Who Is That
This hand is reaching, and so am I in this article — Image: Nintendo

In the game magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit into the rest of the pages. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have pages on the internet, but we still love terrible jokes - thus our Back Page features. Today, Kate has a stab at divining the title of the next Legend of Zelda guided by recent gaming trends...

Zelda! The Legend of Zelda! Breath of the Wild? Zelda Breath of the Wild 2! The sequel, on Nintendo Switch™. Adventure of Link video game, GameCube release date, rumours and speculation? Who is Ganon in the trailer, and why is Game Boy Advance Nintendo Hyrule Princess? Will there be Shrine Locations, All 900 Korok Seeds Guide, and Best Weapon? Download a Nintendo Zelda role-playing adventure game on your Nintendo Switch eShop online discount code today!

Right, sorry about that. It'll make sense a few paragraphs in, I promise.

You may have seen the news last week that there's a new Longest Title For A Game candidate on the block, which is so long that I'm going to give it its own paragraph. Hold on.

"Monster wo Taoshite Tsuyoi Ken ya Yoroi wo Te ni Shinasai. Shindemo Akiramezu ni Tsuyoku Narinasai. Yuusha Tai ga Maou wo Taosu Sono Hi wo Shinjiteimasu"

Quite the mouthful, eh? Here's the translation:

“Defeat Monsters to Get Strong Swords and Armor. Even If You Die, Fight and Become Stronger. We Believe in the Day the Heroes will Defeat the Demon Lord.”

Wait a gosh darn second! That's just a description of the game! Did the developers get the "Title" and "Back of box blurb" mixed up? Having such a long title is both a curse and a blessing: People will be terrified of your game, but they'll also notice it, probably because the game box is a metre wide.

BOTW 2
Image: Nintendo

So, what if this is the new trend? What if game names are just long now? We've been speculating about the title of the next Zelda game for some time, but we've always generally followed the pattern of "The Legend of Zelda: The Noun of Noun" or perhaps "The Adjective Noun" if we're feeling spicy. But packing all the information into a game's title is a lot like making sure that the first line of your news piece hits as many keywords as possible, even if it's a long string of nonsense: it's great for SEO.

So, I present to you: some new title ideas for the sequel to Breath of the Wild. If I turn out to be on the money with any of these, you all owe me £5.

The Legend of Zelda: Take That Pointy Thing In Your Hand And Stick It Into That Goblin Over There. If You Die, You'll Probably Get A Game Over, But You Can Just Walk Back Here. We Reckon You'll Beat Ganon At Some Point, The Game's Not That Hard.

The Legend of Zelda LONG TITLE

A straight-up copy of the title above? Unlikely. Nintendo has always gone its own way when it comes to Zelda titles, as long as you ignore the extremely basic "The Adventure of Link" and focus more on the titles where they make up their own words, like "Minish Cap" and "Majora's Mask".

The odds for this one are about 545:1, probably. Relatedly, I don't know how odds work. Don't tell me in the comments, I don't want to learn.

The Legend of Zelda: The One Where Zelda Gets Into A Pickle, This Time Involving Some Kind Of Lich, And Link Solves It The Only Way He Knows How: Killing Small And Medium Things Until He Gets To Kill The Big Thing

Realistically, how likely is it that Nintendo is going to take their title cues from Friends? Maybe they're all watching American sitcoms on their lunch breaks, I don't know. But I wouldn't say no to a Phoebe cameo. Maybe she can be Beedle's girlfriend.

Unlikely, but charming. Odds are roughly 60183:1 on this one.

The Legend of Zelda: Young Man Wearing Green Slaughters Local Fauna, Steals a Bunch Of Stuff From Temples, And Eventually Saves Monarch From Being Eaten And/Or Turned Into Energy Juice By A Pig-Man

Newspaper

Pure speculation, I know, but the new Breath of the Wild 2 (tentative title) will probably involve at least one of these elements, right? This one does read a bit like a headline in a Floridian newspaper, though. The vibes are decidedly more "you'll never guess what your weird cousin did now" than they are "Legend of Zelda". I'll give this one odds of about 420:1.

But long titles aren't the only trend in video games lately. Let's widen the net a little, shall we?

The Legend of Zelda: [WORD]

Hat

Drawing its inspiration from the way Monster Hunter titles have been going lately — Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise, in particular — what if we just get a lovely one-word title following straight on from the iconic moniker? It's difficult to know exactly what word sums up a Zelda game, but looking at past games makes it easy.

You've got The Legend of Zelda: Time, The Legend of Zelda: Mask, The Legend of Zelda: Hat... they're usually all tied to a single object. Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, would probably just be called The Legend of Zelda: Big, on account of its huge open world, so maybe the sequel can be The Legend of Zelda: Bigger?

The Legend of Zelda: Chill Lo-Fi Beats To Defeat The Dark Lord To

Let's really target that Gen Z demographic. They're already all listening to Zelda and Animal Crossing music while they study, anyway.

The Legend of Zelda: Tony Hawk's Sid Meier's Tom Clancy's Director's Cut Remastered Game of the Year Edition Ultimate Version Cloud Edition HD

Do you really need a title when you've got all these big names, features, and awards? Heck no.

The Legend of Zelda: Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry™ Series

Dante Of The May Cry

Sony just released an HD version of the "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry™ Series" stickers, and, yes, I am suspicious of the timing. Could this be a hint at a potential cameo in the latest Zelda game? Yes! Of course. Obviously.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Listen, if Call of Duty: Modern Warfare can use the same title twice, so can Nintendo.

Untitled Legend of Zelda Game

HONK.

It's likely that we won't find out if any of these are right for some time, so while we wait: why not get your ideas in? Maybe someone at Nintendo will see this stupid article and feel inspired.

I calculate those odds to be roughly 999999:1.

Pitch us a new Zelda title!