefore we can't really trust this rumor.
It's also interesting to note that Twilight Princess was originally meant for release in Q4 2005 but Iwata commissioned an extra year to make sure the game would be finished. An Iwata asks article shows the development team very worried that they would not finish the title in the time given and therefore were very glad to have the extra year. Soon after they were told that they were to make a Wii version as well so the extra year they thought they had wasn't a full year really.
Perhaps a small team were looking at Zelda Wii while they toyed with Twilight Princess but the title was definately not 'in development'. It's also important to remember that Phantom Hourglass was 6 months from being finished at this time so development would be full steam ahead on that title.
So what was happening 6 months after the release of Twilight Princess?
Category: E3 2007, Posted: 07/13/2007 at 03:23PM EDT
During a locked-doors meeting at E3 yesterday, legendary game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Twilight Princess Director, Eiji Aonuma, sat down and discussed the Legend of Zelda franchise's present, past, and future.
The meeting was scheduled to be a Super Mario Galaxy discussion, but Mr. Aonuma jumped in to reveal information regarding The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and suprised the crowd regarding the next Wii iteration for the franchise.
Aonuma explained how Phantom Hourglass has opened up the series and has given a fresh, new control scheme to the aging Zelda formula. He also said while The Wind Waker's disappointing sales affected him personally, he still wanted to keep the style rolling in another Zelda release, hence the inspiration for PH.
Japan has taken the game by storm and it is on its way to becoming one of the most highly sold handheld games ever, (mainly in thanks to a Famitsu score of 39 out of a possible 40). Aonuma said that PH opened up casual gamers to the Zelda series for the first time, as controlling Link and solving puzzles is much more attractive with the DS touch screen controls.
Once the Zelda director seemed to be wrapping up his Zelda discussion, he changed gears entirely and started talking about plans for the upcoming Wii Zelda, shocking the audience.
He had almost a kid-like excitement with the way he talked about the title, and wanted to release as much information as possible, but couldn't because Miyamoto demanded him to not to reveal to much information.
He said that he wants a whole different base of control to take form for the next addition to the series -- to open up the main Zelda adventures on Wii for the casual gaming crowd as has Phantom Hourglass done with the DS. When asked about one-to-one swordplay and full Wiimote control, he said he was dying to flesh out all the ideas but says its still pretty open.
In regards to the game's storyline, Aonuma didn't release too much information, so the story of the game is still out there. But he did say that he wants to offer something in the next Zelda that all gamers will like -- both casual and hardcore.
In my opinion, I think it would be great to use all of the features of the Wii controllers in addition to a new full motion capture system to control Link.
Imagine controlling Link with the Balance Board and have him replicate your movements. I'm pretty sure that would get the attention of millions of casual players, and if the same classic Zelda formula were in place, hardcore fans should be drooling over it.
We will have more info on this game as developments unfold, but with such scant information given, you really have to wonder just what the possibilities for a full blown Zelda game can be.
So at E3 2007 - 22 months ago, The control scheme was still wide open with Aonuma wanting to flesh out the many ideas they had. So it sounds like up until this point in time, 22 months ago, the Zelda team had primarily been brainstorming for Zelda Wii. It's important to note that at this time 1/4 of the Zelda team were developing Wii Fit and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass had recently been completed so work would have not been started on Spirit Tracks just yet aside from brainstorming etc.
You would expect things to have really been underway a year later right?
US, July 15, 2008 - No big surprise. At E3 2008, Nintendo confirmed (very vaguely) that the Mario and Zelda teams had reassembled, but offered no further details. But when we sat down with Shigeru Miyamoto this week, he elaborated on situation, absolutely confirmed that a new Wii Zelda is underway, and suggested that it will see some fundamental changes.
"The Zelda team in particular always works on Zelda titles. The core members of the Zelda team have for a very long time now been focused on Zelda games, and continue to focus on Zelda games, so they are hard at work and working away," Miyamoto said. "And then, of course, we have the DS Zelda team as well, so even there we're having some switching of people in and out where the DS team is mixing in with the Wii team and working on the Wii version."
