Alongside a massive pile of other game news, Nintendo announced today that a sequel to their 1991 classic The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is coming this holiday season to the Nintendo 3DS and that the fan-favorite Super Nintendo RPG Earthbound will make its way to the Wii U later this year.
No specific release date was given for the new Zelda title, but Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that A Link to the Past 2 will be a totally new game set in the same world as the first one, rather than a remake.
Numerous other first-party 3DS games were also announced: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is coming August 11; Square-Enix announced that it's bringing its Japanese RPG Bravely Default: Flying Fairies stateside next year; and Level-5 teased a new Professor Layton game called Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, which will hit Europe later this year and North America in 2014.
A new Yoshi's Island game was also shown, although no release details have been revealed, and Pikmin 3 finally got an official release date of August 4.
Wii U wasn't left out in the cold entirely. Game & Wario is coming to the struggling Nintendo console June 23, and will be available both at retail and on the Wii U eShop. Oh, and did we mention that now Virtual Console for Wii U is now a thing? It's officially coming next week.
Nintendo has begun periodically making new product announcements using a set of videos it calls "Nintendo Direct." Earlier this year the company used the format to announce new entries in the Pokémon series. Game|Life editor Chris Kohler has infamously called this strategy a firing of "vaporware cannons."
