As we’ve covered before on this site, anniversaries in the video game space can serve two rather big purposes. The first is to simply honor all that’s come before and remember the good times that we’ve had while playing these games. The second is for certain big-number anniversaries to come, and the developers/publishers of those games to come forward and make big-time announcements or releases to help push the franchise even further forward. Next year is the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda series, and one “insider” is making some claims that some big announcements may happen during the year 2026.
Now, if you want a few more specifics, so would we. What we do know is that Nash Weedle, who has been making lots of claims recently, went on the Attack the Backlog podcast and talked about the series and the upcoming 40th anniversary. He said that Nintendo will use the start of the year to begin celebrating the anniversary, and then, there will be special dates throughout the year that could have “big announcements.”
So, what can we reasonably expect from Nintendo next year? The most obvious answer could be Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment. After all, it’s still labeled as “Winter 2025,” which could easily slip into January or even February of next year. Even if it were to arrive in December, they could still do some big DLC for the game, like they had done for the previous entry in the line.
The next possible thing would be a remaster/remake of a past entry in the franchise. The Legend of Zelda has had a few HD remasters over the years, including several coming to the Wii U and OG Switch. However, if they wanted to dip back into the well and give one of the SNES or even N64 titles an overhaul, gamers likely wouldn’t mind that one bit.
Finally, there’s the obvious answer of “announcing a new game.” This is where things get tricky, because the next mainline entry to follow up Tears of the Kingdom is likely well into development, but nowhere near release. The two Switch entries were released six years apart from each other, and so we shouldn’t be too hopeful on that one. However, it wouldn’t be impossible for a top-down entry to arrive, even though we just got one last year starring Princess Zelda.
Either way, there are options on the table if Nintendo wants to go big for the 40th anniversary.
