Six years later The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildits direct continuation, Tears of the Kingdom is finally in the hands of Switch owners. Obviously there’s no better time to ask about the future of the series, and we’ve already received our first official teaser: what should we call it? DeadK 2? BotW 3? zelda 16?
The Week in Games: Return to Hyrule
Monday 3:53 p.m
The tiniest clue about Nintendo’s next zelda comes from a series of new interviews released today with director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and producer Eiji Aonuma. “Oh – and it’s likely that Fujibayashi already has plans for the next one zelda game – although he hasn’t even told Aonuma about it,” tweeted Zachary Smalla contributor to The New York Times who recently spoke to both developers.
While it’s no surprise that Nintendo will continue to work on one of its most beloved franchises of all time, it’s unusual to see a nod to the series’ future so soon after Tears of the Kingdom
What’s next Legend of Zelda approximately?
Will Ganondorf evolve and maybe even be playable at some point? “From now on, it’s very likely that we’ll see more character development and changes in his personality as the series progresses,” Aonuma told The New York Times. “Ganondorf is an ingredient that we use to complement gameplay.”
What about Zelda? Fans have given up hope that the female protagonist will ever take on a more central and powerful role in a main installment. Could she finally be in the spotlight in a new game? “We feel that this gameplay idea is the top priority,” says Aonuma told Vanity Fair. “If it turns out that the particular gameplay we’re trying to achieve would have been best served by Zelda taking on that role, then maybe that’s a direction we could go.” With that in mind, of course we can’t say what Zelda’s next step will be as we’re not sure what the next game experience will be like.”
Some players also disagreed about the open-world pivot that came with it breath of the wild. Tears of the Kingdom doubles this round, expanding the explorable space even further and introducing loads of open-ended abilities that encourage experimentation, unlike previous games where complex dungeons had carefully tailored solutions.
“If you think about previous games that we worked on where there was one puzzle to solve and only one answer, that’s kind of the previous way of making games,” says Aonuma told game informer. “Now I’m glad we came to this method where we give people many options and there are many answers to a single problem, all of which can potentially be right. I’m glad we came to such a style of development.”
It certainly sounds like the team is content to keep expanding that playstyle rather than returning to the more linear, structured adventures of ocarina of time
“It’s something I think Mr. Miyamoto has said in the past, but when you have an idea and you’re trying to make it work and it doesn’t work, you don’t abandon that idea,” he says told game informer. “Instead, you just wait for the right opportunity. Those ideas – and I think that goes for our developers too – stay in their heads; They keep them with them as they continue their work. When these things accumulate and the right opportunity arises, we find the opportunity to implement these ideas.”
What ideas did you accumulate after completing the work? Tears of the Kingdom? Neither Aonuma nor Fujibayashi say it. “I have a few in mind, but I’m not sure I can share them here,” the latter said told igamesnews when asked. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise for people.” Aonuma didn’t move either. “Yes, no, that would give me trouble,” he said. “So please don’t.”