Details Of Lost Zelda Spinoff Finally Uncovered
For several years now it’s been a traded factoid that Texas-based Retro Studios, most famous for the Metroid Prime trilogy and a pair of Donkey Kong Country sequels, once made an attempt at a different franchise. There’s been scattered evidence that at one point, they were developing a spinoff game for the Zelda series starring Sheik from Ocarina of Time. All that remained of that project was a series of lavish, gothic illustrations carelessly left on somebody’s Artstation profile (before getting hastily yanked).
The illustrations looked amazing, and unlike any other Zelda game in existence. Everyone’s curiosity was piqued, including the fellows behind the Youtube series Did You Know Gaming. They spent several months trying to track down every lead they could on the Sheik game, contacting every member of Retro Studios that might have come into contact with it. Most were fearful of breaking NDA even though it had been 15 years since the project was killed by Nintendo.
But they eventually did find someone who would talk: programmer Paul Tozour, who worked for Retro at the time and was one of a nine-employee team tasked with building up a prototype to demo the gameplay of the proposed game, for Nintendo’s approval (which they would not get).
The first thing Did You Know Gaming learned was that the Sheik from Ocarina of Time wasn’t the main character….it was a different Sheikah, and the game was to tell the origin story for the Master Sword, because the Sheikah would turn into it at the end of the game. The second thing the team learned was that the Sheik game was killed because…it wasn’t very good.
Tozour revealed that it was a very simplistic, Wii-era waggle game his boss insisted was “the future of gaming.” He described enemy battles as akin to Whack-A-Mole, where a group of wolves would appear and you’d have to wave your Wiimote in the direction of each one when they started their attack, to counter it. Tozour said the demo was very dull and he pleaded with his boss to approve a different direction for the game, and was ignored.
In short: Nintendo knew what it was doing; none of us really wanted this. The full story behind the lost Sheik game can be seen in Did You Know Gaming’s video below.
Amy Rose
September 7, 2022 @ 3:03 am
Even if the game’s premise or concept art is intriguing, we can draw a vital lesson from the fact that many cancelled games got shelved for a reason. Although the artwork and concept were stunning, it seems that the choice to scrap the project was the right one because the gameplay and overall direction of the game just weren’t apparent.
Leon_Wong
September 7, 2022 @ 3:04 am
I am not a Zelda fan but this moment gave me memories when Resident evil 1.5 got released. So is there a playable copy of this?
LightSlayer
September 7, 2022 @ 3:05 am
I don’t see how they could have imagined making an epic and unique game from the viewpoint of the Shiekah to have the result be a strange turn-based role-playing game whack-a-mole thing. Instead, I had anticipated it to be more of an action/stealth game. This explanation is considerably more fitting given that the Shiekah are Ninjas.
Ikusa
September 7, 2022 @ 3:06 am
Okami-style combat, in which players draw and cast spells with the Wii Remote, should have been implemented. In the event that they intend to have horde engagements and massive bouts against a single boss, it makes sense to equip their characters with spells that deal area-of-effect damage and other attacks that function as a “coup de grace.” Why are so many previously thought to be lost artworks suddenly turning up?
Haider
September 7, 2022 @ 7:13 am
~How many percent is this game finished? Some canceled games are heart breaking because they are like 98% finished before they got shelved.