Community:April Fools' Pranks

In the April 2005 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, EGM decided to pull an April Fools Day joke. They ran a small article stating that you get a new version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker when you reserved a copy of Twilight Princess. This new version was supposed to be totally remade with the same graphics engine as the Twilight Princess.

This was, of course, a fake article. The picture was photoshopped. You can tell because the screenshot was missing a few crucial details.

The next issue included a few letters from angry readers along with a confused reader the following month. Online, you could find lots of stories about people who actually believed. Congratulations, EGM! You got us!

Well, not really. Some people posted this on the Zelda Universe forums. Many of the new members fell for it, and many didn't. However, one link posted in the chat, and everybody there (Namely Sear, Capn, Jason, and a few others I can't remember) immediately knew it was false due to the disproportioned sizes of objects and characters in the picture, as well as "realistic Link's" tiny feet that looked exactly like "cel-shaded Link's" feet. The revelation was quickly posted on the Zelda Universe home page thereafter.

IGN April Fools
On April 1, 2008, IGN released a fake video trailer that they claimed to be for an upcoming The Legend of Zelda movie. The video was very well put together and had very good quality, which led many Zelda fans to believe that a movie actually was being made. On April 2, 2008, IGN announced that the trailer was part of an elaborate April Fools Day prank. This announcement upset many Zelda fans who had fallen for the prank.