This Wild Zelda Theory Could Explain Why Queen Elizabeth's Death Stopped Nintendo's Broadcast

Nintendo Directs have long been a valuable source for info on upcoming games and other content, both from the popular video game company itself and from the third-party developers it works with. It's where we first learned about "Metroid Dread," and also where many often encounter disappointment when the games they hope to see don't make an appearance (we're looking at you, "Skies of Arcadia"). But the September 2022 Direct ran into an even more unusual problem.

After the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, Nintendo UK announced that it would not be broadcasting the September Direct in the United Kingdom "as a mark of respect during this period of national mourning." It's not something that prevented UK-based viewers from catching up on the announcements — they were free to tune in to the livestream for other countries — but with the risk of confusion as the dates and other release information mentioned in alternative Direct broadcasts might not be accurate for the UK specifically.

Now that the Direct is over — and the UK version subsequently uploaded for those who didn't watch a different stream – some have been speculating that it may not have been pulled out of a general sense of respect, but rather for a much more specific (and oddly timed) reason.

While there's nothing about "The Legend of Zelda" that would be considered overtly insensitive to the UK, the upcoming sequel to the incredibly popular "Breath of the Wild" did reveal something that could be considered accidentally offensive to some. As the idiom goes, "it's all in the name."

Along with a few seconds of gameplay footage and a projected release date for the hotly anticipated Switch game, a full title drop was also revealed — up to this point it was largely referred to as "Breath of the Wild 2." And it turns out, the official name is going to be "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom."

There's no way Nintendo could have known when the title was chosen — likely months prior to the announcement, if not longer — but, as some on Twitter have pointed out, it's a heck of a coincidence. While foregoing a video game presentation stream as a more general sign of respect for people from the UK who may be in mourning isn't necessarily a disproportionate response from a large corporation, it also wouldn't be a surprise if the new "Zelda" was the contributing factor. Or, at the very least, it makes for an interesting theory for the conspiracists among us.