Zelda Wii U: What Will It Look Like?

In a recent interview with Wired, Legend of Zelda mastermind Eiji Aonuma talked briefly on what the graphics style for Zelda Wii U will be like. At E3 2011, there was a Tech Demo displaying what a Zelda game could possibly look like on the Nintendo Wii U, but this does not mean the console follow up to Skyward Sword will look like this at all. In fact, they could very well already have a different design in play. Here’s what Eiji Aonuma had to say.

“You probably remember that when we introduced the GameCube, we showed a somewhat realistic Zelda demo, and what we actually created was the cel-shaded Wind Waker. So when we show a graphic demo, people think, ‘Oh, this is what the next Zelda will look like,’ but that’s not necessarily the case.”

Eiji Aonuma brought back memories of the old Spaceworld 2000 Zelda GameCube demo. This tech demo was shown back in 2000 to show off the power of the Nintendo GameCube system that was going to release the following year. It built great excitement for Zelda fans at the time, since those graphics looked absolutely astonishing. However, it turns out that even when this tech demo was shown, early development had already started on the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Thus, this was a bit of a fake-out as Nintendo didn’t have any intention of making a Zelda game that looked like the tech demo.

This brings us full circle back to the Nintendo Wii U. Nintendo showed off the tech demo at E3 2011 and have already confirmed that Zelda Wii U is in development. With the Nintendo Wii U, Eiji Aonuma actually has a role in the development of the console. Here’s exactly what he had to say about the Nintendo Wii U.

“I’m on one of the committees that oversaw the general steering and direction. We talked to each other a lot about several elements, one of which was, ‘How exactly will the HD graphics work?’ In doing concepts for that … we used Zelda assets quite often to examine, OK, how real will we make this look?”

When talking about the use of the Nintendo Wii U controller as a way to control your inventory, Aonuma added, “I’d like to do things that are more surprising than that.” It’s still going to be quite some time before we hear anything at all about Zelda Wii U. In fact, I think after this latest tidbit which stemmed from E3 2011, we won’t hear another word about Zelda Wii U until E3 2012 at the absolute earliest. Even then, I’d be surprised if it’s anything more than just a few pieces of concept art.

So what type of graphics style do you think they’ll end up using with Zelda Wii U? Do you think it is going to be look anything like the tech demo we saw at E3? Something similar to Skyward Sword? Let us know by posting in the comments below.

Source: Wired

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