Featured Image Credit: Nintendo
Topics: Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, The Legend Of Zelda, Breath Of The Wild
Topics: Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, The Legend Of Zelda, Breath Of The Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launched in 2023 and was a controversial release by Nintendo as many argued it wasn’t a worthy successor to its predecessor.
When The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch in 2017 it seemingly altered the course of the franchise. Dropping Link in a true open-world felt revolutionary and it remains one of my favourite games on the Nintendo Switch family of consoles.
Now rumour has it that the next mainline Zelda game in development will be a successor to Tears of the Kingdom, but I’ve got a big problem with this. Like I said, Breath of the Wild is one of my Nintendo Switch favourites and I loved Tears of the Kingdom too, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bored of their aesthetic by now.
We’ve had four games set in this style if you count the Hyrule Warriors spin-offs, and I think it’s time for something new.
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One of the strongest elements of the Legend of Zelda series in my opinion is how varied the timeline can be, with each game taking on its own unique personality, both visually and within gameplay.
Take the GameCube titles for example. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will give you tonal whiplash side-by-side, and in the end that did them a lot of favours as they appealed to two different types of Zelda fans.
Since 2017 we’ve been stuck in the Breath of the Wild format, with a notable exception being The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which featured the same artstyle as The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening but made Zelda herself the playable protagonist.
While the rumours of the next game are exactly that, rumours, it does worry me that Nintendo is beginning to rely too heavily on this era of Zelda gameplay.
I miss the more linear adventure, progressing from dungeon to dungeon, finding new items and upgrades along the way and then facing off against Ganon for the umpteenth time at the end.
I don’t mind the franchise wanting to try something new but variety is the spice of life and like I said before very few video game franchises have done variety better than The Legend of Zelda.
Given the power of the Nintendo Switch 2 and both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom getting upgrade packs I fear there’s some credibility to the rumour of the next time being cut from the same cloth, but I really think it’s time for another change.