New particulars have emerged on-line right this moment about Retro Studios’ mysterious Legend of Zelda title ‘Project X‘. Although this spin-off by no means noticed the sunshine of day, it appears there was really a working prototype.

In the identical ‘DidYouKnowGaming?’ YouTube video, the gameplay inside this title was mentioned. According to ex-Retro Studios developer and programmer Paul Tozour, it was an “experiment gone mistaken that occurred to be set within the Zelda universe”.

While a prototype was up and operating, it was described as a simplified model of ‘Whack-A-Mole’ and was believed to be critically undercooked. Players would management Sheik, mounted in a single place, and would hit various kinds of wolves with the Wii Remote.

“There had been 4 or 5 wolves, perhaps six, and they might simply be of their idle state ready to pounce at you, then they’d leap one-by-one and also you’d go ‘Whack’. So that is actually all it was, simply detecting when the participant swung the Wii Remote. If so, the wolf dies, and in case you do not do it appropriately, you’re taking harm.” – Paul Tozour, ex Retro dev

There was additionally overworld traversal – separate from the sport’s fight, the place gamers can be thrown into random battles, much like JRPGs. Tozour additional described it as a “sizzling mess” and despite the fact that the artwork would possibly make it look like the workforce was engaged on one thing particular, there was simply “no gameplay” current.

Concerns had been raised in regards to the route of ‘Project X’ on a number of events, however management ignored warnings and supposedly refused to vary route. Tozour provides how he heard the prototype did not go down properly with Nintendo:

“[Nintendo] could not actually make heads or tails of it. Their response was mainly boils all the way down to ‘that is critically what you are proposing? Really?…[It was] instantly rejected [that’s what I was told,] however I wasn’t there when it occurred, and I suppose there is a chance it by no means really occurred and so they determined to not present it to Nintendo.”

A separate nameless supply from Retro instructed the undertaking additionally might have been axed because of the departure of Retro’s high builders across the identical time. All up, there was believed to be not less than seven folks engaged on ‘Project X’ at Retro Studios earlier than it was ultimately cancelled in 2008.

There are claims Nintendo remains to be occupied with a Sheik undertaking. You can study extra within the video beneath, and extra about Paul Tozour’s expertise with ‘Project X’ in his earlier chat with the podcast KiwiTalkz:

It seems Retro was additionally engaged on one other Zelda spin-off known as Heroes of Hyrule. You can learn extra in our earlier story.