Random: Remember That Zelda HD Tech Demo For Wii U? It's Now 10 Years Old

Oh god, the old Wii U gamepad.
Remember when they said that you would be able to use two gamepads on one system?

The Wii U was a mistake.

@Decapre I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, it kind of pathed the way for the switch.

I really wish we got a Zelda game that looks like this. It looked so freaking beautiful. A Twilight Princess sequel that looks like this has been one of my dream games for years.

Please don’t let this go to waste, Nintendo!

No I can't be this old right

Yes but as far as Nintendo consoles go it's my favorite mistake! It is still a good system despite what people who gave up on it early will have you believe. The real disasters were Sega saturn, Virtual boy, Sega 32X, Atari Jaquar etc.

As for that old Zelda demo yeah still waiting to play that game. Why does it look better than the only new zelda game we ever actually got on Wii U?

I feel personally attacked today.... between this, finding out Finding Nemo was 18 years old, and that Breakfast Club/Goonies was now 36 years old....

Man the demo looks wonderful, but after BOTW, it just looks like another Zelda game, which is fine, but I prefer a more stylized Zelda game like BOTW, rather than this tech demo.

Imagine the Wii U would have launched with BotW. Video game history would be different.

Pretty great, except the release didn't look half as good.

It would have been cool if demos like this were released to the public. I know in the Wii U’s case, alot of its tech demos ended up being part of Nintendo Land, Game & Wario, New Super Mario Bros and Wii U Panorma View, but this demo showed technical prowess that wasn’t met at the same level as 2016’s Twilight Princess HD.

I remember people thought this was hinting towards a Twilight Princess remake, but then it turned out that we got a texture re-work instead..

@Kyloctopus Not possible when the demo wasn’t running on Wii U hardware.

Yeah cause Nintendo haven’t done this before… looks at Zelda demo for Gamecube

And yet there hasn’t been a new 3D Zelda game since 2011

While I adore Breath of the Wild and can’t wait for the sequel, I always dreamed that a modern 3D Zelda game or a Twilight Princess remake would look like this and I hope they pursue this advanced art style in the future. This tech demo almost sold me on the Wii U when it didn’t blow me away initially and I wanted this to be a teaser for the next game as it still looks gorgeous today and I couldn’t believe this was possible on Wii U at the time. They also missed an opportunity with Twilight Princess HD as this demo literally used TP Link and TP needed a remake in my opinion, instead of a remaster which still shows the game’s age.

I remember this way too well! I really feel old now... I was really excited at the time, and while I know I'm in the minority on this, I'd say I really enjoyed the Wii U! The droughts between game releases weren't great, but there were still some fantastic games, including my absolute favorite game of all time, which is still only on the Wii U (Xenoblade X). The Virtual Console support was fun as well with so many systems available! I was pretty happy with the system overall, despite some rough patches (the last year in particular was rough, but Nintendo absolutely made up for it with their incredible launch year for the Switch).

@BiscuitCrumbsInMyBed I agree, the Wii U was not a mistake, and it led to the switch, but it was still a peripheral nightmare. Controllers, as a rule, probably shouldn't be big or clunky in my opinion. The few exceptions to this is arcades(and accessibility options).

@Max_the_German didn't it?

@Decapre

The Wii U had some Flaws (Drive space), but the Main Point for its Failure was just wrong Marketing.

When they announced the Switch they made right away Ads in a "hip and young trendy" Way.
Completly different from the old Marketing.

The Wii U had much better compatibility Features, starting with the Controller Support up to the Possibility to back up your Stuff on USB-Sticks and your PC.
The Switch is so restricted in such user friendly Features.

To the Topic:
I have seen it as a Tech Demo right from the Beginning and was well aware that we will get something different from that.

But i am also aware that many People waited for that Game

I am for Example still waiting for Starcraft Ghost on my PS2.
(gladly played the leaked Alpha )

I want to fight this giant spider since 2011.

I was honestly pretty butthurt that they never put the map for BotW on the Wii U gamepad. Huge loss there, even though playing it was still great.

The WiiU... Still one of my favorite consoles. The GPU was amazing, but that weak CPU is what kept Bethesda from releasing SKYRIM and FALLOUT on it. So many developers were used to programming for 360 and PC where CPU and RAM really matter. Nintendo's bottlenecks were not worth dealing with; especially after the botched marketing campaign.

