We recently got an extended look at Hyrule Warriors via a fan event during PAX Prime 2014 and while many of the diehard gamers who attended were dressed to the nines in tunics and princess armor, it seems the franchise's creative lead is motivated to outdo the action game from Koei Tecmo.
Speaking with NintendoLife Eiji Aonuma and Yosuke Hayashi of Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, respectively, the duo related that Hyrule Warriors was not a project either company could complete alone. "When Mr. Hayashi approached me for this collaboration, he said, 'Let's rethink our preconceived ideas of what we can do with a Zelda game," Aonuma related.
"We wanted a collaboration that would allow us to do the things that Koei Tecmo does really well," Aonuma explained further. "We felt that this collaboration fit that mould, so we didn't really consider other franchises at the time."
In fact, Aonuma even said that Hyrule Warriors has helped to excited development of the next mainline entry in The Legend of Zelda, announced for Wii U.
"Looking at the comments on Miiverse regarding Hyrule Warriors, it's been great to see a lot of positive feedback. But one of the things that leaves me with rather complicated feelings is that people are saying, "Oh wow, I really love the cutscenes in this game! This is better than the stuff Nintendo does!" Of course, that leaves me a little conflicted, and gives me a mission now to make sure that the new Zelda game that I'm working on can hold its own in that aspect against Hyrule Warriors!"
