Retro Studios were working on a (cancelled) Legend of Zelda game

PhoenixTank

PhoenixTank

Member
www.eurogamer.net

Artwork reveals Retro Studios' cancelled The Legend of Zelda project

A now-cancelled The Legend of Zelda project was once in pre-production at Retro Studios, the Nintendo-owned developer b…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net

The game only reached pre-production before being cancelled but perhaps partially answers the question of "What have Retro been working on?"

Loads of concept art from Sammy Hall at the following links but have included a few images below.
Some of the galleries are newer than others but I don't remember this surfacing here.









sammy-hall-petrifiedmanaroots.jpg


sammy-hall-neocastlespeedpaint.jpg


sammy-hall-dekuwarriors.jpg
 
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Nice art, going for a twilight princess 2 style I guess. What could have gone so wrong they scrapped the concept so early? Or maybe it was just a matter of already having another Zelda in the pipeline so they moved to a different project pitch.
 
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Wow this art looks amazing. Damn shame this never came to fruition. I thought Twilight princess was a dark game but this looks like its even darker, and has a focus on the shieka?

Whatever this is, has me wishing we got this instead of breath of the wild 2
 
I think this is looks like an awesome take on the franchise. Would have loved to see this. Day is partially ruined. :messenger_tongue:
 
cireza said:
Probably. They are more the kind of developer to craft meticulously smaller areas, than make an open world game full of emptiness.
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The unfortunately truth about Retro is they haven't really made enough games to establish a trend or pattern. Would they do something "familiar" by making a first-person Zelda? If it was something like DMoMM crossed with Skyrim and Minecraft, I think Retro would do it justice. Or would Retro be forced to keep their Zelda game in the same Zelda genre?

Hard to say. The studio seems like it's a sluggish mess right now.
 
Looks dark. very nice..

Obviously we don't know enough to say whether it should have happened.

I would like to see Nintendo using some of those ideas in a future Zelda.
 
The art looks nice, but judging by the dates of the concept art shown(2005-2008) Nintendo killed this long before DKC: Tropical Freeze came out in 2014. This still leaves a 5 year gap between Tropical Freeze and Nintendo announcing that Retro was working on Metroid Prime 4.
 
Reminds me Twilight, but whatever. If this Zelda is close to the Zelda Majoras, I'll be mega fine.
 
Reminds me of that cancelled Factor 5 Kid Icarus game.

Nintendo told em to use the Smash design for Pit and they got this:
kid-icarus-wii-prototype02.jpg


I don't think that's Factor 5's fault though, you can't ask (most) Western devs to make anime shit. If the same happened with this project, then that's really stupid of Nintendo to be honest because it's such a waste of time, money and resources.
 
Looks like they were making a Zelda game based entirely in the Twilight Realm or the World of Shadows. The art style is fantastic, it would have needed a special implementation for it to look as good in-game and when these were made I don't think any of the systems at the time would have done it justice.
 
Make this a spin off about Shiek or at least its own IP. Looks promising imo
 
They look great, tho it doesn't feel like "Zelda" at all, maybe they should have aimed at making a new IP based on the concept or a spin-off?
 
So, this is the game that caused the trio of Retro studio heads to walk, after getting rejected? If I have the story straight after all this time.

Fascinating to finally see it.

It seems cool (the fact that the story was repurposed as Skyward Sword says a lot), but it's hard to get a sense of what the game was. A Bayonetta-like action game? Something more like Zelda? A fusion?
 
It looks really cool, but not as a Zelda game. Too western looking. The charm of a Zelda game, at least to me, is it's neither Anime nor Western look - which has almost universal appeal - (sometimes closer to Anime off and on, but not always) - this one has rather steered off from that look too much I think.
 
lachesis said:
It looks really cool, but not as a Zelda game. Too western looking. The charm of a Zelda game, at least to me, is it's neither Anime nor Western look - which has almost universal appeal - (sometimes closer to Anime off and on, but not always) - this one has rather steered off from that look too much I think.
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I would argue that zelda 1-ALttP and TP had quite a bit of western influence in design and then the oracles, windwaker, minish cap, fourswords, the ds games and triforce heroes were all straight-up anime. BotW was also arguably anime seeing how its artstyle is very similar to ghibli studios.
 
Omeggos said:
I would argue that zelda 1-ALttP and TP had quite a bit of western influence in design and then the oracles, windwaker, minish cap, fourswords, the ds games and triforce heroes were all straight-up anime. BotW was also arguably anime seeing how its artstyle is very similar to ghibli studios.
Click to expand...

