10 INSANE Video Game Risks (That Totally Paid Off)
7. The Wind Waker's Graphics Are Kept A Secret
In 2000, Nintendo showed a tech demo for their brand new system, the GameCube that saw Link and Ganon face-off in a graphical engine not unlike what had come before in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
Eiji Aonuma, director of the next game in the series, felt that this was old hat by this stage. He was not enthused by the demo and was instead inspired by an artist's sketch of a cartoony, oddly proportioned Link with giant eyes. He knew this was the direction he wanted to go, but he also knew that Shigeru Miyamoto and company would hate it, so held off on showing the game to his colleagues for as long as possible.
Miyamoto was said to have "literally cringed" at the first sight of the Wind Waker and through development reminded Aonuma that it wasn't "too late to change course".
More than just his own distaste for it, Miyamoto likely knew it was a risk. Yes, Zelda had only been 3D for a few years by this point but 1998's Ocarina of Time had been massive. Such a departure would surely upset the applecart. Of course, famously, it did.
But both fans and Miyamoto came around to Wind Waker and in the long-run it set the groundwork for Zelda being a series that stylistically breaks new ground with most major releases.