When it comes to The Legend of Zelda, there are few peers. It has a decades-long pedigree of quality, and there’s a reason why we call many similar games “Zelda-likes.”
Those come and go, but not all of them see the light of day, especially if they can’t get funding. In this case, a legendary creator was set to produce a “large, open-world type RPG” that would have come out directly after Zelda, but, according to an interview with Ars Technica, it was canceled.
Monkey Island Creator Ron Gilbert Forced To Cancel Game
It Was A Money Issue
Famed Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert opened up recently about his Zelda-like project, which he spent roughly “a year tinkering with,” even going so far as to hire an artist to start getting it off the ground and in front of publishers. Sadly, not many publishers wanted to finance a top-down action-RPG, with Gilbert noting that the publisher deals were “horrible.”
Gilbert explains:
“Doing a pixelated old-school Zelda thing isn’t the big, hot item, so publishers look at us, and they didn’t look at it as ‘we’re gonna make $100 million and it’s worth investing in. The amount of money they’re willing to put up and the deals they were offering just made absolutely no sense to me to go do this.”
It still comes up often from fans: “Why didn’t he just crowdfund?” Well, according to Gilbert, “Kickstarter is basically dead these days as a way of funding games,” so you can probably tell how he feels about that particular avenue.
Eventually, the project was scrapped, and he began work on his next project, Death by Scrolling, which is currently on Steam. At least there’s a happy ending, even if we missed out.
Zelda Fans Have Missed Out On A Potential Classic
We Could Always Use More Zelda-Likes
Just like Metroidvanias, I’ll always take more Zelda-likes. While not all of them are of equal quality, they’re typically developed by passionate developers who understand why the classic Nintendo series is so special and put their own unique spin on it. The keyword here is “like,” as simply copying the Zelda formula doesn’t always work out.
It sounds like Ron Gilbert’s game would have been a great homage to The Legend of Zelda, but with that irreverent Gilbert spin. It’s a shame we aren’t going to see it, but at least something creative came out of it, and Gilbert is willing to talk so openly about the current state of trying to get a game published in the industry.
- Released
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July 15, 2009
- ESRB
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E 10+ // Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence, Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
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LucasArts
- Publisher(s)
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LucasArts, Disney Interactive
- Franchise
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Monkey Island