There are canceled games in The Legend of Zelda series? As hard as that is to believe, there are indeed a plethora of projects that were started before getting put to rest. The reason why a lot of these remain unknown is that very few of them have any assets to share.

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That is to say, a lot of these games were pitches that went nowhere and or were so tightly wrapped up at Nintendo that they barely exist outside of their vault. Avid fans with the know-how for digging have discovered some treasures though and these are the seven known titles today. Are there more? Only time will tell.

7 The Wind Waker Game Boy Advance Sequel

Canceled Wind Waker sequel on GBA

Davide Soliani, the director of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, was a small-time developer at the time of The Wind Walker’s release. Still, he loved the game so much that he collaborated with a fellow designer at Ubisoft Milan, Fabio Pagetti, on a sequel built for the GBA.

They worked for about a month on a pitch to give to the higher-ups. After their meeting the powers that be canceled the project before it could go anywhere and never even showed it to Nintendo. There were pictures and video, all of which are gone now. The only image left is the one above.

6 A Real Sequel For The Wind Waker

Zelda Wind Waker promo art

Davide and Fabio’s project weren’t the only plans for a sequel because Nintendo was going to do one as well. After the initial wrap up was done for The Wind Waker, the team spent about a year on concepts for another cel-shared sequel. However, Nintendo was spooked when The Wind Waker, despite positive reviews, did not sell well. This was chalked up to the idea that the cel-shaded art style might have alienated older players like they were playing a kids game.

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So, it was eventually turned into Twilight Princess. There are no pictures or videos available but there is an interesting tidbit about the game from Satoru Takizawa, a Designer Manager who worked on The Wind Waker. In The Legend of Zelda: Art and Artifacts book, he discussed how it would have been a land-based game instead of the sea. He also went on to discuss how they wanted Link to ride a horse but his minuscule body made it difficult to animate.

5 Twilight Princess's Multiple Sequels

Zelda Twilight Princess gameplay screenshot

Speaking of Twilight Princess, that game met sales expectations unlike The Wind Waker. The team then went on to plan a spinoff based on the universe. However, the team’s concepts were scrapped when Shigeru Miyamoto decided he wanted it to be a tie-in to the new Wii controller, the Wii Zapper. This became Link’s Crossbow Training.

They were apparently disappointed but went with it and even tried to get ambitious. However, all pitches were rejected by Miyamoto so it was just a quick game without any sort of narrative focus. That’s not the end though, because producer Eiji Aonuma liked Link’s Crossbow Training enough to pitch a sequel. This too was rejected and nothing more ever came of it. Both game ideas never had any videos or images leaked.

4 Four Swords DS

Zelda Four Swords gameplay screenshot

The Four Swords games on the GBA and GameCube sold well enough to attempt a third game. This was being made for the DS. Part of the reason why that hardware was appealing was because of the wireless capabilities. As fun as those other two games could be they were hindered by money.

That is to say multiple GBAs, games, and link cables were required. Besides the price one had to worry about tangling everything up too. Ultimately this project was scrapped before it ever got unveiled in any real capacity. However, parts of it did get used for the DS’ premiere game in the franchise, The Phantom Hourglass. An enhanced version of the GBA original did eventually make it on DS which is lost to time now.

3 Retro’s Sheik Spinoff

cancled retro Sheik Game art

Earlier this year an ex-artist at Retro Studios, Sammy Hall, posted some concept art for a project he said was about the last male Sheikah. This game was apparently going to take place in the bad timeline, the one in Ocarina of Time where Ganon defeats Link in the future. It was being developed between 2005 and ended in 2008 so conceivably it was a Wii game.

Developed is not really the right word as it was an internal pitch Retro was working on to eventually show Nintendo. What’s more, a few days after this was posted all of Hall’s social media pages were taken down probably because of legal action from either Nintendo or Retro.

2 The Capcom Trilogy

Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages promo art

Capcom originally wanted to remake the original NES game for the Game Boy. This then turned into a trilogy of games that would all work together via passwords. They were titled Tale of Power, Tale of Courage, and Tale of Wisdom.

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Eventually, this project was brought down to two games and the internet connectivity ideas, like downloadable dungeons, were scrapped too. What came out was Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons on Game Boy Color.

Zelda II Link’s Adventure Remake pixels

There was a rumor that Miyamoto and a small team were working on a remake of Zelda II for the SNES. For some context, the original Zelda game did get remade for the SNES just like the Mario games via the Super Mario All-Stars collection.

This was only released in Japan though via their downloadable service on the Satellaview attachment. Well, rumors turned into concrete evidence when the infamous Nintendo Gigaleak came out in 2020, revealing scrapped sprites for what was probably this Zelda game on the SNES.

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