Speaking recently during his Last of the Nintendogs podcast, journalist Jeff Grubb claimed that a remastered version of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes will be releasing “soonish”. Remasters of the Metroid Prime trilogy have, of course, been in the rumour mill for years at this point (most of the Switch’s lifecycle, in fact), and earlier this year, we did get Metroid Prime Remastered, following which Grubb claimed that the other two games in the trilogy would also be coming to the Switch down the line.

While he hasn’t provided concrete details on when Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Remastered could be announced or released, he has reiterated that though it will like feature updated visuals and controls, it probably won’t be as significant of an upgrade as Metroid Prime Remastered was earlier in the year.

In addition to that, Grubb has also claimed that “something not related to Tears of the Kingdom is happening with Zelda later this year.” That, of course, would rule out any new DLC for the open world title, and many wil be hoping that the long-rumoured ports of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD will finally be released for the Switch. Grubb has been wrong about that in particular in the past, though he hasn’t provided any specifics this time, so it remains to be seen what precisely this announcement will be (if it does indeed happen).

Of course, it’s never wise to take leaks at face value when it comes to Nintendo, so make sure to keep in mind before you go marking your calendars. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks.

Iceberg Lounge – Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City is a great game with plenty of high points, but the Iceberg Lounge isn’t one of those. And the reason behind it is simply how uninventive this section is to play, since it requires pulling the Dark Knight across an iced out pool of water through the Batclaw. If something goes awry during this process, a shark will come out of the water and eat you and you’ll have to do it all over again. In addition to this, you only get to fight a few goons during this section – so it’s also pretty light on the action as well. All in all, it’s not difficult or very frustrating, but it can be surprisingly unremarkable – which is why it deserves its rightful place in this list.

Now, it seems (once again) like the time for their official announcement might finally be approaching. Recent rumours have claimed that a Nintendo Direct presentation is planned for sometime in September, and during a recent episode of the Last of the Nintendogs podcast, journalist Jeff Grubb claimed that The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD will finally be announced at the Direct presentation.

There’s no word on what launch dates the ports could be targeting, but it should be interesting to see what timeline Nintendo settles on, especially with Breath of the Wild’s sequel due out in Spring 2023.

Of course, when it comes to Nintendo, you can’t be too sure of anything until it gets officially confirmed, so for now, take this with a grain of salt.

It seems, however, that Tantalus – the studio that developed the aforementioned Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U, and more recently, brought Skyward Sword HD to the Switch – has quashed those rumours- or at least their involvement in any Switch port for the game, if one is indeed in the works. Speaking recently during a recent episode of the Fragments of Silicon podcast (via Nintendo Everything), Tantalus CEO Tom Crago said that while the studio would love to bring the remaster to the Switch, it doesn’t seem to be a priority for Nintendo.

When asked if Nintendo has approached Tantalus about bringing Twilight Princess HD to the Switch, Crago said: “No, and look, we’d obviously love to do that, but that hasn’t been a priority for Nintendo – or at least not in conversations that they’ve had with us.

“The way it works with our friends over there is we’ll jump at any opportunity we can to work on one of their titles. There’s a constant dialog between our two companies. Often there’s a little bit of time that passes between titles, and there might be other ideas that are kicked around, but in the case of Skyward Sword, some time passed and then the email comes: ‘Would you be interested in considering bringing Skyward Sword on to Switch?’ To which the answer is of course: ‘Yes we would.’ And then we enter into the conversations with Nintendo around what that might look like and eventually we get underway. So it was similar in a lot of senses in terms of how Twilight Princess (on Wii U) came to fruition.”

Those hoping to see the remasters making their way to the Switch can, of course, argue that Nintendo may very well have taken on the porting job themselves, or contacted a different studio for the same. Either way, if the Switch ports are indeed coming, we can probably say with some surety that Tantalus won’t be involved, based on Crago’s comments.

A little under a year ago, reports were claiming that the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess remasters were still scheduled to launch for the Switch, but of course, there have been no official announcements from Nintendo regarding the same in the time since then.

Apparently, however, the matter might not be as firmly shut as you’d think. Over on Twitter, Andy Robinson of VGC, who was one of the people who mentioned Summer announcements for The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, suggested that those games are still coming to the Switch, asking Zelda fans to “sit tight” and suggesting in another tweet that Nintendo’s not going to announce those games while Skyward Sword HD still isn’t out.

Skyward Sword HD is launching for the Switch on July 16, while Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is also getting new content soon. Meanwhile, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is coming next year.

Update on this for everyone who's now flooding my mentions: predicting dates is a fool's game and I should never have used "100%" in the original tweet. Zelda fans, sit tight.

— Andy Robinson (@Andy_VGC) June 15, 2021

Correct.

— Andy Robinson (@Andy_VGC) June 15, 2021

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. At yesterday’s E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, while announcing the new Game and Watch for The Legend of Zelda, series producer Eiji Auonuma confirmed that currently, Nintendo has no specific plans for any other Switch games in the series beyond what’s already been announced.

