The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was supposed to buck one of the series' longest-running trends, but Nintendo eventually changed its mind because it "felt too wrong." However, with Zelda newly mute, narrative development got a little tricky.

Director Satoshi Terada and producer Eiji Aonuma revealed that Link was originally going to speak in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. They explained that even after having some written dialogue for Link, the idea was scrapped because it felt strange.

Nintendo tried making the historically quiet Link talk in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom but ultimately decided against it because it "felt really wrong." In an interview with Famitsu translated by Automaton,

Echoes of Wisdom' director Eiji Aonuma thought it "might be close to impossible" to bring back the 2D top-down perspective for game. The new action-adventure game moved back to the franchise's roots by utilising a more tradition top-down perspective,

However, because Zelda is the protagonist in Echoes of Wisdom, the idea was originally that she would be the only character with no dialogue, allowing Link to have lines for the first time. “Actually, Link was speaking at first,” Aonuma confirmed.

Woot! (owned by Amazon) has just dropped the price of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom for Nintendo Switch to only $44.99. That's already the best price we've seen for the latest Zelda game for the Switch,

At one point, Nintendo's famously silent lead Link was going to have lines of dialogue in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.