When you play the game of cross-media adaptation you win or you die, there is no middle ground. And, unfortunately, when it comes to turning video games into television or movies, spectacular, bloody death tends to be the grim result.

Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Netflix has a live-action television series in early development based on the popular Legend of Zelda series of fantasy adventures. The news has, of course, piqued the interest – and unguarded opinions – of gamers everywhere.

There are few details presently, beyond the fact that, in common with the role-playing games themselves, the story will involve a hero named Link who must traverse the world of Hyrule in order to rescue a princess named Zelda. The pitch from Netflix is apparently, a family-friendly take on Game of Thrones – which makes sense brieflyuntil you think about it and realise that no one wants to see a Blue Peter version of the Red Wedding.

You sort of understand the pitch from a business perspective. Since the series began on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986, it has sold over 60m copies worldwide, with each new generation of Nintendo hardware bringing a critically acclaimed new approach to the format. The game has a gentle take on perennially popular Tolkien-esque fantasy conventions, and the world of Hyrule is densely populated with bizarre and interesting characters. The business development types at Netflix must be looking at Game of Thrones, then across at the success of the Hobbit movies, and thinking they’re on to a sure thing here.

At this stage, I just need to show you something. I’ll come back to it later.

Are you OK? Do you need a glass of water? I’ll just give you some time.

Right, OK, so here are some reasons why it may not – despite all evidence to the contrary – be a good idea. First, of course, is that the greatest Legend of Zelda games are essentially open-world; although they have over-arching narratives, players are free to explore Hyrule, engage in side-quests, and work out for themselves how the worlds function. This interactive freedom is intrinsic to the entire experience. The beauty and majesty of, say, Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, isn’t the central plotline, it’s the opportunity to investigate the components of the universe, to be a part of an eccentric but functioning culture. Of course, all games offer interactivity, but in the Zelda titles teasing out the threads of the main quests by discovering secrets, mini-tasks and seemingly peripheral activities, is absolutely central to the appeal.

Furthermore, there is no timeline to the Zelda series – at least not one that any fans can agree on. The Zelda titles flit around in the imaginative space of Hyrule, with Link sometimes portrayed as a fully-fledged warrior and other times as a complete novice. Ocarina of Time, as its name suggests, goes backward and forward, creating rifts in the continuum that Zelda scholars cannot agree on. Wind Waker, its immediate successor, takes place hundreds of years later, while Skyward Sword, released later still, is set before the rest of the titles – and yet exhibits the most advanced technologies (due to the existence of an ancient civilisation that mastered robotics – but let’s not go there).

On top of this, you have the fact that each new Zelda title has its own aesthetic. Wind Waker uses cell-shaded visuals to provide a cartoon look, while Twilight Princess has a more naturalistic look, befitting its focus on combat and bravery. Any live-action take would probably have to decide on a single look and stick to it, which would work against the sense of endless reinvention that has made the series so successful as a video game franchise.

And live-action? Live-action? Do I have to show you that trailer again? I will do it. I absolutely will.

Super Mario Bros, the 1993 live-action movie version of the seminal platform game, was a horrendous nuclear apocalypse of a Nintendo translation. It stands as a nightmarish warning to society for the rest of time that Nintendo’s approach to video games as a visual craft, is not something that can be easily replicated by actual actors. Not even by the wonderful Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper. Who would play Link? What would they look like? Let’s face it, Link dresses like the principal boy in your local pantomime production of Peter Pan – which is fine in animated video game form. But on TV?

And actually, Zelda has already failed as an animated series. Transmitted in 1989 with a US writing and production team, it ran for 13 obnoxious episodes and was never recommissioned. Link’s constant insufferable refrain of “Excuuuuuuuuse me, Princess” has become a video game meme.

Of course, Netflix probably won’t fall into the same traps as Super Mario Bros (which actually survived much longer as an animated series) or the Zelda cartoon. Netflix has a pretty good hit rate with shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Perhaps if the company can take on writers with a similar level of daring, flair and wit, something positive could happen. Maybe.

But then absolutely maybe not. Because the biggest problem, as we’ve already hinted, is that Link – the central component of the Zelda universe – isn’t really a character. Link is you, the player. Link is a surrogate, an avatar. He is mute in the games, not because of some narrative reason, but because he is a representative in Hyrule of the player’s imagination and interaction. Even his name suggests that he is there as a parser between player and game.

One day, there will no doubt be a really good movie or television adaptation of a video game – better even than Tomb Raider (well, it had its fans until they made the second one) or Mortal Kombat (ditto), and certainly better than Silent Hill, House of the Dead, Doom, Need for Speed or Street Fighter. And don’t get me started on Resident Evil.

But Zelda? Zelda? That is a game series so utterly interconnected with player experience and agency, so dreamlike and aloof in its sense of space and time, so open and circular and tricksy. Zelda is the Catch 22 of games; when you think you have it, there is another left turn, another flight of ingenious fancy and your understanding crumbles; logic is just another game to designer Shigeru Miyamoto as it is to writer Joseph Heller.

But that is the pleasure and the wonder of it. Legend of Zelda, like the imagination required by players to understand and appreciate its brilliance, is non-linear and elusive. We only ever orbit Hyrule; we never really touch down.