“This year the original Legend of Zelda game reaches its 35th anniversary. While we don’t have any campaigns or other Nintendo Switch games planned, we’ve been working on this Game and Watch system as a special item to help mark the occasion and reflect fondly on the earliest days of The Legend of Zelda,” Auonuma said.

Meanwhile, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is receiving additional content soon, while it’s been confirmed that the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – or whatever it ends up being called – will launch in 2022.

2021 is the year of The Legend of Zelda’s 35th anniversary, and most have been expecting Nintendo to do something special for the occasion. Largely, the expectations have been that they will do something similar to what they did for Mario’s 35th anniversary last year, and re-release older games on the Switch. In the recent Nintendo Direct however, other than the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, no other announcements for Zelda were made.

Recently, insiders have suggested that announcements for The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are still forthcoming, and in a recently published report on GamesBeat, Jeff Grubb provided some more insight into that. According to Grubb, the relative lack of Zelda announcements is driven by marketing decisions, not only because Super Mario’s 35th anniversary plans are still ongoing, but also because Nintendo wants to maximize the visibility and sales of each planned Zelda release as much as possible.

“Nintendo will want to position The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD out in front,” Grubb writes. “This is one of the biggest reasons that Nintendo didn’t talk about other Zelda beyond Skyward Sword HD in its latest Direct video event. The company doesn’t want other Zelda games to distract from its attempts to bring back Skyward Sword. Sure, it could’ve released Wind Waker and Twilight Princess at the same time, but the company wants Zelda fans all focused on Skyward Sword.”

Grubb goes on to state that Nintendo will maintain a “steady cadence” of releases to celebrate the series’ Zelda anniversary, adding that plans for The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are likely to be announced this Summer, shortly after the launch of Skyward Sword HD.

Meanwhile, development on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel is also ongoing, with series producer Eiji Aonuma recently confirming that Nintendo will be providing a proper update on the game later in the year.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD launches for the Nintendo Switch on July 16.

In its latest Direct presentation, Nintendo announced that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Those disappointed by this news shouldn’t fret – according to two sources, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD are also coming to the platform this year. Eurogamer’s Tom Philips was the first to hint at this on Twitter.

In response to a tweet about not having to re-purchase Twilight Princess and Wind Waker this year, Philips simply said, “See you in a couple months.” Andy Robinson of VGC was far more direct though, tweeting that “Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are 100% coming this year. So that’s at least one good 3D Zelda.” These titles – if not some kind of bundle akin to Super Mario 3D All-Stars to celebrate Zelda’s 35th anniversary – have been rumored for a while so it wouldn’t be too surprising. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt.

In terms of new stuff, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel will reportedly receive new details later this year. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is also getting some paid DLC courtesy of its expansion pass. The first wave drops in June and provides an “expanded roster” along with new challenges.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is slated to release on July 16th for Switch.

See you in a couple months 🙂

— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsEG) February 18, 2021

https://twitter.com/AndyPlaytonic/status/1362213588694368260

The NPD Group’s report for March 2016 is in, showcasing sales of physical software in the gaming industry for the United States. Tom Clancy’s The Division is on top among its competitors and experienced the best launch month for any Tom Clancy game in the series till date, sellign 40 percent more than its nearest competitor Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

In fact, according to analyst Liam Callahan, “Ubisoft is the number one software publisher for Q1 2016” thanks to its success with The Division and Far Cry Primal (the second highest selling title for March 2016). Unit sales have increased by 130 percent and dollar sales are over 200 percent.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD saw a rather unexpected level of success, ranking third and selling more units in the first month than many first-party Wii U titles. Only games like Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Maker and Mario Kart 8 can beat it.

A Nintendo spokesperson stated that, “The game’s strong reception provides a great start to the 30th year of The Legend of Zelda franchise, which continues to be one of gaming’s most beloved and iconic series. Together with the Hyrule Warriors Legends game for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, the two titles combined to sell over 400,000 units.”

The NPD’s top ten also included Grand Theft Auto 5, EA Sports UFC 2, MLB The Show 16, Pokken Tournament, NBA 2K16, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Minecraft.

It may not reinvent the wheel but Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry Primal is going great guns in the UK. Gfk Chart-Track reports that the open world action adventure is still the top-selling game across all platforms in the UK, followed by The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U in second place.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is in third place followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and FIFA 16. LEGO Marvel Avengers still manages to stay in the top ten at sixth place, followed by Grand Theft Auto 5 at seventh place. Heavy Rain & Beyond: Two Souls Collection is the other new entry this week on the PS4 at eighth place followed by Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege and Forza Motorsport 6.

Keep in mind that the Chart-Track sales only factor in physical retail sales. If anything, this offers a look at the current demand in retail shops rather than overall successes of some games. What will the charts look like when Tom Clancy’s The Division and Hitman release this week? Check back next week to find out.