In a surprising turn of events, Nintendo announced today that they would be releasing a high definition version of The Wind Waker (which we just listed yesterday as our #9 game of all-time) and that it would be released on the Wii U later this year.
The news was part of today’s Nintendo Direct conference, where producer Eiji Aonuma also provided details about the new Zelda title being developed for Nintendo’s newest console. Among the brief bits of information were two interesting ideas that he said may challenge traditional Zelda notions: 1) that you have to do dungeons in a certain order, and 2) that you have to play by yourself.
Multiplayer has been sparse in Zelda, with the exception of the Four Swords games and the Tingle Tuner in Wind Waker. And playing through Zelda on a nonlinear approach certainly could be interesting.
While we wait for what will probably be a long development time for the new title, Wind Waker HD is expected to be released sometime this fall, and the graphical update has taken a game that already looked fantastic and made it even better. Check out a couple more screenshots of Windfall Island below.
Objection Network 
I for one am really excited for this. I feel that Wind Waker’s visuals aged fairly well, but this looks absolutely stunning.
I’m with you. 2013 was looking a little bit bleak in terms of games I was interested in, but in the last week and a half, that has changed considerably.
Definitely. I’m likely going to get a Wii U now!
It’s so beautiful! I want it now. Even if the Wii-U isn’t backwards compatible with the other Gamecube games, at least we’ll get to play Wind Waker in HD. (Though the fact that it isn’t backwards compatible is bothersome).