Wish this game came to the system or future system as it looked more interesting than botw.

@BiscuitCrumbsInMyBed,

My thoughts exactly, the Wii U and Switch are not all that different in terms of concept, and sometimes a console failure can pave the way to it's replacements success.

God this still holds up today, I remember thinking this alone was one of the best looking games I'd seen (though it didn't end up being one) - I wish there was a Zelda game that looked like this. I do wonder if this was running on a Wii U, because the lighting and reflections look like something well beyond its capabilities.

The BotW 2 original announcement will also be 10 years old before we see the release of the actual game.

That's scary. I remember watching this and I can remember it entirely. Surely it hasn't been a decade already?

The demo didn’t show any gameplay as such, it just cleverly tricked people into thinking that’s what was going on.

@BiscuitCrumbsInMyBed Have you heard the phrase "learning from your mistakes?"

Even if the WiiU paved the way for the Switch, that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be a mistake. Nintendo did the work and REALLY looked at their console's shortcomings and came up with a home run. I still put the Switch's success more on Nintendo's hard work at R&D than the failure of a console specifically. It's clear from the get-go that Nintendo wanted a Switch like console back in 2011 but due to hardware limitations and pricing, the WiiU was probably their compromise, unfortunately it just didn't pan out. I suspect even if the WiiU never existed, the idea for the Switch was already swirling around at the minds at Nintendo well before 10 years ago and we would've gotten the Switch anyways when technology and pricing deemed it viable for the market.

Every now and then i come back to watch this tech demo.

It was captivating to me. The aesthethic is so dark i fell in love with it. I love breathe of the wild but the a game in this artstyle, with these tones would trump BotW for me.

Sadly it's a dream now.

I actually like the WiiU more than the Switch, mostly because of the gamepad. Also miss the Miiverse...

@ALinkttPresent You don't count BotW?

Maybe it’s because I have a Switch and none of the next gen consoles. That demo still looks really impressive! 🤷🏾‍♂️

I love the blue of Wii u and the old Nintendo life logo banner in blue. Good days

Breath of the wild style graphics fits a zelda game the best.

@The-Chosen-one That is quite a bold opinion there. personally, i loved the style of twilight princess a lot more, especially when it came to enemy design

Xenoblade x is the only thing stopping me from selling the wii U

Wait who said the Wii U was a mistake?!

Ah this is still one of the best looking Zelda gam… presentations to date.

I would like a zelda game like this.

It would be a suprise that this demo is the beginning of a Ocarina of Time Remake that they have been working on sinds this demo. That would be insane........ You've gotta have some dreams!

Ah man, I love that art style they used for the tech demo. Would really like to see a Zelda game use it.

@TheGioGrande I agree it's great they learned from their mistake. It was still a mistake, though. The mistake was that Nintendo created a solution without defining the problem they were trying to solve. This is different from the approach they took with the DS/Wii and the Switch, where they were trying to solve a problem.

The WiiU gamepad actually does solve problems as can be seen from Splatoon, Mario Maker, and Xenoblade X, but the problems it solves in those games were not present in much of Nintendo's first party lineup.

They should have lead with games like those, Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, real-time strategy games, etc.

I really wish Nintendo didn't use Twilight Princess assets for a Tech demo, just as they did previously on the GameCube with Ocarina of Time. Then we got remasters for both. Ocarina of Time was an impressive jump, Twilight Princess was not.

@VIIIAxel Agreed, the Wii U may have its flaws but I love it. I haven't played Xenoblade X yet but I kind of hope it doesn't get a Switch port any time soon because I'd rather play it on Wii U!

@Decapre Financial mistake, gaming success.

The irony is that the Zelda franchise has not used anything resembling the engine used in that "tech demo" since it debuted. It stands alongside the Metroid Prime 4 logo teaser as another possible (if not likely) example of Nintendo having absolutely nothing in actual active development at the time that correlated with it. While the Wii U did have some visually impressive titles, it might even be argued that the "tech demo" significantly oversold what users actually got across ALL games.

I have no problem at all with BotW's art style; it's a well-established fact that Zelda games run the gamut across many visual approaches. But I won't deny that after seeing that stunning tech demo and that insanely detailed spider boss, I felt a bit let down when BotW was revealed further down the line.

