Hyrule Warriors Experiment Pays Off Well for Nintendo
Sometimes, when a developer takes an existing and beloved intellectual property and tries something new or different, there is potential to perturb and greatly upset longtime fans. Nintendo recently tried something a bit experimental for The Legend of Zelda franchise with Hyrule Warriors. Hyrule Warriors is a recent hack-and-slash action game, done in the style of Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors series. The game is set in The Legend of Zelda world and features Zelda characters, but the gameplay is executed in Dynasty Warriors fashion. With the announcement that the game has shipped one million copies worldwide (via Famitsu), it appears Nintendo’s experiment with Hyrule Warriors paid off nicely. Now Nintendo has yet another hit to add to the accolades of the Wii U for 2015.
Based on the figures on VGChartz.com, the game has sold about 850,000 copies globally. So, it remains to be seen if the game will break the one million sales mark. However, it is highly probable that the game will sell over one million copies. The brass at Nintendo must be please with the news of another exclusive hit game out there for the Wii U library. The news seems to represent a nice shift in momentum. The Wii U was struggling for quite some time, but the recent releases of the Amiibos, Super Smash Bros. Wii U, Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors have definitely turned things around for Nintendo.
The fact is that Hyrule Warriors is not even an official canonical Zelda game. It is really a standalone release with a much different style from the usual Zelda releases. However, sometimes when a franchise tries something different, it can lead to less than exciting results. Case in point: the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog game, which is much maligned by fans.
However, it seems that the results with Hyrule Warriors were fairly good. The game received mostly good reviews, and it appears to be selling very well. Since this is essentially a spin-off game outside of the general canon of the main series for The Legend of Zelda, Koei Tecmo had free reign to do something different with the franchise. By all accounts, that experiment for the franchise worked. I am not saying Nintendo and Koei Tecmo should partner for a whole series of Hyrule Warriors games; but sometimes it can be good to try something different with a game franchise. Part of the appeal is that the style combined Zelda characters with the style of another existing and well known franchise. Plus, Zelda characters had been used in other Nintendo franchises before, including Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros.
Hyrule Warriors is currently available for The Wii U. The next installment of the franchise, The Legend of Zelda, is due out later this year.