What’s the Deal With Retro Studios and the Legend of Zelda?

So the topic keeps coming up about the next Legend of Zelda title potentially being developed by Retro Studios. Up until now, Nintendo EAD has developed virtually every single non-Capcom Zelda title. Retro Studios is a subsidiary of Nintendo and they’ve developed games from a couple of big name Nintendo franchises. In particular the team is responsible for all of the Metroid Prime titles, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and most recently, part of the Mario Kart 7 team. As you can see, they’ve been entrusted with some core Nintendo franchises and thus, speculation has arisen about potentially taking on a Legend of Zelda title. For years now fans have tossed around this idea but it was perhaps given some validity by a recent statement from Shigeru Miyamoto.

Shigeru Miyamoto: “As you know, we have already collaborated with Retro for the Metroid Prime series in the past. And I think when we talk about any other franchise, Zelda might be a possible franchise for that collaboration.”

Retro Studios is presently working on a title that has yet to be disclosed. Back in April of 2011 it was reported that Retro Studios was one of the first companies to receive a developers kit for the Nintendo Wii U. Sources have quoted Retro as stating that this new game is “a project everyone wants us to do”.

More recently Retro Studios has hired Eric Kozlowsky, an artist who previously worked on Uncharted 3 Drakes Deception. He created some brilliant artwork and you can see an example of his work below. You can view a portion of his portfolio over at this website.

Additionally, Retro Studios has also hired Greg Ginther, who worked as the lead character artist on Darksiders. He too has some impressive work to show for and you can see a sample piece of his work below.

So this leads to even more speculation, but we have more pieces of the puzzle to fit together. Retro Studios is working on a project everyone wants us to do, Shigeru Miyamoto has hinted that Retro Studios could potentially work on a Legend of Zelda title, and the developer has hired quality artists from huge franchises such as Uncharted and Darksiders. Is it possible that this team is in fact working on a Legend of Zelda title? Is it possible that the HD Experience we saw for the Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Wii U is something more than just a demo?

Who knows, but at this point it’s just a lot of wild speculation. Perhaps the team is working on a huge exclusive First-Person-Shooter to launch on day one for the console, alongside the new online system that the Wii U is implementing. Perhaps it’s a future installment of the Donkey Kong or Metroid series’. Personally, I think the project is definitely one of these two options. A brand new First-Person-Shooter or a new installment in a huge Nintendo franchise such as Zelda or Metroid. Only time will tell, but we’ll surely hear more about this in the coming months.

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