It seems to be the common consensus that season 2 of Netflix’s Castlevania is a huge improvement over the first. And now, Executive Producer Adi Shankar might be moving on to perhaps the best-loved and most critically acclaimed franchise in gaming history: The Legend of Zelda.
Shankar posted on Instagram on Monday that he was “working with an iconic Japanese gaming company to adapt one of their iconic video games series into a series.” First appearing on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, Shigeru Miyamoto’s original classic, The Legend of Zelda has spawned numerous sequels and spinoffs, releasing on practically every Nintendo system to date.
If this were to go ahead, Shankar would be adapting the series currently on a high, with the 2017 release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild receiving multiple game of the year awards as well as selling absolute gangbusters. But while Castlevania comes with a cast of characters, a broad continuity and an ongoing plot, The Legend of Zelda is intentionally much sparser in its storytelling.
Those familiar with the property will know that the hero of the game, Link, is basically a silent cipher for the player to project themselves onto, with the only other major recurring characters being Princess Zelda and the villainous Ganon. While that trio’s inevitably going to end up in any Zelda adaptation, Shankar would have to draw from the series’ minor supporting characters in order to flesh out his cast. And you know what that means? Yup, weirdo middle-aged fairy wannabe Tingle is probably coming to a streaming service near you.
One thing standing in the show’s way is that it runs the risk of making viewers just wish they were actually playing the game. After all, watching Link solve puzzles in various dungeons, or defeat gigantic boss monsters is fine, but it’s much more fun actually doing it yourself. On the other hand, this could be a great opportunity to delve into the rich mythology of the series that The Legend of Zelda games usually only infer. Regardless, I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
