So E3 begins tomorrow, and the good stuff starts the day after at ~9am PST (noon if you're EST like myself) when Nintendo has their huge release of information. One of the best things about Nintendo's talk is that, because the company is so secretive concerning their projects, they've always got something to impress the masses with, and a lot of people in the Zelda community are, of course, hoping fervently for a new Zelda game to be announced. There are two big questions on my mind concerning this, and the first one is: what kind of game should we all really be hoping for?

As ZV and Tacheon commented on mere minutes before I got online to post this (thanks a lot, guys ), one of the latest - and certainly one of the most interesting - is Valley of the Deluge (that's how "Aonuma" refers to it in the interview, and I like "Deluge" better than "Flood", so that's what I'll be calling it). As many of you will likely realize from such a title, Deluge tells the tale of one piece of Zelda history that we fans have been wanting to learn about for some time now: the Great Flood that leads up to the events in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass.

The plot, to me, sounds absolutely insane. Seriously, it's crazy. I mean, we've got a character who has gone insane and thinks he's Link, an enemy who's gone insane and will randomly appear in cutscenes solely to display how much of a lunatic he is, and a world that's about to be completely destroyed because some princess in the past had the insane idea that she should send the Hero back to a different timeline and thereby erase him from the one that we're currently concerned with. See what I mean? Insanity runs rampant. And for someone as crazy as myself, that only makes me hope that it's real. Too, we've got a part of the game where it looks like the protagonist, Mr. Identity-Crisis himself, will be traveling around Hyrule trying to help people evacuate to the mountaintops to escape the impending flood - while the water is coming in. Can you say intense? Think Majora's Mask timer reborn . . . and this time, you won't be turning back the clock. You loose somebody in the gushing waters, they're gone. You don't get to a town quickly enough, it's gone. Heck, maybe if you yourself can't flee fast enough you're gone! As someone who loves MM to no end, I can say that this really, really, REALLY appeals to me. I want this game to be real quite badly.

But I'm gonna go on the record as saying that I doubt it.

I've spoken with a few people, and there's all sorts of reasons why it's probably false. Could be that Nintendo wouldn't want to risk it, like Tacheon says, could be that TWW's underwater Hyrule showed no signs of the industrialization talked about in the interview, and there are a few other problematic things. The main one that I go with, though, is the fact that I cannot see Nintendo being foolish enough to talk to this Kyle guy if they weren't 300+% certain that he/his company/whoever is involved in this would not leak the interview. Honestly, Nintendo loves keeping secrets. For them to even talk about an upcoming Zelda game before they've officially announced it strikes me as questionable. For them to talk to someone who later leaks the story . . . I can't see that happening. It could, yes, but let's face it, if it is all real then somebody's gone and screwed up big time. Whoever was the source of the leak . . . I pity you. You've probably already lost your job, and I really doubt you'll be able to get another one with this on your record. I imagine it going a little something like this:

*Kyle walks up to a desk* "Hello, I'd like to apply for a job as an interviewer."

"Alright, sir, what's your name, and do you have any experience?"

"Mr. Kyle C. Krets. I used to be with Secret-Keepers, but something went wrong and--"

"OH GOOD HEAVENS! YOU'RE THE GUY WHO LEAKED THE ZELDA INTERVIEW!!!"

*everyone in the office begins screaming*

"SHUN THE NONBELIEVER!!! SHUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!"

. . .

. . .

. . . that's my example and I'm sticking to it.

That said, there are other alternatives to the direction Zelda could take. Sure, Deluge is the most recent and perhaps the most detailed idea, but let's think back and ponder some of the older rumors that may yet be proven true - I mean, it's been said that Nintendo's been working on the next Zelda since before they'd even released Twilight Princess, so there may yet be some validity to them.

Obviously, after speaking of Twilight Princess, one of the things several people will start hoping for is a sequel to that one. It seems like a logical desire for TP Link to get a second run at being the Hero - AoL came after LoZ, LA after ALttP, MM after OoT, the Oracles were released together, FS and FSA are pretty darn similar, and most recently we've gotten TWW joined by PH. Zelda games seem to work well in pairs, so why wouldn't Nintendo give us a sequel to the most recent console game? Besides, then they might be able to answer some of the burning questions that game left us with . . .

