4 Things We Hope to See in the Next Zelda Game

We’re only just getting over what an astonishingly good game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild turned out to be, especially with the recent release of the Champions Ballad DLC whisking us back to Hyrule for another adventure. But there’s a new reason to be excited about Zelda, because series producer Eiji Aonuma recently mentioned development has already begun on a new entry in the series.

Notably, in an interview last year, Aonuma spoke of development techniques to reduce the four to six-year cyclical development of Zelda games gone by. That being said, we’re not expecting anything tangible to be shown for quite some time to come. Even so, the anticipation of another massive open-world Zelda game has us mulling over our most-wanted list when it comes to new features, changes, and things we want to see more of in the next Hyrule epic.

A Deeper Narrative

Breath of the Wild puts its superb physics-based gameplay right at the forefront of its design, and we absolutely love it for that. Hyrule is a magical fantasy land with exciting discoveries around each corner, but it’s also just one big playground to go and have fun in. After as little as a single hour of gameplay, Breath of the Wild has shown you everything you need to know about the rules of its world and simply invites you to entertain yourself in any way you see fit. No waypoints, no hand holding, no set path to follow. It’s part of what makes it such a special experience.

That all being said, though, while Breath of the Wild does well to completely overhaul the traditional Zelda experience, we still missed the robust narratives that were such a core part of previous Zelda games. The meat of Breath of the Wild’s story is presented as flashbacks from before Link’s reawakening, while the stories behind each Divine Beast feel somewhat isolated from one another. There are still interesting plot points to enjoy, but it never quite feels like there’s one cohesive story-arc coming together and reaching an exciting climax. In a sense, each main quest – the Divine Beasts – feel more like side-quests, and the story-proper – the story of Zelda’s entrapment in Hyrule Castle and Ganon’s control of the machines – isn’t something we ever engage with directly, at least not until the very end of the game. We’re hoping for a more substantial story in the next game. And while we’re on the subject of main and side-quests, side-quests are certainly another area of open-world Zelda that needs attention. There simply wasn’t enough to the side-quests in Breath of the Wild, from the lack of interesting stories to the underwhelming payoff for actually completing them.

Speaking of which, another issue is that there aren’t nearly as many colorful and memorable characters as we’d have liked. Zelda has always been about endearing NPCs and charming dialogue, and again, they do exist in Breath of the Wild but only in small doses. Even Ganon is a faceless antagonist. A more conventional villain at the center of whatever catastrophe has blighted Hyrule in the next game would be a boon.

Perhaps Aonuma and his team should look to Majora’s Mask for inspiration? The notion of a tonally different, more story-driven Zelda experience that still uses all the assets and open-world design choices sounds fantastic. Just as Majora’s Mask did with Ocarina of Time, this latest title could represent a complete shift in the focus of mechanics and narrative impetus, presented within the same game engine. It also sounds like the perfect time to finally introduce a new playable character. You know… like, a certain princess.

Large, Populated Urban Areas

Although Breath of the Wild’s open-world rendition of Hyrule wasn’t anywhere near as detailed as other fantasy settings, such as Skrim’s Tamriel or Assassin’s Creed Origins’ Ancient Egypt, it had an x-factor that made it infinitely more compelling. Part of the magic was actually the void of clutter. It truly felt like a wilderness, and Link an isolated explorer discovering secret corners of its world. Each expanse of desolate badlands or grass plains made stumbling across a dense woodland or Fairy’s Grotto an event to be appreciated. Similarly, each small settlement one discovered was like reaching a travelers sanctuary, safe from the rigors of surviving the outback.

This, of course, all played into Breath of the Wild’s emphasis on… the wild. But as brilliant a masterstroke as these design choices were, we would still have loved to have seen a more populated township or two thrown into the mix. Hatano and Kakariko villages make sense as being small settlements in the context of their role within the narrative, but they still feel a little devoid of hustle and bustle for our liking. Gerudo Town is about as close as the game gets to a large-scale town, but it’s still tiny in comparison to the municipalities we’re used to seeing in other open-world games.

For the next Zelda title, it would be fantastic to have a central city to explore as well as rural and wilderness areas. Something akin to Beauclair from The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, perhaps: a bustling medieval renaissance-inspired city with a spiraling fantasy castle at its crescendo. Quite apart from its visual spectacle, completing quests in an urban environment just isn’t something we’ve ever seen in a Zelda game before, and it would make a wonderful change of pace. We wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to Nintendo abandoning medieval themes, either. A more steampunk-aesthetic to this city could be an interesting change from the series’ standard conventions.

The Return of Dungeons

Shrines were absolutely a standout feature of Breath of the Wild. Each was a bite-sized puzzle that made excellent use of the Runes within Link’s Sheikah Slate, encouraging players to experiment with all manner of physics-based solutions. With over 120 in the game, Breath of the Wild felt as though it was honoring the puzzle-roots of traditional Zelda gameplay. Dungeons, though, took a backseat, with only four major dungeon-like sections in the game in the form of the Divine Beasts. Each of these mechanical titans certainly made for an interesting spin on the conventional dungeons we’ve seen in games gone-by, as players entered their interior and contorted their bodies to gain access to new paths, ultimately in a mission to face-off with one of Ganon’s many forms.

Yet, as inventive as Divine Beasts are, we can’t pretend as though we didn’t miss the typical dungeon experiences that have been at the core of previous Zelda games. For the next Zelda game, we’re looking forward to whatever unique spin Aonuma and his team put on dungeon gameplay, but equally, crossing our fingers that they’re as substantial, haunting, and compelling as the best dungeons from games like Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker.

Crafting and RPG mechanics

Zelda’s status as part of the RPG genre has been in question since its earliest 3D iterations. Although acquiring life-hearts through completing dungeons and acquiring special weapons to defeat various boss encounters loosely echo RPG progression-mechanics, Zelda has always been much more of an action-adventure title than a role-playing experience. Breath of the Wild, however, with its stamina wheel, dozens of hearts, survival mechanics requiring the use of different apparel, and the ability to cook food for various buffs certainly brought the series the closest it’s ever been to a true RPG.

It is, perhaps, a sign of the times. We’ve seen dozens of popular IPs across different genres incorporate RPG mechanics. Take Assassin’s Creed Origins, for example. As they did for that franchise, there’s no doubt that incorporating elements of RPG systems added a layer of depth to the Zelda experience that wasn’t there before. And it’s a depth that feels particularly well suited to the open-world design.

While we wouldn’t necessarily want to see progression-via-combat and traditional RPG leveling in a new Zelda game, other aspects such as a more robust crafting system would be great. Perhaps, even a choice in the way Link’s abilities or skills play out in some way? At the very least, if we’re going to have a deeper narrative, some degree of branching dialogue could also introduce a welcome change of structure that we haven’t seen in any previous Zelda title.