Nintendo didn’t seem to be very supportive of Zelda spinoffs.
Despite the contradiction that The Legend of Zelda series has always been starring Link and not Zelda, the truth is that there were plans to make a delivery that was not starring Link, but the project did not come to fruition . The intentions of Retro Studios to do a Zelda starring Sheik that never materialized, but it seems that it was not the only project of the studio for the saga.
According to the latest reports, Retro Studios, known above all for their work with Mteroid Prime, proposed in 2004 to Nintendo a new game in the Zelda series for Nintendo DS called “Heroes of Hyrule” Inspired by the proposal of games like Final Fantasy Tactics.
Is a Zelda without Link possible?
According to youtuber DidYouKnowGaming, like that project with Sheik, this Zelda project had in mind that Link not be the main character, but a boy named Kori. One hundred years before the events of the game, Ganano would have locked Zelda and Link up, but three of Link’s friends, a Goron (Dunar), a Rito (Seriph) and a Zora (Krel), representatives of the Triforce, would have gotten together. united to rescue them. Defeated, Ganon’s spirit retreated into an old spell book whose pages the heroes scattered throughout different parts of the kingdom.
The proposal of the game is not entirely clear, but it would have had a typical Zelda beginning in which Kori finds the spell book and begins to discover Hyrule’s past. Kori’s goal then is to complete assignments from townspeople to rebuild the book, not knowing what that would mean. Gannon’s return. All this based on a strategy-type gameplay which would have meant “two thirds of its playable proposal”.
The reasons why Nintendo decided not to give the green light to this project despite the promise of its proposal are unknown, but it seems that Nintendo was not very keen on doing spin-offs at the time. At this point, the Zelda series is still starring Link and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is scheduled for release next year. We will see later where the series is headed.