Nintendo is hosting two Directs in the coming days, and it’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about since the announcement. On Tuesday, September 8, it’s The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, followed by a more general Nintendo Direct on Wednesday, September 9. While we wait, it’s predictions time!
Before we start, a couple of disclaimers: these are all purely my guesses based on public information and my analysis of Nintendo’s release patterns, and nothing more. Nothing here is based on any inside information. But, I will be discussing a couple of relevant leaks over the last few months, so if you have been steering clear of information like that, you may not want to read on.
Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct Predictions
Zelda is my favorite series, so I’m buzzing thinking about all the possibilities we could see Tuesday morning. But I’m trying to keep things realistic in this piece and only sharing predictions that I think have a legitimate chance of happening.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Full Reveal
This will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of the presentation. We’ve only seen a few seconds of footage of the Ocarina of Time remake, which is set to come out in 2026. So, now’s the time for the full reveal trailer and release date. I can’t wait for this one; my imagination has been running wild over this remake for the last three months, and we’re finally going to see more about the scope of this remake. Is it faithful, or more of a reimagining? What does the kingdom of Hyrule look like beyond Link’s treehouse? All that and more will likely be answered by a more conventional trailer that gives us a proper look at the remake.
I don’t know exactly what Ocarina of Time will look like, but the teaser trailer from earlier this year tells me Nintendo is very confident in this game. You don’t set the internet’s imagination on fire with a 10-second tease of Link’s treehouse if you don’t have really satisfying answers to share when you do finally pull the curtain back, and I expect the Ocarina of Time remake to be a pretty big deal.Ocarina of Time’s Release DateAs for a release date, I’m expecting Ocarina of Time to arrive on Thursday, November 12. Nintendo doesn’t have a game dated for November yet (Fire Emblem arrives this month, with Nintendo Switch Sports slated for October), and it never misses putting out a big game in the weeks before Black Friday. Knowing it’s coming this year, Zelda feels primed for that spot. Nintendo is extremely unlikely to release a game on Thanksgiving (that’s Thursday, November 26 in the U.S.), and it has no reason to go head-to-head with Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19. That just leaves November 5 and 12 as available Thursdays to launch a game. A few weeks back, the Nintendo UK store briefly dated a couple of Kirby Air Riders amiibo for November 12, and Nintendo typically launches amiibo the same day as a first-party game, even if the franchises aren’t related. That date has since been removed, but I’m still pretty locked in on November 12 as Ocarina of Time’s release date.Ocarina of Time amiiboWith amiibo on the mind, I’m hopeful we’ll get a glimpse of a new amiibo line for Ocarina of Time alongside the reveal. Zelda games typically get tie-in amiibo figures (Echoes of Wisdom is a rare recent exception), so I’m expecting we’ll see figures of Young Link and Adult Link at the very least. Special Edition Nintendo Switch 2 and Pro ControllerA few weeks ago, allegedly leaked designs surfaced for a Zelda-themed Nintendo Switch 2 console and Pro Controller. These don’t appear to be branded for Ocarina of Time specifically, but rather for the 40th anniversary as a whole. If they’re legitimate, it’d make the most sense to see the products formally announced on Tuesday, potentially alongside my predicted November 12 release for Ocarina of Time. And if they don’t show up, you can pretty confidently write that leak off as fake. Right now, my gut says they’re real and will show up.The Legend of Zelda Movie NewsThe Legend of Zelda movie hits theaters next April, and aside from casting news and a few official teaser images from Nintendo, we haven’t seen anything from the film. It’s become common for Shigeru Miyamoto to show up to present Mario movie news in Directs, so it seems very likely that he’ll do the same here. I think we could get official casting news for Ganondorf and other characters that have been reported on in recent weeks, and I bet we’ll see a short clip, too, if