Ubisoft Almost Made a Zelda Game With Ganondorf as the Protagonist

Ubisoft Milan reportedly pitched a Zelda game to Nintendo that would have taken place in a new universe with a totally different protagonist, but the plan fell through, leading to one of the biggest what-ifs in gaming history.

Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson says the project was internally titled Goliath, so as to appropriately echo the size and scale of what Ubisoft Milan hoped to achieve with the game. It was an ambitious plan, and one that former Ubisoft developer Gian Marco Zanna described as a “new big bang in the video game universe.”

This description, while dramatic, is accurate; Ubisoft Milan’s Zelda game would have been drastically different from anything we’ve seen from the series thus far. Rather than following Link’s adventures in the wilds of Hyrule, it would have been a spin-off title in the broader Zelda universe featuring a brand-new, “never-before-seen character.”

However, during its early concept phase, Nintendo reportedly asked that this protagonist be changed to the franchise’s ultimate big bad: Ganondorf. This would have been the first time Ganondorf was the central, playable character in a Zelda game, and on paper, it sounds like a fantastic idea… but unfortunately, it didn’t end up coming to fruition.

Sources told Henderson that Ubisoft Milan was given a deadline of late 2023 to come up with a prototype for this Ganondorf game, but Nintendo reportedly rejected their proposal when the time came, for reasons that have not been made clear.

Ubisoft Milan was behind the highly-lauded Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, which IGN scored a sparkling nine out of 10. The studio reportedly began ideation for Goliath shortly after its release, clearly riding the high of its successful launch. It’s almost painful to imagine the game we could’ve had; perhaps it was a Ganon origin story?

Given that it was a spin-off and not a sequel or prequel, it’s unclear what, exactly, Ganon would be doing in this game. And what about Ubisoft Milan’s first intended protagonist for the project?

We have so many questions, and it’s likely that none of them will ever get answered. Ubisoft did not respond to Henderson’s requests for comment, but he did note that it had internally acknowledged a journalist requesting information about Goliath beforehand.

Among the oodles of canceled, top-secret games over the years, this one definitely makes us go down the ‘what if’ rabbit hole. It’s almost as tantalizing as the canceled Disney Smash Bros.-style game, which former concept artist Ken Christiansen shared artwork for on his personal online portfolio, showing characters like Captain Hook, the Sheriff of Nottingham, the Queen of Hearts, John Silver, and others facing off in 2v2 battles.