Future Zelda games to use motion controls

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

If the thought of Skyward Sword being the first and last Zelda game to make great use of motion controls saddens you, fear not, for Eiji Aonuma himself has admitted that he can no longer see the series returning to its button-based roots.

I honestly think we cannot go back to button controls now, so I think that these controls will be used in future Zelda titles, too.

Personally, this news makes me quite happy as I’ve found the tactility of Skyward Sword‘s controls one of the most satisfying aspects of the game. But will the Zelda team be able to take advantage of both the Wii MotionPlus sensor and the touchscreen controller at the same time?

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. JD2995

    Yeah 😀

  2. tron

    sad to hear this. i for one dont like the controls in skyward sword. imagine trying to do those things with the 6 inch tablet controller. nintendo seems to always find a way to leave their hardcore fans….. like WTF!

    • Captain Falcon

      lolwut? Who said that the majority of the motion controls is done on the U controller? It might be done on the Wiimote.. who knows..

    • GameCollector44

      @tron: The notion that just because it uses motion controls makes it not “hardcore” (gag) is retarded. If that’s the case, then I guess Resistance 3 isn’t hardcore. Or the Goldeneye remake, those both used motion controls.

      The only “hardcore” fans they’re leaving behind don’t need to be following them in the first place.

  3. Andy

    This news fills my heart with rainbows! What I think they’ll do is that you’ll use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck for the sword and shield, and you’ll have the option of using the Wii U controller for things like item selection and maps.

  4. blabla

    NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
    I was hoping for a real Zelda without motion controls. I’ve gotten tired of swinging my controller around. I play games whenever I want to relax, and swinging a remote around, is not very relaxing. They should at least make it optional. Aiming for the hard core audience while using casual and gimmicky controls is just ridiculous. Call me crazy but I am done with motion controls. That’s why I think the Wii U is so interesting since it was more focused on the controller instead of motion controls. But I guess I was wrong. Might not even pick the next Zelda game up because I did not enjoy Skyward Sword.

    • F0

      You know, Skyward Sword reads your motions perfectly fine if you only use small wrist flicks. I played a 5-hour session of it that way and didn’t find it tiring at all.

    • Sparkymoreno

      Ya see. This is what I was afraid of. People mistaking motion gameplay for “casual”. As Skyward demonstrated, the well-integrated motion controls add a level of dexterity and depth to the gameplay which is next level for what you refer to “hardcore”. Some people are so traditional with how they play a game that when pick a wiimote and play a game with well detected motion instead of cheap waggle controls, they simple don’t get it. I can only point fingers at Nintendo for building this inaccurate perception with marketing the Wii. Dual Analogs are great but definitely not definitive as hardcore.

      I am excited to hear that this will continue for the next Zelda game. I can only imagine what they can do with Wiimotion + and a powerful console. They can further improve what was done with SWS. I can totally see dynamic fluid animations along with physics and beautiful graphics. As for the touchscreen, it can still be used as a supplemental controller. I don’t see Nintendo letting it go to waste. I can think of at least 10 things to do with it. For example: **WARNING small SPOILER for Skyward Sword**
      Remember when you went through the trails in the another dimension and had too collect the tears. Well.. you never used a sword..so you dont need the wiimote to swing. What if they let you switch to touchscreen controller? Use the touchscreen or TV as HUD view while those guardians chase after you. As they get closer, the sounds get louder on your controller similar to Silent Hill” Shatter Memories… man… the possibilities…..

    • Sinanju

      People are not mistaking motion gameplay for “casual”. People like or don’t like to play with this kind of controls, and some of old the Zelda fans are like the “hardcore public” of the franchise. That’s what I think.
      I’m not a big Zelda fan, but I love Metroid, and I know how it feels when Nintendo takes a franchise and “completely” change the way you play it.

  5. AUDIE MURPHY REAL GAMER

    swinging stop confusing motion with waggle !!

    i play skyward sward in a very relaxed manner as i do COD and all wii remote games

    only time i move in a more wagglish way is wii sports

    wii from from wrist NOT YOUR SHOULDER !

