SAN FRANCISCO, March 29 — The same Nintendo studio that assisted with 2017’s enormous hit The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is once again involved with a new franchise entry.
Nintendo has a high bar to clear when it comes to a new Legend of Zelda and is teaming up with the same partner studio from Breath of the Wild as development ramps up.
Majority-owned by Nintendo since 2007, Monolith Soft put out the call for experienced artists, planners, designers, and programmers, along with a project manager for a new Legend of Zelda game.
Though Monolith Soft helped with 2017 bestseller The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it was already no stranger to the series, having assisted with 2011’s Zelda game Skyward Sword and 2013’s A Link Between Worlds.
Its experience with the sort of ambitious, large-scale epic that Breath of the Wild became went back further still, having turned out Japanese opus Xenoblade Chronicles in 2010.
That release was so successful that Nintendo eventually released it internationally, after more than a year of fan petitioning and importing.
Created primarily by Nintendo’s Entertainment Planning & Development division, Breath of the Wild was the Nintendo Switch’s big launch title.
Although made available on the older Wii U console, Breath of the Wild helped propel the newer Switch to an impressive 2.74 million sales over its first month of availability.
It was received as Nintendo’s superlative take on open world adventure, a genre already populated by best-sellers like Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto V and, to some extent, the generationally-defining Minecraft.
In fact, Breath of the Wild was considered so essential that Nintendo reported more sales of the Switch game than of the console itself during that first month on sale.
Two years on and it remains the Switch’s fourth best-selling title, surpassed only by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, while year-end figures from Nintendo had November 2018’s Pokémon Let’s Go pairing as the Switch’s fifth most popular game.
Nintendo has not formally announced a brand new Legend of Zelda. The franchise began in 1986 and, since 2011’s enthusiastically received Ocarina of Time 3D, previous series highpoints have been regularly re-released for contemporary Nintendo consoles.
In this way, 1993’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is next on the schedule of announced Zelda games, set for introduction to the Switch library at some point over the course of 2019. — AFP-Relaxnews
