Kotaku reports on a new interview in Wired with Zelda’s producer of many years standing, Eiji Aonuma, in which he says that the stunning Wii U real-time demo of a new Legend of Zelda concept that Nintendo showed at this year’s E3 was just that: a concept. “When we show a graphic demo, people think, ‘Oh, this is what the next Zelda will look like,’ but that’s not necessarily the case,” Aonuma told Wired. Aonuma is doubtless particularly thinking of what happened when Nintendo showed an incredible 3D version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker at E3 prior to the release of the GameCube. After everyone got incredibly excited at the prospect of the forthcoming game as shown in the demo, it turned out to be very different from the actual cel-shaded game when it was released. And as Kotaku notes, Aonuma is well-placed to reference that particular incident, having been right there at the front end, working on Wind Waker’s cel-shaded graphics at the very time that the spectacular demo that would turn out to be nothing like the game was being shown at E3. However, although it’s nice of Aonuma to not want us to get our hopes up unduly about the possible awesomeness of Wii U Zelda, it has to be said that the GameCube and the Wii U are two very different beasts, and such is the Wii U’s power that the eventual result may be even better than the tech demo. You never know!
