In just a few days The Legend of Zelda will make its HD debut with The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. However, it isn’t the only Zelda title that has made the trip to HD.
Nintendo director Eiji Aonuma shared with Polygon that during the initial creation of Wind Waker HD, two other Zelda titles were coded to run in high definition format. Unfortunately, it was only for testing purposes. He said:
When we were thinking about the new Zelda for Wii U, which is something we’re actually working on, we needed to experiment with a variety of graphic styles and it was part of that process we took some existing Zelda games and made them HD just to see what would happen, in doing so we realized that the Wind Waker graphic style, the art style, really represented well on the Wii U given the graphic capabilities of the new system. It really brought that world to life.
Aonuma hasn’t confirmed or denied if either title will eventually have an HD release on Wii U. For now, Nintendo is focused on promoting its first HD Zelda title, and developing the upcoming Zelda Wii U.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D‘s release on the 3DS was extremely successful with over 3 million units sold, and in many ways was a part of what got the 3DS on-track for success. Given it required a lot less development time than creating a game from scratch, chances are Nintendo found its release valuable. If Wind Waker HD can have similar results, the probability for Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess getting similar treatment will be high.
