'The Legend of Zelda' for Wii U update: Hyrule massive enough for players to be sidetracked

No official title yet, the Legend of Zelda for Wii U is set to be released this year.Nintendo

Nintendo announced a new "Zelda" game in last year's E3 convention, to be made available for the Wii U console. Declared for release this year, fans of the franchise are still eagerly hoping that the much-awaited title will live up to the hype, since producers promised a whole new adventure with massive world and enhanced gameplay. 

Fans of the series have been known to criticize the unchanging and straight structure of the game, where game character Link travels through dungeons in an inflexible gameplay. Areas and dungeons only open up for exploration as the game progresses. 

The new game, though, is going to change all that — "The Legend of Zelda" for Wii U will adapt an open world design. Players can explore the world of Hyrule right from the start, and side missions will be available to explore before the main quests. This means that the gameplay will also deviate from the linear game modes of "Zelda" games in the past. 

Series producer Eiji Aonuma promises the game's world to be big enough that it will be one, seamless part of the gameplay. 

"Ever since we made the very first generation of Legend of Zelda games though, we've had as large a world as can be realized with the hardware, so you could say it was inevitable that we've now done the same with the new Wii U title," he told GameReactor magazine.  

The game's world will be vast enough that players might find themselves lost, either in space or in time.

According to Shigeru Miyamoto, creator and designer of the "Zelda" games, "There may even be times where you forget what your goal is because you're doing other things on the side." 

In a Youtube interview, Miyamoto adds, "There may be times where you go into one big, long dungeon or there may be times where you're headed to a dungeon, and you're doing other things along the side." 

The new game, still untitled as of press time, is scheduled to be released this year. No specific details have yet been announced.