She's not even female link. She's a completely different character with a voice appearing in a spin off title.

Then why make a female link? Link is a male, make a new female without the connection to link.

It seems they are doing this just to appease to people who want link to be female which is so weird, thats like wanting Snake to be a female.

She's not replacing Link. She's not literally a female Link. She just shares his visual style.

It's fun.

Linkle is literally a female link. There should be a Legend of Link that way people can play as Zelda instead of messing with the lore.

Why do you assume it's about SJWs? That seems to be an obsessive buzzword these days. Why wouldn't you just think they're trying to appeal to a larger audience of their own accord for more income from a growing segment of gamers rather than appeasement?

If you think this is alienating their base... well they already did that when they appealed to casual gamers with the Wii. It's funny, "Casuals" were the scapegoat a few years ago, now the red threat is the "SJWs".

@ Cognivertas

Well, nintendo got BASHED by Anita Sarkeesian after the wii released for starters,, Secondly, Most nintendo games since she showed up featured females being playable like Mario 3D World.. Yet the bashing continues but moved on to her disliking of LOZ not having a female lead.. Do your homework before you comment boy.. You obviously havent been keeping track of whats going on..

"Do your homework before you comment boy.. You obviously havent been keeping track of whats going on.."

Boy?.. cute, but immature. What was the point of that line? You've gotta know what is said about making assumptions. I'm well aware of what has been going on, but unlike people who obsess over the SJW boogey man, I give individuals like Sarkeesian a lot less credit than it seems you do for something that was going to be inevitable anyway as female buying power increases.

Correlation does not imply causation, and you seem to be riling yourself up by a loose connection you can't definitely prove but it fits the narrative you want as the victim who is having his boy's club infiltrated so you go with it.

You can't possibly expect me to believe that if a chorus of hardcore gamers couldn't change Nintendo's mind about going casual, but somehow the SJW crew convinced Nintendo to add some girls to your favorite games. Nintendo makes their business decisions regardless of what the internet commentators are feeling.

Additionally, playable female characters, and female versions of male characters existed before the SJW buzzword became an obsession. But let me guess, that was Sarkeesian's fault too. She and the SJW's probably invented Superwoman, Spidergirl, and Batwoman, .... wait did they know who Sarkeesian was at the time? Oh yea..

Yeah fighting with two crossbows is hardly the craziest thing a Warriors game has ever featured.

She does.
If you watch the trailers of her combat thus far, you might notice a moment after one of her special attacks where she does this little leap upwards with both crossbows pointed at the ground.
She's pulling the strings back with her freakin' feet.XD

Nintendo is right to not let concerns about possible lore complications get in the way of something that could be cool and fun.

Why should you go against built up lore for "fun"....the games are fun already.

I mean the last main game was Skyward Sword and that filled in a lot of the lore...why go against the point of the most recent game

The story's are not exactly cohesive and the games are never really set in the same universe apart from maybe the DS games. Story is never a buying point for zelda, its all about the gameplay and puzzles.

Amazing what ya can do with a samurai sword lol 🤣

Honestly, I don't know if we can even blame them for that take. Nintendo's Sakamoto was credited as the writer and from what we learned later with the Retro Studios interviews for the Prime series, Nintendo apparently never saw Samus as this stoic badass that most of the west imagined her as. Going as far as describing her as "motherly".