Next year, Nintendo will mark another major anniversary milestone.
The Legend of Zelda franchise is due to celebrate its 40th anniversary in February of 2026.
Yes, it’s almost been 40 years since The Legend of Zelda landed on the Famicom Disk System all the way back in 1986.
It’s surely an occasion that Nintendo will observe with a slew of new announcements, if we’re to go off what we recently saw happen with Mario anyway.
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As you may be aware, the Mario franchise turned 40 just a few weeks ago, resulting in a bumper crop of announcements during the latest Nintendo Direct.
A whole segment of the Direct was dedicated to Mario’s anniversary.
Nintendo confirmed a new light display and themed tickets at the Nintendo Museum in Japan, and announced that Mario will be in attendance at the Kyoto Marathon 2026 which Nintendo is sponsoring.
A teaser trailer was dropped for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, plus we got confirmation that Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 are set to land on Switch and Switch 2 consoles in a new bundle, with enhancements for the Switch 2 version.
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Two amiibo will land alongside that release as will a physical version of the storybook featured within the games.
Mario Tennis Fever was confirmed, a new sports game that’ll arrive in February 2026, while Super Mario Bros. Wonder will be getting a Switch 2 Edition with a multiplayer expansion called ‘Meetup in Bellabel Park’.
That’s still not all as you’ll be able to purchase the talking flowers from the game as a real life merch item, plus Yoshi is getting a new game in the form of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book.
That’s a grand total of 10 announcements which we received in around 20 minutes.
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As such, many are wondering what kind of alternatives we might get for the Zelda franchise’s 40th anniversary which’ll surely be celebrated in a similar style.
“Movie trailer time?” remarked Twitter/X user rayalmeda.
It might be too early, but we could get some more casting news.
“Honestly just announced a Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD port and maybe a Ocarina 3D and Majora 3D port and it will be a good anniversary,” added CableFF7.
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“Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake?” said Melwheezy.
I don’t think we’ll see quite as many announcements as for Mario, but I do hope it’ll be a stonky occasion.
My personal predictions are another museum collaboration, new amiibo, classic titles added to NSO, film casting news, and perhaps one full-scale remake.
But I suppose we’ll have to wait for February to see what Nintendo has in store.
Topics: The Legend Of Zelda, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2