Sooner than planned, I’ve got another behind-the-story video for you. This is about the usual way Nintendo handled their E3 2019 reveal of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (or, as they called it at the time, the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild).
I was inspired by a Kotaku article I saw this morning, covering a fun bit from the latest installment of the Kit & Krysta Show, which often includes stories from the co-hosts’ lengthy stints working for Nintendo. In the new one, Kit Ellis explains how he was one of fewer than 10 people at Nintendo of America who was aware of Nintendo’s plans to announce the Zelda sequel at that E3.
Ellis tells his end of the story at the 54:14 mark of their newest episode, which covers the biggest secrets the pair kept at Nintendo.
As Ellis explains it, Nintendo wants to keep the news from leaking and even excluded mentions of the Breath of the Wild sequel from the official E3 marketing plans…. until the last minute.
My video is about the press end of things: In the era of all-digital Nintendo Direct E3 showcases, Nintendo would invite a select number of reporters to screen the Direct a couple of days ahead of its airing. In this case, I watched the Direct on Sunday, June 9, 2019. In each prior year, Nintendo had shown us the whole thing. The version they showed us on June 9 ended with the reveal that the classic Nintendo 64-era characters Banjo-Kazooie, now owned and controlled by Microsoft, would return to Nintendo platforms as fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Fun stuff.
Just watch this video and imagine it ending at the 40:40 mark. That’s what I saw. I thought it was the whole Nintendo E2 Direct!
On Sunday, June 10, Nintendo even sent reporters an embargoed “final” press release of their E3 announcements.
And on Tuesday, June 11, the Nintendo Direct aired. Except, when it aired, it included an extra 80 or so seconds of trailer footage that they hadn’t shown to the press: the teaser for Tears of the Kingdom.
I checked Nintendo’s official E3 2019 press release and, sure enough, it has only a brief mention of the Zelda teaser. That now makes a lot of sense, given Ellis’ explanation that even much of Nintendo didn’t know they’d be revealing it. Down in paragraph three, right at the end, after the mention of Banjo-Kazooie, there’s just this one line (that i’ve bolded):
Nintendo also revealed two new paid downloadable fighters coming to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game: Hero from the DRAGON QUEST series to be available this summer, and Banjo-Kazooie for this fall. The Nintendo Direct presentation concluded with the reveal of the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is currently in development for Nintendo Switch.
Game companies keep secrets from the press all the time. It’s their right. I can’t recall any other instance, though, where they told the press everything except their one-more-thing. Given the scale of Nintendo’s news that E3, though, I get it.
If you’d rather watch the video on YouTube, check out my channel, where it should be live shortly after this version of the post is published.
