Wii U Zelda May Look Totally Different From That E3 Demo

Nintendo closed its E3 reveal of Wii U, its new console, with a real-time demonstration of a Legend of Zelda concept, in high definition (screenshot above). Don’t get your hopes up that it’s what the final game will in fact look like. Nintendo could go in a completely different visual direction. Why would they do something like that? Because they’ve done it before.

In an interview with Wired, Zelda‘s longtime producer, Eiji Aonuma, reminds everyone that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker went through a similar bait-and-switch on the GameCube. Originally introduced in a realistic, three-dimensional style, Wind Waker released in the cel-shaded style that, while critically well received, had to overcome a lot of scepticism headed into release.

“So 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, and he should know. When the GameCube demo was shown, his team was already working on Wind Waker‘s cel-shaded visuals. That said, Aonuma was not involved in the creation of the Wii U Zelda tech demo.

What Mario, Zelda Producers Know (or Not) About Wii U [Wired]