There has been chatter about a scrapped Legend of Zelda project since 2008, but more about this mysterious game has been revealed in a recent video by Did You Know Gaming.
After Retro Studios released Metroid Prime 3, the gaming studio announced a possible Zelda game for the Wii. Fans were immediately curious about this possibility, wondering if the game would have a western spin since the studio is in Texas. But years went by with no official announcements.
In 2012, IGN asked game designer Shigeru Miyamoto about the rumored game, wondering what happened to it. Miyamoto said it wasn’t “out of the question” for Retro to work on a Legend of Zelda game but said he’d probably have to even “live in Texas” himself to oversee the project. But why?
In 2020, a former Retro Studios artist decided to share some of his concept art for a Legend of Zelda game. He posted over 100 pieces of peculiar and whimsical art, showing different species and landscapes. The art collection was said to be from the canceled Zelda project he worked on from 2005 to 2008.
After the art collection went viral, the artist deleted all his social media accounts and personal blog, and Did You Know Gaming said he went into hiding. This left many people with questions about the art: was it just the artist having some fun with some concepts, or was the artwork part of an approved Zelda game concept?
More details revealed by former Retro Studio employees
To get more answers, Did You Know Gaming reached out to Retro employees who worked at the studio during the time of the Legend of Zelda game’s production. While most employees refused to be involved, a former programmer, Paul Tozour, decided to reveal more about the video game.
It turns out the game was more than just a series of strange artwork.
The concept of the game revolved around Sheik and what would have happened after the “bad ending” of Ocarina of Time. It would revolve around the story of the Master Sword and what would have happened if Ganon isn’t defeated.
But while the story was interesting and the artwork was compelling, the game itself was “an experiment gone wrong,” said Tozour.
Tozour confirmed that the game was nothing like Breath of the Wild or Wind Waker. It was also not a JRPG and didn’t have turn-based fighting. Instead, the game (known as Project X) was a “badly undercooked” and “simplified” version of Whac-a-Mole.
The combat consisted of Sheik standing in one spot, “not able to move,” and surrounded by enemy wolves. They would jump at her one at a time, and players would flick the Wii controller to kill them, making it all about the reaction time.
While some developers called this simplified gameplay the “wave of the future,” Tozour said it was a “hot mess.” He went to other people at Retro Studios to voice his concern and suggest a concept where players would crawl around on the surface of huge monsters, but nobody wanted to pivot the project.
The game was pitched to Nintendo in 2017 after being green-lit. But that apparently didn’t go too well. “Nintendo couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. Their reaction was, ‘This is seriously what you’re proposing? Seriously?’ That’s what I was told, anyway. I wasn’t there when it happened,” Tozour said.
So what happened to the game? Tozour spent the last 15 years “trying to forget about Project X” and hasn’t preserved any design documents or files, unlike other projects he’s worked on for Retro Studios.
While Nintendo has played around with the idea of a game starring Sheik, it will most likely not be done by Retro Studios despite the stunning artwork people can’t get enough of to this day.
