Nintendo just announced two livestream events for next week. There’s one to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda on September 8 at 10AM ET and another traditional Nintendo Direct on September 9, also at 10AM ET.
The Zelda stream will last around 30 minutes. It’s being advertised as a celebration of the iconic franchise’s 40th birthday, but it’ll probably spend most of its time on that upcoming Ocarina of Time remake. The company first announced this game back in June and it looks like a full redesign of the N64 classic.
Of course, it’s always possible the company will take that time to tease another Zelda game coming at a later date. Unfortunately, I think it’s still too early to get any news on a mainline entry, like the follow-up to Tears of the Kingdom. I suppose we could get another 2D game or some kind of Mario Kart World cross-promotion or something. It’s also likely we’ll get a short teaser for the Zelda movie.
The standard Direct livestream on September 9 is a bit more mysterious. It’s highly probable the Ocarina of Time remake is the company’s big holiday release, though there’s other stuff coming out in the next few months. We’ll probably get a final trailer for Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, which comes out on September 17. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, another pseudo-sequel to Wii Sports, will be released on October 22, so expect some new footage. Despite the name, it’s a Switch 2 exclusive.
It’s likely we’ll see trailers for some cross-platform holiday releases, like Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World and Final Fantasy Resonance. Past as prologue, we’ll also get footage of dozens of cozy games and the like.
However, this Direct is slated to last 45 minutes. That’s a lot of time for surprises. The Switch 2 has been out well over a year now and there’s still been no news of an upcoming mainline Mario game. The same goes for the Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros. and Pikmin franchises, among others. Hope springs eternal.
In any event, the company expects some excitement regarding these two streams. There’s a two-hour Treehouse event scheduled for 10:45AM ET on September 9. Treehouse streams typically show people playing games that were just announced.