Fans of “The Legend of Zelda” have been poking fun at the gender of Link for a while, and he has been the inspiration of various suggestions for the franchise’s future, such as the introduction of a new female lead character. And it looks like Nintendo have been listening, because the upcoming “Hyrule Warriors Legends” is apparently going to include Linkle, a female version of Link, and we’ve even seen a couple of pictures of her.
This has of course caused a lot of commotion among fans, and it’s clear that many people would be interested in seeing someone like that joining the line-up of characters for the next “Zelda” game, and it would be an interesting twist on the original plot. Whether this could have any more serious implications on the story or if it will be just a cosmetic change is early to say, but of course there are some obvious effects that it will have which fans have already been talking about.
Namely, the love interest between Link and Zelda will have a slightly different tone if Link himself is not in the game but is replaced by Linkle, but of course that will also be a minor detail in the grand scheme of things. And of course, the game is not actually going to be in the main canon of the franchise, as it’s actually a spin-off, so no matter what its writers decide to do with the character of Linkle, it won’t really have any impact on the main story of the franchise as a whole.
This is not even the first time we’re seeing Linkle, as according to some reports, she first appeared in an art book for “Hyrule Warriors” when it came out on the Wii U, but back then it was claimed that she was a rejected version of Link’s character who didn’t make it into the final game. Obviously the studio has been considering her more actively than they were letting their fans know, and in the end they’ve decided to bring her to the series for good.
Fans have already been alert about a possible new character coming to the game for a while now, as some time ago we saw a crossbow in a trailer for the game, a detail which immediately grabbed the attention of some fans and led them to speculate about its possible meaning. Many were already on the page of a new character coming to the game, and some were also talking about a female character, but we didn’t have any official details about the developers’ intentions until now.
With all that we’ve been hearing about “Hyrule Warriors Legends”, it could turn out to be an interesting title and a great addition to the series as a whole. Fans of the “Zelda” franchise have been hungry for more, and the popularity of the series means that the developers would be smart to keep putting out even more games of diverse styles.
There are already rumors about some new games planned for the near future, but we have no idea what the studio is really thinking right now. They are already offloading their work to other studios, such as the example with “Hyrule Warriors Legends” which is being handled by Koei Temco, so it’s possible that the main franchise of the game is about to get expanded with something a lot more interesting and dramatic than the releases we’ve seen before.