  6. crackkat

    awesome!! couldnt be happier about this 😀 i loved the control scheme

  7. blabla

    What I mean is the Wii U was supposed to bring back the old core Nintendo gamers who got turned off by the Wii. Then why are Nintendo planning to make their franchises on Wii U with motion controls if that was the thing that made people leave in the first place? I doesn’t make any sense to me. I did not say that the controls for SS were bad. They work flawlessly. And people who think I’m just waggling with the controls should know that I played the game like it was supposed to be played, meaning like I was using a real sword with 1:1 motion tracking. And that is not very relaxing, at least for me.

    And when I said casual and gimmicky controls.
    Let’s be honest, the motion controls are a gimmick, just like the screen on the Wii U is a gimmick. A gimmick don’t necessarily mean a bad thing.
    And the thing I said about casual is that most people see motion games as casual games, but that’s because Nintendo marketed them as being just that. Intentionally or not, that’s how the perception of motion gaming is now.

    Marketing the Wii U at more than one target audience is very dangerous since people needs to have a clear picture of whom this system is made for. The ones that like Wii or the ones that like the old school Nintendo. You can’t have both. Just look at PS3 and their Move. The Move is pretty much already dead because the PS3 was targeted at the old school gamers.

    Now that Nintendo is working on their new system, I think they should use the controller instead of making people play with Wiimotes. I mean,why did they even make a new controller if there gonna use their old controller for their newer games? Not saying that all future Nintendo games are going to use the Wiimote, but for a huge franchise like Zelda, shouldn’t they take advantage of the brand new controller? Otherwise they might as well release the game on Wii is the game is using the Wii controls anyway.
    Nintendo should give us an experience that we haven’t seen before, and motion controls aren’t a new experience anymore. The screen on the controller is not something revolutionary either, but it’s something fresh.

    • FL767

      The Wiimote isn’t a gimmick. It’s the next step in game control! You can equate it to the dawn of the Analog Stick. The thing with motion controls is that they work in all directions, whereas a D-Pad or an Analog Stick is only two-dimensional. The Wii’s motion controls NEVER turned off Nintendo’s core audience. What turned the core users off was the fact that the motion controls really never used correctly. Waggle controls are “casual”, yes, but Skyward Sword is a core game, and a hell of a game at that. And it uses 1:1 motion controls. The fact that it takes people time to get used to isn’t a testiment to how bad motion controls are, just the fact that Nintendo didn’t do a thing to prepare us for them like they should have when the wii came out.

      The touchscreen controller is there because Nintendo wants the game to be about you- U- now. With the Wii, we all got handed the motion controller and where told to have a blast. With the Wii U, you can shut the door and grab whatever controller you’d like, be it the tablet, the wiimote, or the classic controller, which appears to be evolving from just being used for VC games, although it did find some nice usage in retail Wii titles. Even whn playing multiplayer, everyone of U has a choice when Wii play. Nintendo has multiplayer games where each player can use a different controller and play with different roles and rules in the game.

    • Sparkymoreno

      To each their own. Everyone has their own way of playing games. Some people are VERY traditional. And do not mistake people that are very traditional to people that are “hardcore”. Hardcore involves having great understanding, dedication and deep knowledge . Its almost noobish that people throw these words around and don’t even know what they mean. A gimmick is a unnecessary feature used to appeal and attract attention. Anything fresh and innovative can be seen as gimmicky to the noobish untrained eye but a “harcore person” can see that the wiimote was made to make controlling videogames very user-friendly, simpler, and comprehensible while still staying true to core gaming aspects. That is the primary of objective when improving/evolving any software interface or human-to-device interactions. That’s like calling the Iphone gimmicky due to the touchscreen. Probably b/c you think that touchscreen is there to only replace the dial pad while a hardcore tech person can see that it can be used beyond that…

      I just can’t see how you would wanna give up speed and precision the pointer on the wiimote vs using two analog stick to move a rectile across the screen. Or dismiss the satisfaction of slicing a Deku baba’s head in half with a flick of your wrist, when for the last 40 years people have been pressing a button or pushing a joystick to swing a sword. Maybe your being greedy when your asking for something fresh so quickly. This way of control has only been out for the last 5 years vs the 40 years of the traditional way. And started to be perfected in the last two years with games like SWS, Wii sports Resort and Red Steel 2, and its getting better. And you asked for a new experience…. got it with SWS….admitted they controls weren’t bad… but want to Nintendo to go back to using an old control scheme of 2 analog sticks??? Because it didn’t work for you? And you feel that putting a screen on the controller (even though you have been playing games on a screen all your life) is fresher than Nintendo improving on a control scheme where you actually move your controller 1:1? Hmmmmm

      You may call yourself hardcore and that’s fine.I am not saying your aren’t. But when it comes to the subject about Zelda’s control schemes, you got it mixed up. Just say you’re a “purist” of the traditional way and not confuse it with the subject of what is casual,hardcore, and target audiences.

