Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was Almost a Zelda Game

The Wii U has a handful of high-profile titles releasing in the next few weeks. One of these is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, a clever adventure title based on the Captain Toad mini game from Super Mario 3D World. However, it has been revealed that the game was originally going to be a Legend of Zelda title.

Game Director Shinya Hiratake says he was trying to come up with a game set in smaller worlds. He figured that if he removed the jump mechanic, he could shrink the worlds considerably. For the protagonist, he settled on Link, a character famous for not being able to jump. Hiratake and a small team worked up a tech demo, which they presented to some of the bigwigs at Nintendo, including Shigeru Miyamoto, General Manager of Nintendo EAD.

"We must have done too good of a job with our demo," said Hiratake, "because during our presentation, Mr. Miyamoto asked us how we were planning on bringing these dioramas into production. He thought we were pitching him an actual physical product design."

Miyamoto shot down the game, but he thought the concept had potential, so the team was allowed to incorporate the idea into the Captain Toad mini game in Super Mario 3D World. After Super Mario 3D World was released, Miyamoto approached the team and asked them to expand it into a full-blown Toad title. "We like to think that Mr. Miyamoto finally realized the vision we had for a diorama those many years ago," said Hiratake.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker releases for Wii U on December 5th.

While almost any game starring Link ends up being awesome, I’m glad they went with Toad on this one. The little guy has needed his own game for a long time. I can’t wait for December 5th!