Nintendo struck gold with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and the numbers don’t lie. Now, rumor has it that the Japanese publisher-developer titan is not wasting any time and is already working on a new Zelda project.
Industry insider Jeff Grubb made this claim on the Last of the Nintendogs podcast, saying:
Listen, I don’t know what it means. I’m gonna tell you what they told me, and then if you take this and spin it into something else everybody, it’s on you.
Something not related to Tears of the Kingdom is happening with Zelda later this year.
So, for all the Zelda fans out there who have been eagerly anticipating a Tears of the Kingdom DLC this year, it looks like we’ll need to exercise our patience for a bit longer. From what Grubb says immediately afterwards, it seems like he already knows what Nintendo is working on, but he’s treading cautiously this time, probably because he doesn’t want to get burned again.
Last year, Grubb confidently claimed that Switch ports for The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess would be revealed at the Nintendo Direct, calling it a “Zelda blowout for Nintendo.” However, neither of those games saw the light of day, and understandably, Grubb doesn’t want to put his reputation on the line once more only to be burned a second time.
Zelda fans have been itching for remastered editions of Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker, but Nintendo has remained tight-lipped on this matter. Rumors have been circulating that Nintendo has been holding onto the ports of these two titles, which wouldn’t be surprising at this point.
As we’ve come to learn from recent history, always expect the unexpected when it comes to Nintendo (remember when they dropped Switch ports of Pikmin 1 and 2 right before releasing Pikmin 4?), alongside the standard dose of “expected” that goes hand in hand with the permanence of their main franchises.
Logically, it would make more sense for Nintendo to launch the two Zelda ports next year, considering the unlikelihood of a new Zelda game releasing. Moreover, Nintendo would greatly benefit from timing the release of the Tears of the Kingdom expansion during the holiday season, when Switch sales are anticipated to soar.
Twilight Princess serves as a sequel to The Wind Waker, and both games got remastered editions for the Wii U in 2013 and 2016.