not a full trailer.The Zelda ChallengeIn June, Nintendo unveiled the DK Challenge: a series of time-limited challenges tied to Donkey Kong Bananza and classic DK games available on Nintendo Switch Online. It’s Nintendo’s experimental take on achievements or trophies, and notably, the DK Challenge just ended earlier this week. Based on the way it was integrated into Switch 2’s OS, this concept doesn’t seem like a one-off, and I can’t think of a better choice to follow it up than holding the Zelda Challenge for the franchise’s 40th anniversary. I’m not sure what modern game would be tied into this – maybe Breath of the Wild? – but this seems like a good way to build hype for the milestone year while encouraging fans to revisit classic Zeldas in the weeks leading up to Ocarina of Time.Twilight Princess on Nintendo Switch OnlineSpeaking of NSO, it bothers me more than it should that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the only 3D Zelda game that’s not playable in some form on Switch 2. Its excellent soundtrack isn’t available on the Nintendo Music app either, which strikes me as odd. I think Nintendo will right both of these wrongs on Tuesday, by shadowdropping the GameCube version of Twilight Princess on Nintendo Switch Online and adding its music to the app shortly after. Twilight Princess turns 20 years old in just a couple of months, so now seems like the perfect time.The Legend of Zelda: Complete PlaylistNintendo’s Zelda series has gone from 2D to 3D, from D-Pads to sticks to touch screens to motion controls and back. Here are all of Link’s (and Zelda’s and Tingle’s) adventures over the years. Log in to check off which ones you’ve played, and add others to your backlog.See AllThe Return of Multiplayer ZeldaThe Zelda Direct is 30 minutes long, so I think there’s time for one more game announcement in addition to everything I’ve already discussed. If I’m putting this presentation together, though, I don’t really want to overshadow Ocarina of Time with anything too big. With that said, I think the time is right for the return of a multiplayer Zelda game. Nintendo hasn’t put out a multiplayer-focused Zelda game since 2015’s Tri Force Heroes on 3DS, and neither it nor the Four Swords games are available on Switch or Switch 2. It’s a more niche corner of the franchise that’s been neglected for some time, and there are a few ways a multiplayer surprise could go down. We could get the “Zelda 99” battle royale treatment we’ve seen applied to classic games like Tetris, F-Zero, Pac-Man, and even Super Mario Bros. for its 35th anniversary. Or, it could be an NSO rerelease of the Game Boy Advance’s Four Swords, or the GameCube’s Four Swords Adventures, either of which could hugely benefit from online multiplayer support. Of course, it could be a brand new game in the style of past co-op Zeldas, but that feels the least likely. No matter what form it takes, I’m ready to see multiplayer Zelda return in the Direct.The Next Main Zelda Reveal?The core 3D Zelda team – led by Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and longtime series producer Eiji Aonuma – are no doubt hard at work on their followup to 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom. The question is, will we see it on Tuesday? I’m inclined to guess we won’t. Ocarina of Time is the big Zelda story right now, and even a glimpse of what’s next might take away from the conversation surrounding the remake. If it does show, though, I don’t think it’d be any more than the smallest of teases. We’re talking five to 10 seconds of Link looking over a hill. But I’m not holding my breath. Especially with another general Nintendo Direct the following day, there’s no need to fire the open-world Zelda cannon at this point in the Switch 2’s life.My Pie-in-the-Sky Dream: The 8-bit Breath of the Wild Prototype Is ReleasedI said all of my predictions were meant to have a solid chance of happening, but this one’s just for me. While exploring early concepts that would lead to the development of Breath of the Wild, the Zelda team built a playable, 8-bit prototype to test their ideas. It demonstrated ideas like chopping down trees to cross rivers and fire spreading across a grassy field, set in a Hyrule reminiscent of the NES original. It wasn’t meant to be a commercial product, but how cool would it be if Nintendo dropped it on Switch as part of the anniversary celebrations? I think the odds of this happening are essentially zero, but I’d love nothing more than to have access to a playable piece of Breath of the Wild’s development history.
