Link’s Crossbow Training almost had a very different premise, as the developers initially pitched a storyline similar to that of the Terminator movies. The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy series, but there have been several scrapped ideas for futuristic Zelda storylines in the past.
Link’s Crossbow Training was built using assets from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, turning areas from the game into light gun stages. There were also a few third-person shooter stages, where the player controlled Link as he explored levels filled with enemies. Link’s Crossbow Training was bundled with the Wii Zapper light gun accessory, named after the one used for NES games like Duck Hunt. The Wii Zapper was simply a plastic case that housed the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in the shape of a gun.
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A few concessions had to be made for Link’s Crossbow Training. For one thing, Link normally doesn’t use a crossbow (which might be why he needs training). He generally uses bows and slingshots in his arsenal. Even if it’s unusual for Link, though, the idea of him using a crossbow was far saner than what Shigeru Miyamoto originally proposed.
Link’s Crossbow Training Could Have Been A Terminator-Like Zelda Game
In an Iwata Asks interview, Miyamoto said that, when designing the Zapper, Nintendo wanted a game to go along with it. The Zapper’s creators determined franchises like Animal Crossing or Mario wouldn’t suit the first-person shooter genre, so they settled on The Legend of Zelda. It bears mentioning that Miyamoto never said the Metroid franchise was considered, even though Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was mentioned earlier in the same interview. Miyamoto pitched “a sort of Terminator style story,” where Link would receive a gun via a time warp from the future, but this was instantly shot down by the team.
The idea of a time-traveling Link’s Crossbow Training makes sense, considering how important the concept is to the storylines of games like Ocarina of Time, Oracle of Ages, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. It’s unclear whether Miyamoto envisioned Link acquiring a gun in the future and bringing it back to his era or battling robots in a devastated version of Hyrule. Then again, the premise of the latter sounds a lot like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Source: Iwata Asks
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