Nintendo teases new Zelda game for Wii U

Nintendo just revealed a new Zelda game with a vibrant, immersive 3D game world.

Eiji Aonuma, the group manager of Nintendo’s EAD Software Development Group No. 3, showed off the Zelda snippet today in the Japanese company’s digital broadcast for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) tradeshow.

Aonuma has directed and produced several Legend of Zelda games, including The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

In his presentation, he snapped his fingers and showed off the world, which included Link on a horse, green grassy fields, and mountains.

“You can even reach those mountains in the distance,” he said. “You can enter any area from any direction.”

The puzzle-solving starts when you start moving somewhere. In any direction you move, you may run into enemies. One such spider-like monster appeared and began shooting fireballs at Link, who fled on his horse.

“As you know from Zelda games, powerful enemies in such a peaceful world is” a familiar convention for gamers.

No word yet on when it will appear.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTMhGg5mtp8&w=560&h=315]

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.