. . . LIKE WHY IN DIN'S NAME DID MR. OGRE KIDNAP THE FREAKIN' ORDONIAN KIDS?! (yes, it's been a year and a half since the game came out and I'm still fuming over that issue) And there are other questions that I'd like some explanation to. For instance, when did the Temple of Time get warped to the forest? How did Ganondorf get to the point where he was about to be killed (right, Aonuma, OoT Link and Zelda just decided to leave Ganondorf be and let him roam about freely . . . like I'm really going to believe that), and how'd he sudden get empowered by the Triforce? Much as I love that 'divine prank' line, I still want to know how it all happened. And one many people are hoping to get an affirmative to, will we ever see Midna again?

Truth be told, many of those questions could be just as easily (or maybe even more easily) answered through a prequel to TP. But then we'd need another Hero, so . . . I doubt that one. Sequel is most likely, if they're even considering doing something else with TP this soon.

Or maybe the next game could be a continuation of the tale from some of the earlier pairings. I wouldn't mind finding out that something else happened to ALttP/LA Link after he'd woken up the Wind Fish. Also, what happened when OoT/MM Link returned to Hyrule? Was there some new evil to fight (you know that some day Nintendo will probably answer yes to that)? Or better yet, how awesome would it be if we were to get a game giving us a look at the world after LoZ and AoL? I don't know about you all, but getting the overworld of AoL remade into a 3D version is something I would start dancing around the room for. And I really hate dancing.

Then there's the rumor that Nintendo has been secretly spying on my room and is teaming up with Microsoft to download all the information I've written up for the Zelda game that I'm writing . . . again, doubtful, but if we should ever get a game entitled Legend of Zelda: Nightmare Cauldron . . .

. . . well, let's just say that I'd better be in charge of that project personally.

So yeah, there's tons of possibilities as to what the next Zelda game might be. So now, question #2 (I'll bet most of you forgot I said there'd be two major questions asked ):

Do we even want them to announce a new Zelda game?

I don't ask this question lightly; goodness knows that every Zelda fan either 1) lives for the next Zelda game to be announced and released or 2) needs to be severely punished for not living for such a thing. But there's something I've often thought about concerning these issues, and that's how the date of the announcement seems to correspond with the release date. If you think about it, both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, the two latest big Zelda games, were announced roughly 1.5-2 years before their release dates were set, and I would actually be quite surprised if the next Zelda game does not continue this trend. The question behind my question therefore becomes "Will the next Zelda game be ready for release a mere two years from now?"

If Nintendo were to answer yes, I'd point back at TWW and TP and make sure they were thinking about those two games as they reconsidered their answer. Both were announced that they'd release two years after the big announcement, but neither one was ready when that time came and suffered for it. In Wind Waker's case, we lost two whole dungeons and had to put up with the Triforce hunt - a very tedious and not terribly exciting portion of the game - just so Nintendo could get the game out on time. Twilight Princess went the other route: rather than release it on time but incomplete, they pushed it back a full year, which resulted in us gamers naturally expecting far more from the game than we ever should have. I'm not blaming any of us for these feelings; I'm just saying that that is what happened. Since more time was being put into a game that was already supposed to be good, we expected it to become more than good, and created expectations which no game - even OoT *throws up defensive barriers!* - could hope to have met.

So . . . I'm unsure about this. As much as I'd love a new Zelda game announced, could it be ready in the right amount of time? Yes, they've said they were working on it while TP was still unreleased, but . . . that's only, what, three years maybe? Even with the two years, that's only five - and yes, I am aware that OoT was worked on for less time than that, but let's face facts - people expect a lot more out of games these days than they did back then. Could they do this? Probably. Would it be good enough if they did? Well, there's a chance, yes. Should they risk it? I'm not so sure.

To tell the truth, I'm anxiously awaiting the day when they wait to announce a Zelda game until said game is already 100% completed.

Reggie: "We're happy to announce the next Zelda game! It's already done, and will be released in three months!"

*Jaws are heard dropping the entire world over*

Again, I doubt it will happen, but . . . this is Zelda. Anything's possible, right?