GDC: Zelda director confirms Wind Waker 2 for E3

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma has confirmed that a sequel to Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker will be taking a bow in public at the E3 trade show this May.

The new GameCube Zelda title is expected to take centre stage at Nintendo's pre-E3 conference, along with a sequel to the hugely successful Metroid Prime and, of course, the unveiling of the company's Nintendo DS handheld.

Aonuma-san, who worked as director on Wind Waker, also confirmed that the company is working on a Zelda title for the DS, which may also be discussed at the E3 conference.

The Wind Waker sequel is expected to continue to use the unique cel shaded graphics seen in the first GameCube outing for the Zelda series, which Aonuma described as a "new expressive quality" for the games.

It's widely expected that Wind Waker 2 will arrive before the end of 2004, although even if it does, it may still be 2005 before it appears on European shelves, thanks to Nintendo's notoriously slow localisation of products for PAL territories.