The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Announced by Nintendo for the DS

In the gaming industry, a lot of franchises have gained the status of iconic ones, among them being Nintendo's very successful The Legend of Zelda series, which amazed gamers ever since its first appearance on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The brainchild of Nintendo's head designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, it fascinated people with the adventures of Link as he traveled around the mystycal land of Hyrule in order to save Princess Zelda. As the Game Developers Conference is currently underway in San Francisco, the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, took the chance to announce a brand new game in the series, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

The title will appear exclusively on the DS handheld, and will be very similar to the previous DS-only iteration, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, but Link will now have to wonder around the world in a steam-powered locomotive, hence the title.

With the opportunity to control both the main character and Phantom, players will have to navigate and explore various dungeons and solve puzzles using almost the same intuitive interface as the one featured in the Phantom Hourglass. The gameplay will be shown on the bottom screen, while maps of the dungeon or portions of the cinematics will be shown on the top one.

Considering the very solid lineup of games that will be appearing on the DS in 2009, it seems that Nintendo will certainly keep the high sales trend alive up until the end of the year, when this title is announced to hit store shelves.

As a bonus, here is the first trailer of the game, which was shown by Iwata at the GDC, courtesy of GameTrailers. More details will certainly appear over time, but until then, we can enjoy watching this video.