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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nintendo has a Legend of Zelda smartphone title in development, and would likely release it after the upcoming Animal Crossing smartphone title.
“The people familiar with the matter said the Animal Crossing smartphone app is likely to be released in the latter half of 2017, and The Legend of Zelda would follow that, although they cautioned that the timing and order of the releases could be changed,” the report states. “Nintendo is developing the games with Tokyo-based DeNA Co.”
Nintendo has already brought its biggest star to smartphones with Super Mario Run, a $10 premium game that was released in 2016 on iOS devices and came to Android devices this year. Pokémon Go also became a huge hit for Nintendo and the Pokémon Company on mobile devices.
It’s possible that a version of Zelda for smartphones would be released as a free-to-play game after Fire Emblem Heroes brought in more profit than Super Mario Run despite a much smaller number of downloads.
The Legend of Zelda franchise continues to be one of Nintendo’s most popular, with Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch actually selling in greater numbers than the hardware itself.
