six years later The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildits direct sequel, tears of the kingdom is finally in the hands of Switch owners. So obviously there’s no better time to start asking questions about the future of the show, and we’ve already had our first official teaser, what should we call it? TotK 2? BotW 3? Zelda 16?
Week in Games: Return to Hyrule
Monday 3:53 p.m.
The slightest hint of Nintendo’s next Zelda comes from a series of new interviews released today with director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and producer Eiji Aonuma. “Oh – and it seems likely that Fujibayashi already has plans for the next Zelda game, although he hasn’t even told Aonuma about it yet,” tweeted Zachary SmallContributor to The New York Times who recently spoke to the two developers.
While it’s no surprise that Nintendo is continuing to work on one of its most popular franchises, it’s unusual to see a nod to the series’ future so soon on the heels of tears of the kingdomhas arrived. The next game will no doubt be coming to Nintendo’s next console, possibly a Switch Pro or Switch 2.currently scheduled to arrive no earlier than April 2024. And what could we expect from the next game? Although not even Aonuma knows, apparently there were some interesting quotes from the duo’s recent press tour to get fans speculating.
What will be next The Legend of Zelda wear on?
Will Ganondorf continue to evolve, or even become playable at some point? “It’s very possible that from now on, we could see the development of the character and the changes in his personality as the series continues”, Aonuma said The New York Times. “Ganondorf is an ingredient that we use to complete the gameplay.”
And Zelda? Fans have given up hope that the female protagonist will ever take on a more central and powerful role in a main entry. Could she finally star in a new game? “We think the highest priority is this gameplay idea,” Aonuma said vanity lounge. “If it turns out that the particular gameplay we’re trying to achieve would be better served by letting Zelda play that role, then it’s possible that’s a direction we can take. That said, of course, because we don’t don’t know what the next gaming experience will be, we can’t say what the next step for Zelda will be.
Some players have also been divided over the open-world pivot that happened with breath of the wild. tears of the kingdom doubles this round, making the explorable space even bigger and introducing tons of open abilities that incentivize experimentation, unlike previous games where complex dungeons had carefully calibrated solutions.
“When you think about the past games that we worked on, where there was a puzzle to solve and only one answer, it’s kind of the past way of developing games”, Aonuma said game informant. “Now I’m glad we got to this method where we give people a lot of options, and there are many answers to a single problem, and all of them can potentially be correct. I’m glad we got to this type of development style.
It certainly looks like the team would be content to keep building from this style of play rather than reverting to the more linear and structured adventures of Ocarina of time Or skyward sword. Or maybe not. One of Aonuma’s most interesting comments was about how design ideas dropped in one game can always come back in another.
“It’s something I think Mr. Miyamoto has said in the past, but when you have an idea and you try to make it work, and it doesn’t work, you don’t give up on that idea,” did he declare. said game informant. “Instead, just wait for the right opportunity to present itself. Those ideas – and I think that’s true for our developers – stay in their heads; they keep them with them as they continue their work. things pile up and the right opportunity arises, we find the opportunity to implement those ideas.
So what ideas have accumulated after completing the work on tears of the kingdom? Neither Aonuma nor Fujibayashi say so. “I have a few in mind, but I’m not sure I can share them here,” the latter said Polygon when asked. “I wouldn’t want to spoil people’s surprise.” Aonuma didn’t move either. “Yeah, no, that would get me in trouble,” he said. “So please don’t.”
