A World Without The Legend of Zelda

Get a glimpse of where the game industry would be without Nintendo’s flagship series.

By: Bob Mackey
November 25, 2011

Imagine, if you will, waking this weekend to sink precious free time into The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. You turn on your Wii, only to discover a disc-free drive. Figuring out the most likely culprit, you head to your roommate’s door, asking if he napped your copy in the dark of night. His response? “What the heck is ‘The Legend of Zelda?'” Something is wrong here. Something is very, very wrong.

Luckily, this horror story is wholly fictional, though it does pose an interesting question: just what would the world be like without The Legend of Zelda? Since the series has become a known quantity of late, it’s easy to take for granted the innovative ideas pioneered by Shigeru Miyamoto’s creation over the past 25 years. To be fair, other developers would’ve eventually stumbled upon the revolutionary concepts featured in Zeldas past and present, but their efforts would not have arrived as early, nor would they be presented as elegantly. So, in this nightmarish scenario best reserved for the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Ayn Rand, what horrors would we face in a world without Zelda?