Yes, some of them looked quite Anime-ish - especially ones that were made by Capcom. (Minishcap, Four Swords) - but I think there are some subtle difference from Wind Waker and DS ones, which was a bit more universal. Again, at least to my eyes, they looked more universal, than being Anime. It could easily be taken as a design from Italy and France.

I agree that TP was the most western looking one in my memory, and perhaps SS follows the next. ALTTP also looked western influenced design too, but not too far off from the center.

BOTW though, even though it has borrowed some elements (especially character animation itself) from Ghibli - I think Hayao's style isn't a typicial Anime style. It's one of a kind, that I consider something more universal. Only real anime character I could think in the BoTW was Mipha in my opinion.

Then again, my viewpoint is also skewed a bit because I spent my childhood in east asia watching Anime almost exclusively - so probably my point of view of being "universal" design is actually more towards the anime style for many people in the west.
 
PhoenixTank said:
www.eurogamer.net

Artwork reveals Retro Studios' cancelled The Legend of Zelda project

A now-cancelled The Legend of Zelda project was once in pre-production at Retro Studios, the Nintendo-owned developer b…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net

The game only reached pre-production before being cancelled but perhaps partially answers the question of "What have Retro been working on?"

Loads of concept art from Sammy Hall at the following links but have included a few images below.
Some of the galleries are newer than others but I don't remember this surfacing here.









sammy-hall-petrifiedmanaroots.jpg


sammy-hall-neocastlespeedpaint.jpg


sammy-hall-dekuwarriors.jpg
Click to expand...

Cool artworks
 
Looks better than anything Nintendo could produce. I can see why they cancelled it. They just hate when others are doing better (ex F-Zero GX).
 
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I would have loved to see what Retro Studios could do with a Zelda game. It almost certainly would have at least been better than Skyward Sword.
 
Plot twist. Not canceled. Handed over to Moon Studios who are working on an overhead/+2D Zelda as well as a 2D Metroid for Switch 2.0 :pie_invert:
 
If it's pre-production concept art, wouldn't it be for a pitch that didn't really ever get started, rather than something that was cancelled, since it never entered production?

I love what retro has done with DK and prime (mp3 less so) but tbh I thought Breath of the Wild was "pretty okay" ...or more like game of the year tier lol
 
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Don't get over-excited. This is pre-production concept art. You can't cancel a game that was never greenlit.

Reading the article, it sounds like Nintendo took the bits of this concept they wanted for TP and SS and dumped the rest. Not that either of those is unbeatable or anything, but I'm not 100% convinced this grimdark "becoming the master sword" story would have been any better.

This project was dead by 2008 though, so it does nothing to answer the question of what the main body of Retro has been doing for the past five years. What the hell are they up to?
 
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Nice artwork, but knowing Nintendo this is probably too weird and different for their visions of Zelda.
 
Zannegan said:
Don't get over-excited. This is pre-production concept art. You can't cancel a game that was never greenlit.

Reading the article, it sounds like Nintendo took the bits of this concept they wanted for TP and SS and dumped the rest. Not that either of those is unbeatable or anything, but I'm not 100% convinced this grimdark "becoming the master sword" story would have been any better.

This project was dead by 2008 though, so it does nothing to answer the question of what the main body of Retro has been doing for the past five years. What the hell are they up to?
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They might not have been working on thing of any significance.
Stephen Dupree, the Lead Game Designer of "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze" left Retro Studios for Playful Corp. to work on "Super Lucky's Tale", he's now back at Retro Studios as a Principal Game Designer.
I would say the rumors were probably true that Nintendo was thinking of or planning to shut down Retro Studios, if they were willing to let him go.
 
McRazzle said:
They might not have been working on thing of any significance.
Stephen Dupree, the Lead Game Designer of "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze" left Retro Studios for Playful Corp. to work on "Super Lucky's Tale", he's now back at Retro Studios as a Principal Game Designer.
I would say the rumors were probably true that Nintendo was thinking of or planning to shut down Retro Studios, if they were willing to let him go.
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Can you imagine the PR nightmare if they shut down their one western studio, one of their few studios that cater to the core market, and a studio that has put out nothing but winners critically/sales-wise? What a short-sighted move that would have been.

They need to be expanding their western dev presence, not cutting back.
 
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Looks good. Maybe the materials could be retconned into a decent Star Fox Adventures sequel. Or maybe the Panzer Dragoon team could do that...
 
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