The next Legend of Zelda needs to get rid of this one feature

It’s probably going to be a while until we hear about the next Legend of Zelda game, considering it still feels like Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom are still quite fresh in our memories.

With the Nintendo Switch 2 coming out later this week, fans are excited at the possibility of what the next Zelda adventure could hold. Given the hardware upgrades the Switch 2 has, I’m sure it’ll be a massive technical leap in the same way Breath of the Wild was.

But while I’m positive Nintendo is already conceptualising a “Breath of the Wild 3” or whatever, there’s already something I’m dreading on returning: shrines.

Shrines were a big feature of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Small, isolated puzzle chambers which rewarded you with Spirit Orbs for finishing them. Complete four, collect four, and get increased health or an extra chunk of stamina in return.

I’m not sure if I’m in the minority here or not, but for the next mainline Zelda game, I’d simply love it if these shrines were gone.

My main issue with the shrines in these games is they’re just kind of there. Sure, there’s some convoluted reason in Zelda lore for why there are so many of them dotted around Hyrule, but for gameplay purposes you’re asked to just travel around the map finding as many as possible just so you can upgrade your stats.

I understand that this was done to emphasise the open-worldedness of these games. Here’s a game where you can go anywhere, climb anything, and it rewards you for creative traversal. It’s obvious that littering the overworld with 100+ shrines is the best way to encourage players to engage with its systems.

And for what it’s worth, some of the puzzles in these shrines can be quite fun to solve. Especially the ones that take advantage of motion controls or require multiple powers to finish. But on the other hand, it feels like these shrines exist at the cost of well-designed dungeons.

Instead of an open-world Zelda with a dozen incredibly-designed dungeons, we got over a hundred shrines and only four small dungeons. This wouldn’t be an issue if the dungeons in these games were as interesting as in previous entries, but they’re not. The Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild and the Temples in Tears of the Kingdom are good enough experiences but they don’t really feel on par with the dungeons from past games.

When I think about dungeons I love in classic Zelda games, my mind goes to Majora’s Mask’s Stone Tower, or Twilight Princess’ City in the Sky. Or even Thieves’ Town from A Link to the Past and Inside the Deku Tree in Ocarina of Time.

These are dungeons which have a distinct theme, unique concepts that correspond to that theme, and cleverly understand the space they’re in.

Meanwhile, the dungeons in both Breath or Tears never feel like they’re on the same level. They’re all a variation of the same concept, in which you need to do some light puzzle solving, flip some switches, then fight a boss.

Where are the keys? The minibosses? The unique dungeon items? I don't want to sound too negative here, because I love these new Zelda games for all the other things they do so well. But I can’t reconcile the fact that Breath and Tears made dungeons boring, and that adding shrines wasn't really worth losing what made past games in the series so great.

For the next open world Zelda game, I hope Nintendo puts a bit more thought into the dungeons. And if they have to reduce the number of shrines—or even remove them entirely to achieve this, we’d probably get a much more interesting game.