At GDC 2007, Eiji Aonuma gave a presentation on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. At that time, he showed a brief snippet of an experimentation the Zelda team conducted -- it was Twilight Princess running in the first-person view. We asked Miyamoto if such a fundamental change could await players of Wii's next Zelda adventure.
"I don't necessarily think it will change that drastically, but I think that Zelda is a franchise that does need some big new unique ideas," he said. "And so the team right now is very focused on trying to find those ideas."
wii.ign.com/articles/890/890200p1.html
So July last year, The Zelda team were focused on trying to find the big new ideas that would drive the Legend of Zelda series forward and make the Wii version unlike any Zelda title before it. Remember Miyamoto stated that Twilight Princess would be 'The last Zelda of it's kind'
So.. what had happened in the year prior? The engine would most likely be complete by now at least you'd hope so.. I'd also expect Aonuma to have the atmosphere and story and basic direction set up.
Fast forward to October 30 of last year and Miyamoto shares his thoughts on a wide range of topics including fresher versions of Mario and Zelda than the ones that were released last:
According to a surprisingly frank Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's main mascots are in need of a fresh start following the modest success of Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess. Oh, and he's personally overseeing development on next year's Wii Punch-Out title too.
The remarks were made in a quirky, wide-ranging interview with MTV Multiplayer. Eventually, the interviewee became the interviewer, as Miyamoto also quizzed the reporter, Stephen Toltilo, about fresh "hardcore games."
But first, new Mario and Zelda commentary from the man himself.
"What I've been saying to our development teams recently is that Twilight Princess was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing. And while, personally, I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was able to do some things that were very new and were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative in terms of how far we branched out with design. And so this is something I've been talking to both of those teams about," Miyamoto said.
Miyamoto then pulled out the Nintendo industry line about not announcing new games before they're ready. He said, however, that work continues by the Mario and Zelda teams, and he hoped both titles would feel "newer and fresher than their most recent versions" when they arrive... well, he didn't say.
It was a frank admission by one of gaming's most revered developers and visionaries, but if you know Miyamoto's track record as a perfectionist and strict team leader, it's really no surprise.
Then, the discussion got turned on its head, as Miyamoto quizzed Totilo about what he believed was a "fresh" hardcore game. That led the conversation to a recent fan favorite, and a cool admission by Miyamoto:
"Yeah, I think Portal was an amazing game, too," he said.
Finally, talk drifted to Punch-Out for the Wii, which was teased at Nintendo's recent autumn press event.
"I'm working on that game as a producer," Miyamoto said. "I think people who are fans of the original will be very thrilled to see the kind of style we've designed the game in. It will feel very classic. But at the same time, with the 3D polygons and the polygonal rendering of the characters, I think is going to make for some very nice cut-scenes and a little bit deeper story."
www.gamepro.com/article/news/207696/miyamoto-to-produce-fresher-mario-and-zelda-upcoming-punch-out/
I take recently to probably mean a few months which would confirm that the major gameplay ideas behind Zelda Wii were indeed being developed 8 months ago and Miyamoto was still telling the team at this team the direction that the game should take. Perhaps the basic gameplay was set, controls basically done and the basic direction finished along with the engine but Miyamoto was still telling them that Twilight Princess wasn't fresh and that something was missing.
To me.. I conclude that Zelda Wii right now is a shell. It has it's engine, direction and controls. It has most of it's new items and it's returning items, Its probably even got a few dungeons basically complete. What it'll be missing though is everything that wil make the game feel like a true Zelda adventure while being completely new and fresh. It's gonna take another year at least for that to all happen so I'm going to guess that Zelda Wii will hit stores in the second half of 2010. I also think that we could possibly get a teaser for at at E3 but I wouldn't count on it.
