Almost any game franchise with a long lineage will have a ton of hype attached to any new release, but when it comes to a franchise as storied as the one Link stars in, that amount of anticipation gets even greater.

Which is why the upcoming "Legend of Zelda" for the Wii U has been the subject of plenty of talk ever since it was first announced, and yet there's not much to go by at this point.

One of the few things known about the upcoming game is that it will be the one title from the franchise thus far that will most clearly evoke the qualities of an open-world game, but the degree to which it does so is uncertain. Although the new "Legend of Zelda" game may be more open in relation to earlier games from the franchise, its open-world qualities may still not be what people expect, according to Movie Pilot.

If the new game does fully commit to the idea of an open-world game, then what it might ultimately look like could be unexpected; but there's still little available information on that front to form a reasonable prediction even now.

There's also a growing fear that "Legend of Zelda" for the Wii U may be a bit further away from what most people might have hoped.

As of now, "Legend of Zelda" for the Wii U is not expected to be shown at the upcoming PAX Prime event; in its place will be the multiplayer entry from the franchise known as "The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes," according to Gaming-Age.

This is on top of the news that Nintendo has assigned a TBD (to be decided) release date for the game. Prior to the TBD designation, many industry insiders had the game pegged for a 2016 release; but now that appears unlikely, according to Design and Trend.

As always, fans can only stay tuned to see what new updates do come out for "Legend of Zelda."