The Twilight Princess Sequels We Never Got To See
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess couldn't be any more different than its 3D predecessor, The Wind Waker. While fans and critics alike enjoyed The Wind Waker, there was still an itch for a true follow-up to the Nintendo 64 Zelda titles. When Twilight Princess was revealed in 2004, fans quite literally erupted with excited screams and shouts. This had been the Zelda title the fan base had been waiting for, and they would finally get it in 2006 for both GameCube and Wii.
Twilight Princess made waves with critics and was beloved by many in the Zelda community. The game was dark and gritty and had an engaging story that starred the fan favorite, Midna. However, what many never realized is that developers at Nintendo also wanted to continue the Twilight Princess saga. To the team's dismay, and probably the Zelda community's as well, the Twilight Princess sequels wouldn't pan out the way they'd hoped.
The sequel ideas were too ambitious
According to an interview with Nintendo, Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto rounded up the Twilight Princess development team to work on a direct follow-up to the title. The sequel was going to reuse assets from Twilight Princess, similar to how Majora's Mask had the same character models and game engine as Ocarina of Time. However, the entire process became too daunting, causing Miyamoto to rethink the project entirely. "I asked our Zelda staff to think about a new project with an extra story based around Twilight Princess. But then they were coming up with stories that can be described as 'epic tales' rather than 'side stories,'" Miyamoto said.
After several internal disagreements, Miyamoto ultimately settled on making a smaller game that would somewhat tie in with Twilight Princess. This project would become Link's Crossbow Training, a third-person shooter that would make use of the Wii Zapper. The accessory allowed the player to control Link's movement while shooting hordes of enemies with a single crossbow. Link's Crossbow Training reused all of the same textures and models from Twilight Princess, but it wasn't exactly the full-fledged adventure fans could've gotten.