Nintendo was not convinced about making a “hack ‘n’ slash” Zelda game… but in the end, they had no choice but to acknowledge it was incredible

Let’s face it: when Nintendo announced ‘Hyrule Warriors,’ we all wrinkled our noses a bit. Used to Link’s classic adventures, this seemed like a step backward. However, it was surprisingly fun (and it’s not like the company hasn’t used its character in experiments like ‘Link’s crossbow training’)… and it caught many off guard at Nintendo.

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Link in Park

Kit Ellis, Nintendo America’s public relations, has stated that they were not sure about releasing the game worldwide because there was a lot of feeling that “it was not going to be good or it was going to lower the status of Zelda.” In fact, they considered telling the company’s offices in Kyoto that the game “was not going to work, leave it only in Japan.”

It may seem ridiculous now, but at the time it made sense: they didn’t want the ‘Zelda’ brand to be hurt if the game was disappointing with this version of ‘Dynasty Warriors.’ In the end, it was released in 2014 and was a resounding success. So much so, that it started its own saga with its own DLC, ports, and even a version for Switch.

As Ellis acknowledges, he found “a surprisingly large audience for these games.” In fact, it is known to have sold over a million units worldwide and performed better outside of Japan than within. So much so that, even a sequel was released in 2020, ‘The Age of Calamity’, which in turn served as a prequel to ‘Breath of the Wild.’ Being a ‘Zelda’ fan is not easy, right?

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