After the success of Pokemon, Nintendo can hardly be blamed for looking towards smartphones as a gaming platform. Sure, they did not make Pokemon. It was just their property, but there is no reason why Nintendo cannot leverage that success into another. That is why Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima announced last month that the company plans to release two or three more smartphone games by Marcy 2018.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, one of these games will be a Legend of Zelda game for smartphones. Nintendo already has Animal Crossing scheduled for release within the next few months sometime in 2H 2017. The Legend of Zelda will most likely follow after this release, right around or before the holiday season.
Touch Controlled Link?
Nintendo is enjoying quite a bit of success with Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild for the Nintendo Switch and the Wii U. The game requires complex controls which are not going to be easily ported to a smart phone game. Nintendo also did not disclose yet or even confirm the Wall Street Journal report, so the gameplay mechanics might be entirely different from what most expect from a 2D or 3D Legend of Zelda.
A touchscreen controlled Legend of Zelda game sounds like quite a bit of break from the norm. However, Nintendo does have experience with creating a 3D game with touch controls before. The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks used this method for example.
