As expected, Nintendo has dropped the hammer on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of a NES, a retro-styled reimagining of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The takedown notice was issued to developer Winter Drake by Nintendo’s lawyers over the weekend, and it’s available for public viewing on Twitter.
Even though this is a huge setback for Winter Drake, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of a NES will continue in an altered form. The developer has vowed to remove every reference to Nintendo’s franchise, and replace them with original characters and designs. Winter Drake even posted this encouraging message on the game’s Itch.io this morning: “Nintendo has asked me to take stop hosting the game. The project will live on, just not with Zelda characters.”
And speaking to Kotaku, Winter Drake revealed that the new vision for Breath of the NES will include “32-bit sprites” and “a rich soundtrack”:
As for what Breath of the NES’s spiritual successor will look like, Winter is planning on 32-bit sprites working with musicians to put together a rich soundtrack. Substituting improved gameplay and originality for the 8-bit nostalgia powering the original project won’t be easy though, meaning we probably won’t see a new trailer or playable demo for some time. “Ideally I’d like to make the final game a big cross-platform release on Steam,” Winter said. “I may even start a Kickstarter once I can show off what the new game will have to offer.”
As before, Winter Drake will be providing additional updates on the progress of Breath of the NES’s successor on Twitter.
