Nintendo has announced that it’s holding not one, but two Directs next week. One of them will be a more general showcase talking about upcoming Switch 2 games, while the other will focus more specifically on The Legend of Zelda for its 40th anniversary.
News of this comes from an update on the Nintendo Today app. The Zelda Direct will be first on September 8 at 7 a.m. Pacific/ 10 a.m. Eastern, and will be around 30 minutes long. The general Direct will be the following day, on September 9 at 7 a.m. Pacific / 10 a.m. Eastern, and will last around 45 minutes. Both will be streamed on Nintendo’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
It’s anyone’s guess what we might see in the general showcase, but there are a few things we can likely expect to see for the Zelda stream. The upcoming Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2 is almost a guaranteed headliner, and there’s a strong chance we’ll finally get a trailer for the upcoming live-action film set to premiere on April 30. Thus far, we’ve only seen a few still images and behind-the-scenes shots, and gotten some casting announcements, but if Nintendo is spotlighting The Legend of Zelda for its 40th anniversary, now is a perfect time to give the movie a proper reveal with a teaser.
I would be very, very surprised if we hear anything about the next mainline Zelda game post-Tears of the Kingdom, as it’s only been three years since that game and Link’s adventures usually take a lot more time to cook than that. Though Breath of the Wild was first teased in 2014, just three years after Skyward Sword. So who knows?
It’s nice to see that Nintendo is giving Zelda the spotlight for its big 4-0, as it felt like the company was kind of ignoring it. Based on what some ex-employees say, though, it sounds like the Mario company is less concerned about making big anniversaries a whole event than say, The Pokémon Company is for that series. A lot can happen in 30 minutes, though. So we’ll see.