Originally Posted by Raian

When the Resident Evil series needed some new innovation, Capcom began working on new ideas for gameplay and playing experience. One of these prototype concepts played very well, but it was not considered fitting for the Resident Evil series, so it was transformed into a brand new franchise called "Devil May Cry".

Now, on this board and others, I have seen some very interesting concepts for future Zelda titles that, lets face it, have absolutely no chance of reaching the development stage. One of the Nintendo heads (either Iwata or Miyamoto, I forget) made it absolutely clear that the company was not interested in developing mature titles, which means no realistic wars and no guns.

But does a game need to feature "The Legend of Zelda" as its title to hold the Zelda franchise as the standard of single-player adventure gaming? Could first-party and third-party developers look at the experiences that Zelda games have created and apply them to their own original IPs? You would not see characters from the Zelda universe, but to see them reimagined as brand new characters would retain the same charm.

This topic is about taking imaginative ideas about future Zelda titles, such as a futuristic setting or with Link as a hardened soldier, and explaining how various elements of the Zelda series, whether they be story or gameplay, could be applied to new interesting projects. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.