During this morning’s Nintendo Direct presentation, The Big N announced that they are planning to release a high definition remake of the GameCube classic The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the Wii U sometime this Fall.
Long time The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma made the announcement during the video, saying:
“After the Zelda team showed the Wii U Zelda demo that we called the Zelda HD Experience at E3 2011 we continued to experiment with converting past Zelda art styles into HD as we continued to consider graphical styles for the new game… [Wind Waker’s art style in HD] felt as if it had been transformed into something entirely new.”
“…our new Zelda title looks like it is going to take some time to complete, so I wanted to report that while you’re waiting for that game to release we intend to offer you The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, reborn on Wii U, to play in the meantime.”
Aonuma also presented several screenshots of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker‘s Windfall Island from both the high definition Wii U version and the GameCube original. While the original title still looks great, the upcoming Wii U HD remake blows it completely out of the water (pun intended). We were only shown images from Windfall Island, which is a shame because some of the game’s other islands and dungeons are going to look amazing in HD.
In addition to the upgraded visuals, Aonuma also stated that the Wind Waker remake will support the Wii U Miiverse, allow for off-TV play on the GamePad, and the “overall game experience” has been given a “tune up”. We are not sure exactly what was changed in the “tune up”, but we can only hope that this means that the massive Triforce fetch quest towards the end of the game has been reduced or removed completely.
Apart from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Aonuma also spoke a little about the all-new Zelda title that the company is working on for the Wii U. We still don’t have anything to report in the way of specific details, however, it was hinted that the new game might remove the need to complete dungeons in a specific order (making it more in line with the original The Legend of Zelda on the NES) and contain some kind of multiplayer.
We will keep an eye out for any additional details about The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD remake and the new Wii U Zelda game, and let you know as soon as anything is announced. In the meantime, make sure to check out all the beautiful HD Wind Waker screenshots in the gallery below.
