Wind Waker HD started life as a tech demo for new Wii U Zelda

The idea for a Wind Waker remake came from an inadvertent discovery Nintendo made during early pre-production for the new, as yet unnamed Wii U Zelda game.
Zelda director Eiji Aonuma says the developers were experimenting with the visual styles of previous Zelda games in HD during planning for the new adventure when they realised how well Wind Waker's art style suited the leap to HD.
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideo...307454_460.jpg"When we were thinking about the new Zelda for Wii U, which is something we're actually working on, we needed to experiment with a variety of graphic styles and it was part of that process we took some existing Zelda games and made them HD just to see what would happen," Aonuma told Polygon.
"In doing so we realized that the Wind Waker graphic style, the art style, really represented well on the Wii U given the graphic capabilities of the new system," he went on.
"It really brought that world to life. On top of the graphic representation of this world, we were able to tighten those areas I was mentioning before, I really felt like it could breathe new life into this already existing space, this already existing experience."
But while the GameCube classic is receiving both visual and gameplay tweaks in its transition to Wii U, Aonuma said he's "very concerned" with not changing the game too much in fear of upsetting fans of the original.
He likened it to the backlash over the remastered versions of the original Star Wars trilogy. "I too was one of those Star Wars fans who saw the HD Star Wars and was a little bit disappointed because it wasn't my Star Wars. I understand those feelings and I understand the possibility of it happening. So it's something we're aware of," he said.
"I didn't want to change what made the original so much fun ... basically, the overall image of the game, including the story and the flow hasn't been affected, wont be impacted, but we certainly made adjustments so the rhythm doesn't drag."
Nintendo recently released new a new gameplay video that directly compared the HD remake to the GameCube original.
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD will release October 4 in the US, Europe and Australia.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...w-wii-u-zelda/