Eiji Aonuma made some eye rolling statements, but also intriguing ones, following yesterday’s big tease regarding the Zelda Wii U trailer.
So, he backed down completely from what he said before, and confirmed that it really is Link in the new trailer. He explains that he was only making a joke. It wasn’t that he denied it was Link, just that he never said so in the presentation.
Aonuma felt the need to back down immediately after seeing the reactions from fans and media. Many started speculating that the character is a girl (presumably young), that she could even be Zelda herself, or perhaps a kid of Link’s and Zelda’s.
Ultimately, Aonuma doesn’t want fans to focus too much on Link’s appearance. As he explains it, Link was always meant to represent the player in The Legend of Zelda games. While he was never a cipher to build a character around in like Master Chief was for a long time in the Halo games, Aonuma alludes to the suspension of disbelief necessary to play any game and enter a character’s role.
Aonuma dropped hints in a separate interview that he was willing to listen to players who did want to play a woman in a Zelda Wii U game. He says that it might have been something they consciously did, and he doesn’t say more, but I think he was hinting that Nintendo wanted to see how fans would react. Now, he says that he hopes to see more comments from fans, and that he is keeping close tabs on them.
For what its worth, it would seem that Zelda Wii U is nearing completion, given that 2015 release, so if Aonuma and co. didn’t put a playable female character in it yet, it’s quite late to add one in now.
How do you feel about this new revelation? It sounds like Aonuma would go for a female playable character in a future The Legend of Zelda game. Is that something you would want? If you have a Miiverse account, I asked Aonuma to do it myself, so feel free to comment there. Otherwise, share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
