Why The Wind Waker 2 was dumped for Twilight Princess

During a talk at the Game Developers Conference in 2004, The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma actually revealed there was a  ‘The Wind Waker 2’ in development. So what happened to it and why did we end up getting Twilight Princess?

The new The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts book which was just released in Japan and coming west next year reveals all with a new interview. The interview is with artist Satoru Takizawa and reveals some big changes in the second game, including no ocean and horse riding on land instead.

However Nintendo couldn’t get Toon Link looking right on a horse, they also didn’t want to go for an adult toon Link either. Despite fans eventually accepting the cel-shaded look of The Wind Waker, there was still a push for a ‘realistic’ Link which illustrator Yusuke Nakano designed so they went that way instead.

Here’s an extract from the interview, as translated by Nintendo Everything;

Realistic Link came back four years after Wind Waker in Twilight Princess, which was released on GameCube and Wii. The pendulum returned again to the realistic direction, but what kind of circumstances resulted in it?

Takizawa: To tell you the truth, we had begun the initial steps towards creating Wind Waker 2 around that time. However, demand for a more Ocarina-like game was growing by the day. We did our very best with Wind Waker, and put everything we had into it…

Takizawa: However, Wind Waker 2 would have taken place in a more land-based setting, rather than on the sea, so that we could have Link gallop across the land on a horse. But Link’s proportions in Wind Waker weren’t very well suited for riding on horseback, he was too short, and an adult version of Toon Link did not seem appropriate either. So, while we were stuck on those problems, we became aware of the greater demand for a more realistic, taller Link. High-budget live-action fantasy movies were also huge at the time, so with all things considered, we decided to have at it. I was on board with the project as art director, and started off by bringing [Yusuke] Nakano on to do the design for Link.

So the project began with Mr. Nakano’s Link as the basis?

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Takizawa: He had joined after the graphics testing process, when we were trying to figure out the game’s “product-level visual identity”. I think that was the first time we had ever brought him on during that part of development.

Nakano: Yes. That was the first time for an internally developed Zelda game.