@Link-Hero I’m not saying it’s not running on Wii U hardware, what I’m saying is that it isn’t gameplay, it’s just a pre-rendered sequence with a HUD and other features designed to look like gameplay.

Man, I wish we got this game. I respect BotW but I wouldn’t say I really ‘enjoy’ it.

I still really wish we got a game that looked like this. TP Link is my favorite Link design by far so seeing him look like this was jaw dropping back when I first saw it. I also know it doesn't age as well, but I also prefer OoT/MM and TP artstyles to WW, SS, and BoTW. Those games still look AMAZING mind you, but I also still think TP on GameCube looks great as well so maybe I'm just insane.

@Decapre One man's 'mistake' is another man's treasure. Brilliant, unique console, with a massive back catalogue of games that can be installed on it. You simply don't understand business, design or how the Wii U influenced the development of the Switch and the move to hybrid.

Wii U was Nintendo's first run at HD graphics, 8 years late to the party - they had to start somewhere. Without Wii U the Switch would not have been.

It still looks better than any game that can be bought for Wii U or Switch.

@Donkey-Kong-Fan it’s Nintendo

That clean, fresh, white Wii U GamePad is B E A U T I F U L.

@HamatoYoshi @Hughesy It's running on real hardware and it is not pre rendered. It is a scripted sequence running in real time, you could swap screens and move the camera. Also at this point the Wii U only had 1GB of RAM at this point in development, as opposed to the full 2GB in the final hardware.

wow, everyone seems to have really loved this demo. I remember thinking it looked generic af when it dropped and was hugely relieved when they first showed off the botw trailer, which has a million times more interesting art-style imo

I had not seen that Zelda HD demo. Prior to 2017, I had a gamecube & ps2 and reserved gaming for fighting winter blues. Otherwise, I was obsessed with riding ramp since I was 10 (see avatar for extremeness). Switch launch + Mario Kart 8 + the mind blowling surprise of Breath of the Wild are what kick started game news consumption.

@Decapre my 1tb Wii U and it’s 300+ games would argue that it’s a mistake. It still hooked up next to my switch and Xbox 1, and still gets more use then our Xbox.

@UndoControl Did you not watch the video where they literally play it? It’s a tech demo but it’s playable.

@UndoControl Well I actually didn’t say anywhere that I’d prefer it to BotW. This was 10 years ago. It could have come out way before BotW. I just think the direction that they went in afterwards doesn’t match with my tastes.

This tech demo was amazing, everything run on real time. I love my Wii U, for those saying it's a failure, you're the one who's not doing anything with his life.

I loved my WiiU. The biggest problem were developers not having enough money or whatever to build games meant for the system, except a few in my opinion. I remember reading most stories about them not getting next gen games to run on it and ultimately brushing off the system.

@Zeldafan79 I still like Wii U better than Switch for several reasons. External HDD support, A lot more system features, Folders, sorting of games order on menu, Wii U Pro Pad and other things.
Also. Mario Kart 8 on Wii U could upload replays to Youtube.

Was this early version of the Wii U more powerful than the Switch? It's hard for me to imagine this running even on PS4.

@DrDaisy Perhaps the tech demo ran on a PC.
Nintendo said back then that HD games required much more effort than they thought.
I guess it's why they abandoned this as it required way more gfx work than BOTW.

I remember that demo and how it blew away anything seen before on the Wii. I even thought it looked better than what PS3/360 were capable of! (maybe it's true, I need more research lol) I wish we got more tech demos like this.
Oh, and the tech used there is indeed pretty similar to that one of BoTW, just with a different art style.

I never understood the hype over this reveal. Yeah, visually it's impressive and looks like Twilight Princess 2: HD that never happened. But mostly it served as a tech demo for the gameplay possibilities of the Game Pad. The battle itself is mostly a visually enhanced Twilight Princess art style re-imagined as a Demon's Souls/Generic-SCE/SIE game battle. What was on screen was never that impressive, it just had pretty rendering and good animations. The gamepad was the real presentation.

@NEStalgia I think that Twilight Princess is one of the most perfect games that Nintendo has made. That demo meant the world to me and, as you know, Breath of the Wild, what replaced Twilight Princess 2 HD, disappointed me, not as much as New Super Mario Bros. 2 which is the biggest disappointment in history, but still...

