What we want to see from the next big Zelda game on Nintendo Switch 2
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were huge landmarks for the franchise on Nintendo Switch, and they were also the beginning of a new philosophy. In previous Zelda titles, the intended routes through the games were fairly linear (speedrun tricks and glitches aside). Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword all clearly intended you to do their dungeons in a planned order, and by the time Skyward Sword released, some fans began to want less linearity in their Zelda games and more freedom. Indeed, when Breath of the Wild released in 2017 for Wii U and Nintendo Switch, that request was answered – from that point on, the entire Zelda series has shifted to a new idea: let the player do whatever they want, in any order they want. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both have five main “dungeons” (if you count Divine Beasts as dungeons), and for the most part you can tackle them in any order. In fact, you don’t even have to do them – you can skip right ahead to the final boss if you think you’re up for the challenge.
The point here is, now the pendulum has shifted the other way. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were universally acclaimed and sold excellently, but some fans now think that the emphasis on freedom and lack of direction makes the games feel too empty and pointless. This begs an interesting question: with that in mind, what could we see out of the next big Zelda title on Nintendo Switch 2 in a few years? Will the developers listen to the admittedly vocal minority of complaints, or will they double down on their current philosophy and make the next big title free and open-roaming, too? It’s impossible to know for sure, but today we’re talking about freedom versus linearity and some things we’d like to see out of the next big Zelda game.
There’s no right answer to whether freedom or linearity is better for a Zelda game. On one hand, freedom gives a game a lot of versatility – you can beat Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom any way you want. You can do all the dungeons, or none of them. You can focus on side quests (of which there are many, many hours), or you can skip everything. On the other hand, more linear Zelda games are often played in almost exactly the same way. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom seem to have more longevity than the previous few titles in the series because of their freedom, but that’s not to say that an open world doesn’t have flaws. The biggest criticism for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is their storylines, which ironically are extremely structured and predictable. With Tears of the Kingdom, you’re intended to travel around the world to set points to unlock memories of the past, but it’s possible to watch them out of order and spoil yourself on things that happen later. To add to this, most of the major events in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom take place thousands of years in the past – you don’t really take an active role in any of them. That’s absolutely something we’d like to see fixed in the next big Zelda game, though it’s difficult to make that happen if you’re able to complete the game’s dungeons and content in any order you want.
Another (perhaps unreasonable) request we have: include an alternate dimension again. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both take place solely in Hyrule, and though the Depths are a neat addition conceptually, we’re a little tired of exploring Hyrule over and over again. We’re sure that the next big Zelda game will not reuse the map from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – which means the region will be redesigned – but bringing back an alternate dimension in the same category as the Dark World or Lorule could really help freshen things up. We haven’t seen a different world in a Zelda game since Lorule in A Link Between Worlds in 2013, so it might be a good time to bring back that trend. An all-new setting would be great too, but if we had to guess we’d say Nintendo will probably keep Hyrule as the main dimension in Zelda games for brand recognition.
Assuming Nintendo does keep Hyrule, there are still things they could do to help it feel fresh and new. Sky islands in Tears of the Kingdom were a good start, but many of them wound up feeling too similar to one another. More unique islands (and perhaps an easier way to access some of the easier ones) would be a good way to continue that philosophy. Tears of the Kingdom also came closer with its dungeon design – but scattering more mini-dungeons throughout Hyrule could be another good way to help it feel less empty in the next game. The giant labyrinths come close to this concept, but we’d like to see it expanded on a little more in the next game. Many of the popular Zelda games, like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, have at least eight different dungeons and plenty of puzzles in between. Breath of the Wild only has four and Tears of the Kingdom only has five, so that’s a little bit less than previous games in the series. Many fans criticize these two games for their lack of dungeons, and making them a bit more of a focus in the next Zelda game would almost certainly go over well with hardcore fans of the series.
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also removed some of the series’ more iconic items. The Hookshot is a great example – just about anyone could agree that traveling around the Hyrule seen in Tears of the Kingdom with a Hookshot sounds like fun. And there’s a lot of potential for plenty of other returning items, too – the Boomerang, the Gust Jar, the Pegasus Boots, Deku Nuts, and Lens of Truth could all work well in the modern Zelda formula. They’d also serve as weapons that never break, which is another common criticism of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – some players don’t like that weapons break at all, while others think they break too quickly.
For some reason, Nintendo Switch era first-party games love item durability. Tools in Animal Crossing: New Horizons break, weapons and shields in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom break, and even battle items break in Paper Mario: The Origami King. In Zelda’s case, this technically encourages the player to explore more to find additional weapons – but even if weapons didn’t break, you would still want to explore due to all the Shrines, Koroks, and such spread around the world. Weapon durability is a bit more frustrating in Tears of the Kingdom, especially if you fuse a weapon with a hard-to-find material like a dragon part. The weapon will break before too long, and to get a weapon that powerful again you’ll either have to use an item cloning glitch or go find the item in question manually. A more linear Zelda game with dungeon-exclusive items would have to forgo some degree of weapon durability, but we don’t think Nintendo will go the linear route with the next Zelda.
Nintendo’s new Zelda philosophy isn’t just limited to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – you can see it in Echoes of Wisdom, too. Despite being a much smaller-scale game, it has a great degree of freedom thanks to its unlimited use of Echoes (not to mention all the different kinds you can get). That brings us to one last thing we’d like to see in future Zelda games: a better user interface. Mainly, a better UI in menus that show a lot of options. In Tears of the Kingdom, the Fuse menu tied to shooting arrows takes a long time to scroll through. Likewise, picking an Echo in Echoes of Wisdom a lot of time spend in the menus. This is a fairly easy fix – you can add in a tool ring like Animal Crossing: New Horizons where you can set up to eight different Fusion arrows or Echoes, respectively. If the one you want to use isn’t on the tool ring, you can press a button to sort them by category or letter to easily add them to the ring. This prevents you from having to scroll for ages just to find the item you want to use.
It’s clear that the next big Zelda game won’t be launching in the immediate future. The Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are likely meant as an in-between until that day comes. Still, a new Zelda game with a bigger focus on dungeons, a fresh new world to explore, and a stronger storyline would be a step in the right direction for the series.
What do you want to see out of the next Zelda game? Do you agree with our suggestions, or is there something we missed? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.
