Highlights

  • Nintendo originally doubted Hyrule Warriors, fearing it would harm the Zelda brand, but it ended up selling well.
  • Former employees revealed worries about the game's quality and potential impact, but it proved successful with a dedicated following.
  • Hyrule Warriors paved the way for spin-offs like Persona 5 Strikers and Fire Emblem Warriors, and it even recieved a sequel.

A pair of former Nintendo of America employees have revealed that the company originally didn't have much confidence in Hyrule Warriors, with worries about it damaging The Legend of Zelda brand. Hyrule Warriors is a spin-off of the series that was produced by Nintendo in collaboration with Koei Tecmo and Omega Force, moving the franchise away from the traditional dungeon crawling and puzzle solving to a more straight-forward hack-and-slash game in the vein of Dynasty Warriors. Hyrule Warriors was also a crossover between different Zelda games, starring a set of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf incarnations.

At the time, the spin-off was one of the more shocking combinations of games, especially when there was less confidence in Omega Force's reputation in 2014. While the spin-off received mixed reviews on launch, Hyrule Warriors still has a bit of a following due to its status as a love letter to the Zelda franchise. There were worries that the spin-off would end up hurting the Zelda brand in general, according to former Nintendo Minute hosts Kit and Krysta.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Link and Zelda
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In one of the latest episodes of the duo's podcast, they were asked about if there were any games that Nintendo released that some employees in the company thought would be bad or wouldn't live up to expectations. While Krysta brought up Dragon Quest or other niche JRPGs that ended up having unrealistic sales targets, Kit brought up the original Hyrule Warriors on Wii U. He recalls that there were worries from Nintendo of America that the game wasn't going to be very good or that it would "drop the status of Zelda," to the point that there was the possibility of making Hyrule Warriors a Japan-only release.

Nintendo Almost Didn't Bring Hyrule Warriors Out of Japan

On the other hand, Kit was a big fan of Omega Force's Dynasty Warriors games, and notes that there is a surprisingly big audience for them, meaning it'd be a big missed opportunity if they didn't try to release the game outside of Japan. Both Kit and Krysta note how funny this sentiment seems in hindsight, as Hyrule Warriors did sell well, and it got ports on both the Nintendo 3DS and Switch, both of which added additional content like new characters and costumes.

Hyrule Warriors also got a sequel in the form of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a game that acted as a prequel to Breath of the Wild. Omega Force would also end up doing other musou-styled spin-offs for other franchises, such as Persona 5 Strikers and two Fire Emblem Warriors games. These spin-offs likely wouldn't have been possible without Nintendo putting faith in Omega Force for Hyrule Warriors.