Then they realised that Wii U was not able to handle those graphics and they made Breath of the Wild which is basically a seamless Skyward Sword with improved lighting but without dungeons and music.

Twilight Princess HD is my favourite Wii U game and then Xenoblade Chronicles X.

@Ventilator Doesn't running a tech demo on a different platform from the one you're supposedly trying to show off defeat the purpose?

BOTW is fantastic and in fact my favorite Zelda game ever, but gosh, I would love to see them actually use this style for a full game in the future. It's just so beautiful.

This is the Zelda game that I wish we had gotten instead of breath of the wild. A gorgeous realistic looking Zelda adventure. Sadly I don't think we'll ever get this.

I created a LOZTP 2 story in my head long ago and as long it stays in my head l still remember it. But l actually want a sequel of it though(not my imaginary one). Be great to have the game to return with a new adventure. Always wanted a TP 2 long ago on the first wii when l played TP so many times! Good memories of how fun it was. I still say its the best Zelda game imo next to OoT and SS.

Ha, I remember this demo and thinking "wow". An underrated but flawed & barebones system. Still have mine but gamepad sensor bar proximity allowance seems to be declining a bit!

@DrDaisy Many devs used PC to show "console" tech demo'ers over the years. This is why many games looked worse than the demo when released as the consoles couldn't handle what were shown earlier as it were running on PC.
They were of course flamed later for giving false promises on gfx.

I just hope Nintendo does completely get rid of the older Zelda formula. They may be much more linear, but I personally had a lot more fun. I enjoyed BotW and thought that it was an excellent open-world game, but I just didn't think it was that great of a Zelda game.

Still looks decent, no doubt about it but dated after 10 years. Tech demos are just promises. Like FFVII intro on PS3. I doubt we will see anything as good in PS5,Xbox series X as Unreal Engine V tech demo either

Watching this demo now, I feel that there is nothing elegant about the wiiu controller.
Man it was soo chunky with a terrible screen.

Still wish Zelda looked like this demo. Love the look of BOTW but would be nice for nintendo to change it up a bit.

@arekdougy What the other user said is a fact, even if Nintendo didn't officially stated that. They marketed both games as "playing the same way" with Switch being a superior version because of better audio effects, they said.

If they continued with the map on the gamepad, like in past Aonuma demonstrations, people would have been upset that the Switch wasn't capable of it. This would have costed them a lot of bad backlash.

Put your hands up for wii u

This demo still looks really good, can't believe it's 10 years old. Compare looking back to something from the 90s during the early 00s.

I remember the GameCube Tech demo for Zelda where Link was fighting ganondorf.

The split in the comments on this being a good look on Zelda or not reminds me how much prior Zeldas and BotW seemed to take large specific inspirations that couldn't be more at ends with one-another. OoT over the years made me realize how much it took from Berserk's success, right down to Navi just being Puck, and Twilight Princess leaned on it even harder. While, obviously, never getting AS medieval grimdark as Berserk reaches, it certainly is more in line with that western medieval fantasy world design. BotW on the other hand is as close to playing freaking Princess Mononoke as you'll ever get, it rides the Ghibli aesthetic all the way home. To the point now where I'm gonna be slightly disappointed if BotW 2 doesn't have a rotting pig demon tied to Ganondorf.

This doesn't have much to do with the actual topic here. In my opinion, I'm WAY more into the former than the latter as far as Zelda goes. (Ghibli films over Berserk manga is a harder choice there) And so I'm just way more into the feel of this tech demo than pretty much 90% of my BotW playthrough. But they each have their pros and cons and different demographics to appeal to.

So... basically be prepared to see stuff you'll never get to play?

I think that some people haven't actually watched the video, which clearly shows that the game DOES run on Wii U hardware, AND that it actually IS a real interactive demo. It may not be a full game, but it isn't even remotely close to being something pre-rendered and running automatically or on rails. You can clearly see the IGN reporter playing and manipulating both screens in real time.

Personally, I think this still looks REALLY good. Kinda like the sequel to Twilight Princess, and I definitely wouldn't have minded being able to download this demo, to show off my Wii U's capabilities, but unfortunately, I guess this demo will remain forever buried in Nintendo's vaults...