  8. blabla

    If you look up the definition of “gimmick” it says:
    “something designed to attract extra attention, interest, or publicity”
    So the Wiimote IS a gimmick. It may have changed the way a lot of us play games today, but the motion controls were the Wii’s gimmick, since it was the feature that made people buy the system.

    The analog sticks have now become standard and I don’t see motion gaming becoming a standard feature whatsoever. Maybe for Nintendo but not for Microsoft or Sony. And since they are Nintendo’s competitors Nintendo shouldn’t rely on motion controls only and they can’t because the interest is not as big as it was back in 2006. I think they should move on and focus on their new controller. Make it innovative in terms of use like with the Wii’s controls.
    And yes, a lot of Nintendo’s core gamers left because of the Wii. If you go back and look when the Wii was announced, People were getting mad because it wasn’t as powerful and Nintendo only relied on the motion controls (also the name made people very mad)
    The Wii has now sold over 80 million units but if you look at the best selling games for the Wii are games like Wii sports resort, Wii play and Wii fit. If you look at the more “core” Wii games like Super Smash Bros Brawl, only around 10 million games were sold. Why not more than Wii fit? Because a lot of the core gamers left and now the Wii’s biggest fanbase now belongs to families and older people. I know Nintendo has always been about family fun but the majority of Wii owners don’t really buy any games for it unless it’s party oriented like Sports Resort.

    Therefor I think if Nintendo wants a good amount of their fans back, they should go back to their roots.

    And again, I didn’t say that Skyward Sword was a casual game, nor bad. But I personally liked the use of buttons better. And it wasn’t because it took time getting used to WiiMotion Plus, it’s just not that interesting anymore in my opinion. I don’t see anything bad with making the Wii U, Wiimote optional. And that’s how it should be. It should be optional to the player if they want to use motion controls or not. Right now, they’re just throwing it at my face now when I was hoping for a Zelda game that would take advantage of their new U controller and not something similar to Skyward Sword. So if Nintendo wants their games to be about “me” then they should make it optional so “Wii” all can play the games the way “U” want.

  9. bingo

    i been saying all along that the wiiu pad is perfect as a side kick controller wilst playing with wii remote and chuck or even a classic pad use the wiiu pad as a map info screen and voice chat device on your lap or in a craddle , not hard is it….

  10. blabla

    @ Sparkymoreno
    There is a difference when I say “hardcore” and just “core”. Hardcore is something that some games made up, meaning if you don’t play COD then you aren’t hardcore. It’s not the way I look at it. But maybe I didn’t explain myself that well.
    I am not saying that I am a “hardcore” gamer myself. I am more like an old school Nintendo gamer who enjoy the way I used to play games back then but even though just using buttons is so old, I am personally already tired of motion controls.
    Of course I respect your opinion and I see that you respect mine too. It’s good that you have some valid points.

    It was Nintendo who just announced a new console so of course I want something new. If they didn’t announce any new system, I would still be using my Wii. But now when I see their new system, I want the features that they promise and that is a new controller that is going to change the way we play our games. so I don’t think I’m greedy when Nintendo pretty much said this themselves.
    Isn’t Nintendo greedy too when they try to target more than one target audience? I study at a business college so I’ve learned that targeting at one audience is more secure and most of the time more succesful since people get a better idea of their product if it’s for them or not for them. And mixing that together can confuse many customers.

    But if we put the target audiences to the side and only think about the games, I think they should make the motion controls optional. I personally would love to just use the new U controller instead of switching between controllers but I guess that comes up to what you prefer. I prefer using buttons and you may prefer motion controls. Then why not end up getting both so we all can enjoy? Or are you the greedy one LOL, JK.

  11. Two Controllers Two Players

    They should make Zelda for Wii U co-op. One player can use the Wii Remote Plus to control Link and his sword while another player uses the Wii U controller to control Zelda. Zelda can have a completely different set of moves and abilities that take advantage of the Wii U controller (such as spell casting), all while allowing Link to continue to use the Wii Remote Plus and nunchuk for his sword and shield.