Link’s Awakening
That brings us to the here and now. The Switch will launch on Friday, and while its launch lineup has grown somewhat to about a dozen games, it’s still a bit light compared to the 20-25 launch titles gamers have become accustomed to from other console launches. Mario is coming, but not until fall at the earliest. Mario Kart is coming, but not on launch day, and it’s a port of the 2014 Wii U game. A Splatoon sequel is in development, but it’s not coming until summer, and as fun as it looks, it also appears at a glance to be a paint-by-numbers sequel.
Nintendo, meanwhile, is still hurting from the unmitigated business disaster that was the Wii U. It needs the Switch to be a success, and for that to happen, it needs big third-party support. But third parties are skeptical, as they so often are with Nintendo consoles. Nintendo needs its new machine to be a big hit right away so it can build a large enough install base to attract the kind of third-party support necessary to fuel long-term, mass-audience success.
How does it do that? With a sleepy elf boy waking up and being not just a good or even a great game. In fact, not even being one of the best games of 2017 will do. No, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild must be one of the best games of all time if it is to live up to the massive hype behind it, thus satisfying fans’ almost preposterously high expectations and getting and keeping Switch units flying off store shelves throughout 2017 and beyond.
Last week, we were inundated with last-minute impressions of the final game ahead of the reviews, which have just dropped. The buzz only continued to grow, with outlets around the world praising the game’s first few hours. And just looking at the game’s initial reviews, it’s looking promising already. So maybe, just maybe, Nintendo has pulled it off and created an unforgettable classic in Breath of the Wild that we’ll still be talking about 30 years from now.
It better hope that’s the case, too. If it isn’t, the intense backlash from the company’s biggest fans will be the least of its concerns, as the Switch, entirely devoid of non-gaming features and light on other games at launch, ends up dead on arrival.
